Lecturer - Psychedelics Education - Berkeley School of Education

We are seeking outstanding part-time lecturers who can teach or co-teach EDUC 125: Psychedelics Education and the Persistent Taboo on Alternative Ways of Knowing. This introductory course uses psychedelics as a three-part case study to examine: How educational institutions and broader society have adjudicated among competing ways of knowing (i.

e., epistemologies, or worldviews). How this process of adjudication has limited psychedelics education and risk reduction efforts that stand to equip students with critical knowledge and scientifically-based tools. How comprehensive knowledge and appropriate campus-based and other tools might support the navigation of complex, real-world contexts safely, rather than assuming pure avoidance of psychedelic substances.

Knowledge about and knowledge from psychedelics resides at the intersection of many epistemic traditions and communities of practice, each with their own set of debates, shared agreements, and norms for producing knowledge: neuroscientists, clinical researchers, Indigenous and spiritual collectives, policymakers, and educators.

All members of educational institutions - students, families, instructors, curriculum designers, and educational decision-makers - have to decide which communal knowledge traditions they will embrace and which they will reject and, in the ideal cases, reflect on why some traditions count more than others. This course ultimately identifies the unique epistemic, legal, ideological, and practical tensions and alignments that shape teaching and learning about psychedelics.

Much like the perennial debates about whether schools should teach abstinence or comprehensive, evidence-based curricula with respect to sex education, alcohol and cannabis education, suicide education, and most recently, digital literacy education, this course is premised on the belief that evidence-based, risk-reduction curricula increase safe decision-making.

It is education in the public interest - one of the central tenets of the mission of a public university. In addition to teaching responsibilities, duties include holding office hours, assigning grades, advising students, preparing course materials, and collaborating with program leadership, and other BSE Faculty members.