Engaged Pedagogy and The Holistic Classroom: Foundational Beliefs and Knowledge
TRSL B: Educational Platform
Amy Hewett-Olatunde
Hamline University
May 10, 2012
2
Engaged Pedagogy and the Holistic Classroom: Foundational Beliefs and Knowledge I sit here at my desk on a Friday afternoon at 2:00pm, the buses are gone, the hallways are quiet, the sound of the trees are whispering outside my window. I am reflecting on the week as I have always done for the past thirteen years. What could I have done better? Was there a student I didnt get the chance to talk to this week? Did all of my students go home to enough food, enough love, and enough support? My heart aches thinking of these things. My eyes well with tears just as my mums did so many years ago when she talked about teaching, and the children in the world who were denied education. Teaching is a gift, and those who do it are charged with an awesome responsibility. To educate another person as the practice of freedom is teaching so anyone can learn. This comes easiest to us who believe that our work is not only to share information, but to share in the spiritual and intellectual growth of our students. We respect and care for the souls of our students and provide the essential conditions where learning deepens and becomes more intimate (hooks, 1994). Engaged pedagogy stresses well-being. Teachers must be committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students (hooks, 1994). Teachers should employ the understanding that all children in the world are our children, all children have the right to learn, all children have the capacity for greatness, and all children deserve love and nurturing. A Footprint in the Sand The women who came before me always told I would become a teacher, but it fell on deaf ears. My grandmother was a Sunday school teacher for 50 years and my mother was a nursery school and elementary school teacher for 35 years. My mother told me 3 about teaching near Dale and Selby back in the late 60s. Being the only white woman in a black neighborhood along with the racial tension that existed in that era was intense. The social fabric of community is formed from an expanding shared sense of belonging. It is shaped by the idea that only when we are connected and care for the well-being of the whole that a civil and democratic society is created (Block, 2009, p. 9). My mother felt connected to this community and framed her thinking around the idea that communities are built from the assets and gifts of their citizens, not from the citizens needs or deficiencies (Block, 2009, p. 14). Poverty, racial tension, and inequality enveloped this neighborhood from the outside, but transformation was constructed in that community where the citizens chose to pull together to produce a desired outcome (hooks, 1994). This is what my mother witnessed, and she believed it was her civic and moral duty to give a quality education to every child in her classroom. When citizens care for each other, they become accountable to each other. Care and accountability create a healthy community (Block, 2009, p. 30). She held this mentality and saw the light in every child she taught, and knew her responsibility was to provide each child with the belief that they could succeed and they were loved. This would, in turn, help create this collective community. Our current context is a far way from one of generosity, gifts, and accountability. The dominant context we now hold is one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement. Out of this context grows the belief that the suffering of communities is a set of problems to be solved (Block, 2009, p. 32). There was no problem to be solved; there were children who needed the opportunity to develop to their own true potential. This was a catalyst for my mums philosophy of education and eventually mine. 4 Then, after marriage and three children, she found herself in a very different environment from the urban streets of Saint Paul, Minnesota. She started a nursery school in a small town in southern Manitoba. As I grew up, I was exposed to a different kind of teaching. The way in which my mother mapped out the year and developed innovative activities for her three and four year olds was nothing short of spectacular. She wasnt their friend; she was who they looked up to, followed, and loved, because she loved them with overt and sincere affection. This is where my educational foundations were imprinted. Through lived experience As time passed, teaching had become woven into my blood both from what I had seen and what I had started doing. My knowledge base was in part due to my mother but also gained through various experiences. In hindsight, my experiences with teaching never became visible to me until many years later. My first experiences with teaching began in the water where I taught the art of the stroke and resuscitation. I then used my breath to teach my mother tongue in Norway. Leaving Norway with trills exploding in my mouth, I became a Norwegian instructor that began north of the border and led me south to Concordia College. Throughout all of this, my mum asked, What are you going to do with your life? What is your plan? My response being, I want to be an artist, an interior designer or maybe a carpenter. That was not the response she wanted to hear. You need to get a teaching license or a nursing degree, because the world always needs teachers and nurses. Well, the thought of being a teacher was the last thing I wanted to do and being a nurse had never crossed my mind. You have been given the ability to teach and not everyone is that lucky. Use it to your advantage, Amy. I felt my talent 5 was being an artist, painting, writing poetry, and designing, all of which were far more inspiring that being in education or medicine. Little did I know that my mums words would become my reality sooner than I thought. One night in the early spring of 1999, an opportunity was presented to me, which I accepted. Stuck in a horrible job unrelated to my college degree, I was ready for any kind of change from my monotonous existence. I volunteered for the first time at an after- school club called the International Kids Club. That night changed the path of my life forever. It was in those two hours and the nights that followed for the next few months that I saw the infinite beauty of these children (and their parents). These children were my children, they had the right to learn, they had the capacity for greatness, and they deserved to be loved and nurtured. The future unfolds Fast-forward three years with a Masters Degree in Education and an ELL License where I landed in the right place at the right time. Just four blocks from where I had received my degree, LEAP High School welcomed me. Within these walls, I found students from over 30 different countries, from backgrounds of poverty, oppression, and illiteracy, and I felt I had found my way home. Although I had no children of my own, I had them. They were and still are my heroes. In Garrison Keillors Thank Our Immigrant Heroes, he sheds light on many of the populations I teach.
Thank Our Immigrant Heroes
To give up your country is the hardest thing a person can do: to leave the old familiar places and ship out over the edge of the world to America and learn everything over again different than you learned as a 6 child, learn the new language that you will never be so smart or funny in as in your true language. It takes years to start to feel semi-normal. And yet people still come from Russia, Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos, Ethiopia, Iran, Haiti, Korea, Cuba, Chile, and they come on behalf of their children, and they come for freedom. Not for our land (Russia is as beautiful), not for our culture (they have their own, thank you), not for our system of government (they don't even know about it, maybe not even agree with it), but for freedom. They are heroes who make an adventure on our behalf, showing by their struggle how precious beyond words freedom is, and if we knew their stories, we could not keep back the tears. (Keillor, 1998, Newsweek) The dedication and passion I feel towards the refugee/newcomer population is immeasurable. Every experience I have had working with English Language Learners has been an honor and a privilege. I have felt deeply blessed each and every day spending my life with children to senior citizens who come from countries of limited resources. I have come to know myself better as a woman, an individual, and a teacher. Every human being has the ability to learn. Every human being should be given the right to learn and be fostered in an environment that regards education and the development of its people. A Constructivist Approach Education never ends, the knowledge you gain deepens with time, and all people deserve an above average education. Time and experience have shown me that there is always a way to teach to the individual and foster intellectual, sociomoral, and affective development (DeVries & Zan, 2005, p. 132). In order to create a constructivist 7 classroom, mutual respect must be continually practiced in a sociomoral atmosphere. This type of atmosphere is referred to as the entire network of interpersonal relations that make up a childs experience in school (DeVries & Zan, 2005, p. 132). In this day and age of increased behavior management and a growing achievement gap, children need teachers to be present and proactive in the classroom. Every day that I walk into my classroom, I am excited for the day, and to get involved with all of my students. One of the tragedies of education today is that there are a lot of people who dont recognize that being a teacher is being with people (hooks, 1994, p. 165). Educators need to acknowledge and take into consideration that shifting their paradigms to reflect a multicultural standpoint should not be a fearful concept (hooks, 1994, p. 36). We are all connected to each other, and until humankind recognizes this, children suffer. Towards the summit It was just days ago that I read the most personal story I have ever written in my Level 4 Perspectives in Language and Literature class. Before reading my narrative to the class every year, I have to mentally prepare for a day or two with prayer and visualization. You see, the story is about my mums death back in August of 2003. The narrative goes into great detail of how cancer took hold of her and she eventually succumbed to the disease and passed away in my arms. The emotional impact is raw, for the students and myself. The intent is not to make my students cry and feel sorry that I lost my mum, but to to share, to confess. Engaged pedagogy does not seek simply to empower students (hooks, 1994, p. 21). A holistic model of learning allows the classroom to be a place where teachers grow, and can be empowered by the process. If 8 we refuse to be vulnerable, how can we encourage students to take risks (hooks, 1994, p. 21)? This empowerment has revealed powerful and personal narratives on their behalf. Pa Cher, a Karen student from Thailand, is deeply invested in the personal narrative he is writing for me. Pa Cher passes in his paper along with the other students on the due-date. As usual, I bring home the essays, and after I put my children to bed, I prepare for a long night ahead. I decide to read Pa Chers first because it is the longest with 24 handwritten, pages. I have to get comfortable for this. It was in this narrative that he told me the story of his first love, a Thai soldier. He came out to me and to the world, so to speak. I laughed, I cried, I felt what he felt, and it was beautiful; I was humbled. I was humbled to be the person he shared this information with. The next day when he got to school and saw me, he looked nervous. I went up to him and gave him a hug and said, Thank you for trusting me. You are a beautiful person. What happened later that day was nothing short of spectacular; Pa Cher stood up in front of the class, took a deep breath, and told everyone he was gay. The classroom, with 18 students, seven different cultures, young men and women, clapped. Hearing each others voices, individual thoughts, and sometimes associating these voices with personal experience makes us more acutely aware of each other (hooks, 1994, p. 186) There are times when a persons personal experience keeps him from reaching the mountaintop. He has to let go because the weight of it is too heavy. It is sometimes the case where the mountaintop is difficult to reach with all his resources, factual and confessional, so he is just left grasping, feeling the limitations of how to reach the climax. (Block, 2009, p. 92). I witnessed Pa Cher make it past the first ridge on his way to the summit.
9 A Single Wish My single wish is that each and every person in the world understands that educating and treasuring our children is the only hope we have for a future. And the words of my mum echo in my ear, You have been given the ability to teach and not everyone is that lucky. Use it to your advantage, Amy. I have and I will. Mum, thank you for seeing my light, so it may shine upon those who have been hidden in the dark for far too long.
Memories of Childhood (Therein lies the silhouette of my mothers face, unbeknownst to me at the time.)
Into the Light: From Oppression to Progression (A tribute to my students)
10 References Block, P. (2009). Community: The structure of belonging. San Fransisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. DeVries, R. & Zan, B. (2005). A constructivist perspective on the role of the sociomoral atmosphere in promoting childrens development, In Fosnot, C.T. (Ed.). (2005). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2 nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. Fosnot, C.T. (Ed.). (2005). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2 nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. Keillor, G. (1998, July 4). Thank our immigrant heroes. Newsweek. Retrieved from http://openweb1.salon.com/blog/jraney67/2012/02/19/thank_our_immigrant_heroes Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. M. (2006). How languages are learned. Oxford England: Oxford University Press.
11 GED 8514: Doctoral Writing Seminar (Spring, 2012) TRSL B: Rubric for Revised and Expanded Educational Platform
Strong - shows control and skill; many strengths present Maturing - strengths outweigh weaknesses; small amount of revision needed Developing - strengths and weaknesses are about equal; first-draft stage Emerging - isolated moments begin to show what writer intends; need for revision outweighs strengths Not Yet - getting started, but the result is unclear, struggling, tentative; writer is searching and exploring
MAJOR CRITERIA Not Yet Developing Maturing Strong Ideas and Content Clearly identifies espoused theory(ies) and/or beliefs. Provides concrete, relevant examples and descriptions that illuminate the platforms ideas.
Cites (paraphrased or verbatim) specific authors, theorists, researchers that support platform ideas.
Comments:
Organization Composes a platform that is logically sequenced and well-organized so that the reader may move easily through text.
Provides an obvious and inviting introduction that draw the reader in.
Provides a synthesizing or summarizing conclusion that gives closure and resolution.
Includes thoughtful transitions between sentences and paragraphs.
Comments:
ADDITIONAL CRITERIA Not Yet Developing Maturing Strong Voice Connects with audience through interesting topic focus and relevant details that reveal the writers ideas or points of view.
Comments:
Conventions/Citations/Format Demonstrates standard spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Cites sources accurately in the platform. Cites sources accurately in Bibliography or Reference List.
Formats platform according to requirements. Comments: