My teaching philosophy is grounded in three main beliefs: first, that learning is inherent to human nature, so left to their own devices, people will learn; second, that the United States’ school system was built with white upper class men in mind, and therefore is unfairly biased toward most people who don’t fit under those categories; and finally, that education is at it’s best when done in community, by community members, with the community in mind.

People begin to learn from the moment they are born and they are inclined to continue learning as a basic means of survival. Understanding that learning is inherent to humanity helps combat ideas of teaching deficits and learning loss in order to focus on teaching as the practice in need of change and improvement, rather than the students. For example, one student I had as a freshman and then again this year as a senior, taught himself everything there is to know about being in the working world as a teenager. As a freshman, at a time where many of his peers weren’t thinking about work yet, he managed to get a job at a Togo’s. During the pandemic, teachers were nervous for him because he wasn’t engaging much in school and feared he would drop out of school or not be able to graduate. Now, at 18 years-old, he has proven he not only learned during the pandemic, but successfully navigated school as well as work as he is about to graduate and is the manager of the Togo’s he works at. In the face of insurmountable odds, people will learn and we must count on that. 

Despite how historically marginalized communities in the United States have and continue to fight to be heard,  the communities, cultures, dialects and languages of white middle and upper class citizens are still given the most positive representation. Therefore, because of the U.S.’s inherent bias, we have a responsibility to change the system by reframing and re-centering marginalized languages, stories, and cultures in the classroom to help change the education system for more equity in the long run. In my class this year, we did a project featuring family recipes and family narratives. A student of mine, with whom I have a good relationship, has struggled in my class as he shows up late most days and only completes assignments sometimes. When this project was due, he told me he hadn’t written his narrative but he really wanted to tell me the story of his recipe. He came to me at lunch and told me all about his family history and the history of the meal he chose. Since then, he has been coming to my class once a week or so to tell me more family stories and to give updates on how everyone is doing. He is an amazing storyteller and I never forget to remind him of that. The reality is, his literacy is very high and he consistently shows me examples of his learning, but if I only used what he puts on paper as means of assessment– as many teachers commonly do– he would appear as a lazy, noncompliant student at best, and illiterate at worst. Oral storytelling is a huge part of his culture and though we should push our students to improve all skills, it’s crucial that we as teachers understand our students’ cultures so we can recognize and leverage their strengths as resources within our curriculum.

Finally, my belief in a community-oriented approach to education is threefold: people do their best work when learning with others they trust, community members are pivotal to the education of their own members, and cultural capital and funds of knowledge from within a community must be prioritized within the curriculum used to teach them. “...when students feel that they belong to their academic community, that they matter to one another, and that they can find emotional, social, and cognitive support for one another, they are able to engage in dialogue and reflection more actively and take ownership and responsibility of their own learning.” Creating a sense of community amongst students, therefore, is critical to their capacity to participate, to be bold, to try new things, and ultimately to learn. In my classroom, I make it a point at the beginning of each year to have my students make name cards that I put up on my wall. It’s a small gesture, but I tell the students it’s important to me that they know the space is theirs as much as it is mine, and we all know you have to put your name on something for it to be yours. I still get students coming from past years looking for their names on my wall. Community building cannot stop at the first week of school though. I do daily check-ins where students tell the class who they are, how they are, and their answer to a check-in question. The check-ins are great for me to assess where individual students are in regard to headspace, but really they are an opportunity for them to check in with each other and bond. Doing these check-ins have made my students comfortable enough to do presentations in front of each other and to volunteer answers in front of the rest of the class much quicker in the school year than in past years before I implemented this system.

In regard to curriculum, Moll et. al. explain that in dealing with students whose households are generally viewed as “poor” in quality of experiences, it is important for teachers to understand and engage the funds of knowledge that their students bring from home. The authors claim that the children’s exchanges with their relatives and community members engage them in practical and active learning where they are not passive bystanders like they often are in classrooms and so we as educators must push past the stereotypes that our students have nothing valuable to bring to the table from their cultures and communities. Tara Yosso made a cultural wealth model that shows how marginalized communities, especially racial minorities, have aspirational, social, familial, linguistic, navigational, and resistance capital that are just as valuable as the capital that the white community has. It is crucial that marginalized communities’ skills, values, traditions, etc. are highlighted in our curriculums not only so they see themselves as valued, but so that we can improve and diversify mainstream culture by all we can learn from those who are often not listened to. Every year, I start by teaching my students about dominant and counter narratives as well as about Yosso’s Cultural Wealth model to Start the year with a feeling of confidence in the classroom. As the year continues, I utilize a variety of culturally sustaining teaching methods and projects like the oral storytelling and spoken word unit that traces world wide oral traditions to contemporary musical and oral practices like slam poetry and rap, which many of the students engage with outside of the classroom.

As I continue to grow as an educator, I keep these three beliefs as essential guidelines to revolutionize my pedagogical practice. I will continue to take an asset-based approach to my students’ learning, using their inherent ability and desire to learn and explore to help them empower themselves. Additionally, I will continue to collaborate with students and community members to create equitable and culturally sustaining curriculum. Finally, I will continue fostering connections between students and their communities celebrating all they have to offer educational spaces and beyond. In these ways I will deconstruct and rebuild the education system within my sphere of influence.

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Sources:

 

“Community Building in the Classroom.” Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning, Columbia University, https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/community-building/#:~:text=Research%20shows%20that%20when%20students,and%20responsibility%20of%20their%20own. 

 

Moll, L. C., et. al. “Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms.” Theory into Practice, vol. 31, no. 2, 1992, pp. 132-141.

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Yosso, Tara J. “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth.” Race Ethnicity and Education, vol. 8, 2005, pp. 69-91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006