I believe
in myself because someone else believed in me. I feel intellectually empowered
because as I grew up, I was taught by educators who valued, respected, and
encouraged my individual voice. I was taught that what I thought mattered, and
that I was capable of sharing these worthy thoughts with the rest of the world.
I am certain that by the time I finished 6th grade, my teachers had
already cemented in me the intellectual self-confidence that I still feel
today.
Of course, every human being has a unique voice that can contribute something of value to humanity, yet so many students have never been told that what they think is worth sharing. They are – so often these days – taught to listen rather than talk, memorize rather than create, and fit within the lines rather than draw their own. As an educator, my primary goal is to counteract the negative beliefs that the modern, results-driven educational system seems to perpetuate. I will have done my job well if my students come to feel empowered as individuals who have something of worth to bring to the larger human community. Grounding my teaching practices in methods that work to create as egalitarian a classroom as possible helps me to reach that goal.
I recognize that not all students were encouraged to feel empowered as I was from such a young age, and so I seek to create a classroom environment that is inclusive to each student, no matter their background. Inclusion is usually by nature a complex dynamic to orchestrate in a diverse classroom, and most classrooms have some level of diversity, whether physical (race, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability) or cultural (ethnicity, socio-economic status, chosen culture). However, my approach is to both honor differences as well as recognize similarities between all of the students in my class. If the class size and the classroom space permit, my students and I arrange the desks in a circle for each class session. If I am not lecturing at the board or walking around checking on group work, I will often join the circle by sitting in (or on the back of) one of the desks. The circle functions in many ways to create the inclusive class dynamic I aim for: the students are physically positioned to interact with each other face-to-face, making engagement much easier; they can easily work in pairs or small groups without having to turn away from other students; and class discussion occurs organically for the same reasons. On a more abstract, perhaps subconscious level, the sort of hidden curriculum that the circle teaches is one of equality. Not only is each student on more of an even plane (there is no longer a real way to “sit at the front” or hide in the back of the classroom) – I am also able to join them on that plane. The circle teaches students that they are all equally valued as participants in the class, and that I value their input as much as I value my own, since I am a part of the circle as well. The board isn’t even the focus of the classroom anymore: the focal point is the center of the circle, which also happens to be the central point of the discussion we generate.
This brings up another critical part of my pedagogy: teaching is, as much as possible, a balance between transmitting new knowledge and facilitating engagement with and application of that knowledge. Learning, then, is a balance between absorbing new ideas and putting them into practice with others. Having the focal point of my classroom be the middle of the discussion circle rather than the front of the classroom with all of its traditional teacher’s tools communicates to my students that how they engage with what they’re learning is as important, if not more so, than how thoroughly they memorize the exact details of that knowledge. Active participation in class further emphasizes this value. It doesn’t take very many classes for my students to realize that they are expected to participate in class discussion – if they don’t volunteer to speak, I will call on them to share their thoughts at some point anyway. I sometimes ask students to go around the circle and share what they wrote or discussed with their partner, but the more comfortable they get, the more often they will volunteer to share on their own. To be fair and strengthen the feeling of equality, I am open to participating in discussions where I ask students to share personal information or ideas, so that there is no imbalance whereby I ask for their vulnerability without being willing to be vulnerable myself.
Personal sharing often comes out of the practice of freewriting, a staple element of my teaching practices. Writing about personal experience and then getting to share what was written with a group of peers can automatically – in the act of sharing – validate and strengthen the belief that individual voice is important. If a student comes to believe that what they think and write is worth sharing, even in the informal acts of freewriting and class discussion, they will be more likely to have that confidence when they write for other assignments. Freewriting has consistently been one of the most appreciated practices in my classroom. Students comment that freewriting has led to them enjoying the act of writing more, feeling like they can put more personality into what they write, separating the act of criticism from the act of invention, and growing more confident in their ability to write. Separation of the critical from the creative is also, I have found, a valuable benefit of freewriting. So often students begin to judge what they write as soon as they write it, which can quickly stifle their flow of thoughts and sense of voice. Freewriting in essence teaches them to hold off on critical judgment of their own writing until they have enough creative material to work with.
The circle and the freewrite, in many ways, have come to embody my classroom pedagogy. Through the circle, regular freewriting, student-chosen topics, in-class time spent on invention and drafting, and a down-to-earth, approachable teaching persona, I hope to encourage students to feel empowered as individuals and engaged as a community. The awareness I seek to pass on to them is the same awareness I learned growing up: their voices are worth being heard, and there are people who will listen. Only with that awareness, I believe, will students have the confidence to truly speak in the first place.