Learning is a process. It is not a destination. You will get a good grade from me in this class when you show me that you are a part of a learning process that goes beyond the school walls. That process doesn’t just involve you becoming a better reader, writer, and speaker, it involves you becoming a better person. To become a good person in this corrupt white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy is a revolutionary act. I am more interested in you standing up for a person who is being mistreated than what your grade point average is. I am more interested in us reflecting on how we can become better people than what happened hundreds of years ago. However, I believe understanding history is a pivotal tool to inform us and embolden us in taking positive actions within an unjust society. By dedicating ourselves to the life of the mind and the power of the learning process I hope we can take those positive actions together this year.
EXPERIENCE
Experience matters in my classroom community. My goal is to root my students in their experience. When students share their personal experiences, when they confess and give their testimony in my classroom it enhances their learning more than anything I can bring from a book. My students ability to maintain excitement in my classroom is deeply effected by their interest in one another. I am not just looking for knowledge in books, I’m looking for knowledge on how to better live in the world. For me and my students to listen to each other's experiences in our classroom we can better reflect and improve on our own actions.
PRAXIS
The revolutionary educator Paulo Friere defines praxis as “action and reflection on the world in order to change it.” I teach with the idea of praxis in mind. My students are not in my class to be a passive consumer of knowledge but an active participant in the process of learning. I have a problem posing approach to my curriculum that begs my students to ask, “What can I do to change this?” This is an important question to ask and a first step towards changing things. In my class we learn about historic injustice in the world stemming from things like greed, capitalism, white supremacy, classism, sexism, and xenophobia. As my students learn about injustice it is important that they think about how they can act to change things. We are in a crucial moment in world history in which the actions of humans have jeopardized the lives of almost every living being on Earth, to retain knowledge without a push for collective action under these circumstances is not only ignorant but completely irresponsible.