Teaching Fears

Having had a few days to really let our last class think in, I have extreme respect for all those who shared in the "I am from" writing. You all were much more brave than I. As I think about my "I am from" I realized that what I wrote is a very watered down version of me. I tried to pull in many aspects of what have made me, and yet I only came up with the fluffy, nice things about my life. It made me realize that I really have a harder time opening up than I originally thought. Hearing the things said during that time almost made me ashamed of myself, that so many people could courageously share out the harder things that make them, and I couldn't even write it down. I feel very hypocritical when this happens as well, I enjoy hearing people's stories, but don't often share mine. The codes of power also echo in my head after the class, the one thing that really truly scares me about teaching, is being someone who fails students of color because I become absent-minded. I am scared of becoming the ignorant white male teacher we read so much about, and regardless of how open, or multicultural educationally driven I am that I will not end up where I truly hope to be in those regards. The codes are things that I am now more aware of, but how will I internalize those and change my pedagogy so as to not perpetuate them?

Friday's Class

Last Friday's class was also a bit of a roller coaster for me as well. I think I have a hard time staying focused on Fridays.  During the "I am From" exercise I found it difficult for me to emotionally connect with my writing.  As I witnessed such strongly expressed emotions from my peers, which were so powerful, I started to feel self conscious that I was not experiencing the same emotions.  My writing I felt reflected how I was feeling about my life at the moment, however, it wasn't until wrapping up the sharing that I started to get emotional.  So much reflection in the past 8 weeks I feel has made me a little numb.  My personal opinions of my views, my life and myself are starting to feel generic and unreal.  I value the fact that we our program is structured around personal stories and opinions.  However, sometimes hearing others stories and experiences make me think that I have don't have enough culture or background to sympathize and understand my students to come.  Or perhaps I am not enough in touch with my emotions, which seems odd to me because I do consider myself an emotionally driven person.  I think exercise like the "I am From" are a great idea, highly therapeutic and eye-opening.  For me, I think going back to this at a different time may produce a more emotionally engaged experience.

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Wow, I am still decompressing from last weeks class prompt. I had done this very same assignment about three years ago in another class. I cannot even begin to tell you how much of "where I am from," has changed. This writing prompt made me sit still and reflect and definitely accept that life and all of our experiences come and go so quickly. That while we are making plans and moving towards our future, life is happening right now. I am appreciative of the moments I have and share with people who are sharing the same experience right now. Getting to hear a snippet of everyone's past was refreshing and incredibly brave. Even though we all share the same goal for our future, we come from a culmination of different pasts and experiences that have shaped us into who we are and what we represent. While finishing up Other Peoples Children one theme really resonated with this exercise, the notion that "in order to teach you, I must know you," I know that in my undergrad studies I was rarely asked or given the opportunity to talk about or express where I came from. Throughout our last six weeks we have had the chance to speak about where we are now, where we have come from and our struggles along the way. I feel like this is a beneficial tool for any teacher and I personally plan on using these personal narrative essays and I am from... as ways for my students to have a voice and be able to talk about what it's like to walk a mile in their shoes. I feel like this is so important and is an essential ingredient in creating the community within the classroom. Although with all the pressures of teaching to the standardized tests and trying desperately to tailor curriculum to be accessible to all learners I could see how this could easily get put onto the back burner. Furthermore it is a literacy exercise and could be linked to a language arts standard, Synethstesia!

Even after all of the self-reflection we’ve been asked to do over the last five weeks, I wasn’t expecting the depths that the “I am from” activity would take me to. This activity was the first time in a long time that I really took the time to think about all of the things, people, places, and events that have created me as I am today. All of these large and small pieces of identity are often the things that I most want to share with people but are also the most difficult. Some seem too trivial, and some too raw. Sharing myself on either of these levels feels scary, I worry about not being taken seriously, or not being understood. I appreciated the safe space we created in the classroom on Friday and wonder how often we will recreate or find those safe spaces again. I see the necessity of creating the time and place to open up in these ways because how else do we remind ourselves that, as Sarah said, joy is joy and pain is pain and we all have both. There are so many ways we can compare ourselves to others, but the important thing is remembering that we are all connected. The next question is how do you cultivate that connectedness with your students? How do you find the time and focused place to do so?

Whew!

Wow..I was not expecting the last 15 minutes of class on Friday to be so intense! I really admire those who shared a piece of where they are from, I definitely didn't have the composure or the courage to. I think a lot of what we have been talking about in class, about equity and codes of power, hits close to home for me, since when I look at my life I am able to see just how much I have benefitted from the systems at play and the powers that be. I am so grateful for everything I have experienced, but it can be uncomfortable. One of the deepest fears I have is that no matter how much I try to be open and not ignorant, I will always remain a "well-intentioned liberal" in the eyes of people whose backgrounds are different from mine. Especially as we read and discuss in class about the ways that we unknowingly perpetuate harmful stereotypes and notions, it is difficult to see concrete and immediate ways to challenge things I may have internalized about "the way things are." And this makes me anxious! However, I can think of small things I can do to start "knowing what I don't know" right now. The "I am from" exercise is a perfect example. Giving someone else the gift of listening is extremely powerful, both for that person and your-/myself. Listening in respectful silence to some of my cohort members share the pieces that make up who they are not only offered them a cathartic moment but also helped me feel more comfortable with myself in that space. After ten minutes of intense emotions, hearing others' thoughts helped me get out of my head and appreciate the contrasting extremes that everyone feels about aspects of life. I felt more than ever that I was a part of a caring family. True listening is something that takes practice, and I hope to become a better listener this year, both in my LC classes, at Catlin Gabel, and in all of the spaces where I do this crazy thing called life.

Getting to the bottom of your "iceberg"

To echo some of the posts already, thank you to everyone who shared and listened on Friday. As I reflect on how class went, I realize it felt like a roller coaster of emotions. Happy, tired, sad, fired-up, calm, and just about everything else in between. As an anthropology major, I have really been enjoying digging deep into the issues we have been talking about. I particularly liked the iceberg analogy Zalika put on the board. After class, I thought about how the metaphor works well for "the self" - what shows out of the water is our outward presence. The clothes we wear, the words we speak, and the way we present ourselves. The first layer under the water is our behaviors. I relate this to the way we really are - the way we act around our best friends, families, and loved ones. The distinction between our public and private selves is different, because for many of us there are more layers than what we bring to the classroom. The next layer is our belief system. This layer is more of conscious decisions we make as to what we think is right or wrong. These choices directly influence our behaviors, and our outward presence. The final layer, is the deepest. Values. This layer is often hard to access. It is where we keep our deepest emotions (some good, some not so good) It can be thought of as a locked basement. Similar to the layer of beliefs, the values layer influences the entire iceberg; however its effects are often made unconsciously. The "I am from" exercise asked us to access our entire "iceberg" to show who we are and what is important to us. This process was similar to my overall experience in class on Friday - an emotional roller coaster. I found memories that made me smile, and some I had chosen to forget.

I realized that as teacher, we need to be conscious of what is coming from ourselves, because we are influencing everyone that passes through our classroom. We need to be be careful of our language, how we treat social situations, teach about culture... this could be an endless list, so I am going to stop while I am ahead. The point is, we need to know who we are all the way down to the values layer, in order to offer our students the best of ourselves. The more we represent a genuine self in the classroom, the more able our students will be able to do the same.

Thanks to everyone again for being such a supportive cohort group!

Class Reflection

I think it’s very powerful to be able to use your own voice and express who you are. It really helps you take pride in who you are when you can openly talk about your experiences. I chose not to share in class. I really wanted to just listen to others. I think being able to sit and listen is really hard and it takes practice. It reminds me of when I was an RA at Oregon State and we took various trainings/workshops about how to listen to our peers. One of the key points was to allow people to speak about who they are and what difficulties they might be facing. Also important was to hold back on just giving your own ideas about what they should do. I think it relates a lot to being a teacher. I can’t just tell my students what to do when they’re struggling, I need to allow them to express their feelings and be the listening ear that asks the right questions that allow them to find their way. I might have just gone on a random tangent, but it had me thinking a lot about how everyone has so many different experiences and stories that they might want to share or might want to keep for themselves and the choice of sharing or not is a very powerful one. I appreciate everything everyone shared in class because I feel like it allows me more insight into everyone’s lives. I think the way I get to know people is by listening to what they want to share. I am glad that as a cohort we are so close and we can share with each other things that are sometimes hard to express.