Thank You

Dear Professor Anderson-Lain, Amber, Angelica, Cheri, Ciel, Felicity, Gabby, Jen, Madie, Payton, and the second year TAs who won’t see this, 

            I was going to write a letter to all of the scholars that we read throughout the course of the semester, thanking them for all they taught me, but in all honesty I didn’t really want to. Yes they all taught me a lot of things but I think about my experiences in the classroom that I have had all semester and I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have been able to do it without all of you. Even all of the things that we learned in our readings this semester wouldn’t have been able to make any sort of sense had I not broken it down with all of you during class and in the space. Thank you all for teaching me so much and making this a semester a time that I won’t ever forget.

            I’ve spent some time looking at all my other blog posts trying to figure out how I could best wrap it all up. This has been the semester of self-reflection, a time where I have realized that in order to be the best that I can be I have to constantly be reflective over the choices I make in the position I possess. For that, I do have to give a big shout out to Frierre, hooks, and Fasstt & Warren, for helping to really clarify the importance of self-reflection. But with every act of self-reflection that I did engage in, I almost always had questions. Things that I wasn’t sure about, things I thought I may have done wrong, and concerns if I was even thinking about the right things. I think it was Palmer who talked about how vulnerable of a job being a teacher is and boy is he right, it is scary as shit being up there. I had all of these fears and all of these questions, and I couldn’t ask any of these scholars what they thought, but I could always turn to all of you. No matter what concern I had, no matter what stupid question I could think of, you were all always there for me. I learned so much from all of you individually and I’ll never be able to express how grateful I am for that. 

            I guess I’ll also take a minute to say thank you to all my students, because I have to give them credit as well. In my journey to learn what the hell teaching is, how to create a positive classroom environment, and to navigate the world of communication pedagogy they were right there with me. I hope I was able to teach them even a fraction of what they taught me. I think the drive to make them co-teachers in the classroom truly worked, as I never stopped learning from them, and I hope for as long as I teach that I will always learn as much from my students as I did in this one semester. I would also like to give the biggest stand alone thank you to Professor Anderson-Lain, for being an amazing teacher and role model. There was never a moment where I felt like I couldn’t come to you or that you didn’t have my back. I don’t think there's anyone in the department that feels like they can’t come to you, and that’s quite wonderful. Thank you for guiding us this semester and for making us feel like we are exactly where we are supposed to be. 

            So this may not be the correct way to write this blog post and I don’t apologize for that. Using this post to thank you all for everything that you have done for me only seems fitting. I feel like I have gained a family through this semester of teaching and it’s a family that I’ll never forget. I am so proud of us for getting through this but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that we wouldn’t. I know that I learned so much from all the readings that we did this semester but I will always know that I learned the most from all of you. I look forward to what the next three semesters have to bring, and to all the new things that we will teach each other along the way. So here’s to us, the teachers that Professor always knew we were. Thank you all, and HAPPY TEACHING.

Lots of Love,

Jonathon Tolj

BIGS is Rich

I counted out ten pennies. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Ten pennies clumped together on the table before me. I knew this was coming. I knew this was coming. I. Knew.This. Was. Coming. 

I had time to sit with the readings, carry them around in my bag, and sleep with them on the nights that I fell asleep reading them. It served as no surprise that I would be given an incentive to contribute to the class discussion. Being ten cents richer for an hour or two felt nice. But those copper coins felt awkward to handle as well. Even shifting them about the table, as a token of contribution felt stiff. I met myself with a mixture of acceptance, obligation, but also some discomfort. I wanted to get out of class early as much as the next person, but I still found myself questioning what I wanted to say. Did my contribution feel as valuable, despite each coin being exactly the same? I wondered, if my words felt like they amounted to the value of the coin. 

I was given ten pennies for my thoughts and even that seemed like it was too much. 

As I read Voices and Silences in Our Classrooms: Strategies for Mapping Trails Among Sex/Gender, Race and Class I instantly knew in my gut that we would be using one of these strategies in the classroom. It was genius really. I knew that, if we didn’t use one of the methods in class, I might have actually moved to make a suggestion for it. I silently hoped, between my highlighting and illegible notes in the margins, that we wouldn’t do it, but I knew it would be an effective challenge for all of us. I knew I wanted to try the “pay to talk” method (Bell & Golombisky,  2004, p. 299) with my own students because I found it so fascinating. I felt like a dog seeing their owner, as the activity seeped into my mind. It excited me. It is a good show night for BIGS, I now know how to further perfect my act. 

This activity would be dreadful for my quieter students, but would be challenging for more vocal students. I would think that my earlier 1010 section would have a more difficult time with getting rid of their coins, as they are mostly a quieter bunch and a bit more disengaged at times. My second class however, has a handful of students that remain more vocal and outgoing.  I would imagine some of my students might try to give away their penny/pennies and that others might save them up until the end. I already know the names and faces of students who might have trouble saving their coins. However, I have found that my quieter students offer just as powerful insights to the class. It makes me wonder why I feel my own voice has little value so much of the time. Perhaps, it’s a degree of imposter syndrome that has been covertly sickening me as the semester has continued on. 

Silence and voice are the biggest theme and barrier for good girls in the classroom. Many girls silence their voices, due to the conditioning that they have undergone within the classroom. Race adds a double jeopardy for African American women, in regards to silence and voice. 

“White girls begin to silence themselves at adolescence, girls of color are caught in class and racial binds that make them invisible and unwelcome in the classroom, and the education system reinforces this decline. Schools, according to Sadker and Sadker (1994) participate in undermining smart women dampening girls’ aspirations through various forms of gender bias, including a lower quality and quantity of classroom attention” (Bell & Golombisky, 2004, p. 297). 

It’s a bit alarming how a piece from fifteen years ago still rings true today. And it feels odd to write about an issue pertaining to race, but it is inherently linked to my positionality. Pedagogy has definitely encouraged me to continue to recognize and identify how my positionality affects me in the many roles I play. It affects even roles that I do not play. It influences how I see everything in my life and even influences how I think others might see things too. Of course, I have also continued to be challenged to question my views, values, and beliefs as I continue to navigate (more like drown) in academic settings. I continue to be exposed to the world around me and to question why, how, when, all of these things in life became of relevance or why they never were. 

***

“...Singh's question: "If you had to. which White privilege would you give up?" White students ponder this question: the privilege of not being followed in department stores? The privilege of knowing courses, books, popular entertain- ment will reflect your daily reality—as mainstream, rather than a special case? The resulting discussions are lively and productive, but White students rarely make a choice because they don't have to…” (Bell & Golombisky, 2004, p. 311).

As I was attempting to send a friend a gif today, I scrolled through the images that populated the gif catalogue. I saw cartoons, animals, anime characters, and fictional characters. It ranged from Friends to Monsters Inc. to Pokemon. I saw a sea of faces that did not look like mine (even though I would love to be a pikachu). Much of the time, this acknowledgement was a silent one. I paid no mind to it. I ignored it. I pretended it didn’t bother me. After all, what could I do or say? Was I truly powerless to it? In the past, it felt as if the thought did not roll across my mind in a conscious way. In some ways it felt like an illusion of “harmlessness”. So, maybe it was “harmless” in some ways, not really, but okay, but yet sometimes it was consuming in other ways. When I think about it, it is difficult to find myself reflected on television, at school, in products (clothes, health and beauty products, etc.) . Something as simple as the funny popular culture examples I was exposed to felt empty and blemished. 

I suppose now, I question how to balance my newfound enlightenment in graduate school with my doubts and worries that surround my everyday life. This Juggler will have to figure that out.

BIGS tip: Never stop exploring what life has to offer. You may find something you like.

Action and Power

Advocacy in Action was such an interesting class project. It reminded me of the PR event and design project my friends and I did in undergrad but instead these students took it a step further and made it come to life. It was amazing seeing how this project played out from start to finish. 

What really made it so interesting to me though was how they had full complete control over it. It was rather amazing getting to see shy students grow within the groups they were in. For every team, I allowed them to have control of the classroom and use it to their advantage during work days. I was worried and somewhat nervous of doing this but surprisingly enough they were very organized and utilized this time to make announcements in class. The leadership team was the first to make an announcement and use the class time for voting and coming to a common decision for the donations. More and more teams did this as well and soon enough when work days were announced, they asked if their team could start the class that day. Their enthusiasm for leading the discussion and class was so great to see. It reminded me of how Freire spoke of the oppressed and teachers giving students the opportunity to break out of this. They had full space and authority where they started with an idea and then went through the process of making it a tangible and real thing! Maybe I'm just nerding out but that's just so cool to me. #SucksYes!

Identity and Respect

I remember on the second week of class I asked a student to not wear his sunglasses in class and he laughed it off saying that they were prescription, ignoring the request and adjusting them. Another student on the first day of class when we were playing the name game introduced himself as “R@*#ey Royce” to the class which made many of the men in class laugh while many of the women visibly uncomfortable. They continued this for days afterwards even after my requests for them and the student in question to stop. I didn’t know how to gain their respect. I remember feeling awful about this but I looked at it as having two choices: being incredibly strict on them or being myself. 

Went with the later in the end. This situation would overall suck but at least I would be genuine. A few times in class I remember my accent would come out in class and I would disclose that I was Latina and spoke Spanish. I would comment on a student’s shirt who would have an anime character on it and ask them if they liked the show. A student specifically would draw on every handout given or a paper they turned in, I told them to continue doing this because their art style was dope. I remember when giving out the impromptu speech of my favorite video game, a few students asked afterwards if I battled the gym outside the environmental science building yet, and the class would even quiet down when I was trying to speak up during the class discussions. There were so many things that I could’ve done to have them respect my identity but am glad that they responded well to me being genuinely myself. Small things but they’re still a win. #SucksYes!

Time to Open Up

Self-disclosure can be difficult because you’re not just potentially being vulnerable by opening yourself to others but also it can have others lose their credibility in you. However, it can be so strong by having your students trust you more. I started the semester being closed off from the students where it sometimes felt like there was a glass panel between myself and them, I still didn’t feel confident being their instructor. Most of the students were the classic zombies who would stare at me with blank and unblinking expressions. As a horror movie fan, this didn’t bother me until they all would magically come back to life at the end of class to pack up and leave. What was I doing wrong? 

I asked myself and others what I could do to get them to be more engaged in class, there truly had to be something. I incorporated pop culture, memes, jokes, and other stuff into my teaching but they would instead react as if I was a cringey teacher. I remember staring at the ceiling of my apartment one day, thinking this question all over again. Like all good ideas, one hit me at around 3 am. I realized that my class was majority orange personalities and had a learning style of activities. I started to implement this within my discussions, slowly moving away from power points and soon enough, more students started to come back to life and join the discussion. 

With this, I took a risky move and started disclosing more of myself into the classroom. If I wanted to learn more about them, I needed to do the same as well. I shared with them my own narrative of how I loved Pokemon during impromptu speeches. I did the same process of planning that they were expected to do. They got to see my own anxiety of doing an impromptu speech, one student even asked me "you look nervous. But you're the teacher though." and with that I explained how it's different being put on the spot and so many of them visibly looked more relieved than before. I did a silly attention grabber of singing and acting out the intro song to Pokemon and started on how Pokemon is my favorite video game. Since then, students will start a conversation with me about pop culture or video games the few minutes before class starts. Silly how something small as an electric mouse really helped in bringing together the class. #SucksYes!

When the Supersmash 'Bros' Helped the Class

There’s a group of students in my COMM 1010 class who sit in the back-left side of the classroom. They are all best friends and even live in the same dorm room. In the beginning, I referred to them as the "Dude Bros". This group of 'bros' are high energy and often join discussion in class, however they would often derail the class with different tangents that were off topic. One was about a film that was released the past weekend, another was about a current thing on social media, and one time about what character in super smash bros was the best (I think they ended on Snake? I honestly can't remember). These conversations and points were odd at first because I thought these students were taking advantage of the situation, being hyped by their friends, and having fun derailing the dialogue with a random thought. I was wondering how to fix this situation until I realized that these students were all oranges, active learners, and were good students who did really good online work. I thought to do what Palmer said on making students who speak a lot in the classroom to be your “helper” of sorts and in speaking when the class is silent. However instead of asking this groups of “cool kids” and "bros" directly, I thought to do a little experiment. The next time one of them spoke, I would ask him further on his points and implement it into the dialogue that was happening in class. It was going to be a risk but one I was willing to take!

The next class period was impromptu speeches, introductions, and outlines. I asked the class what would be a good topic for an impromptu speech and like straight from an anime, one of the bros glasses glinted in the light as he dramatically swept them off, standing in a fluid motion with his hand raised in the air yelling out one single word with a grin “Sidewalks!” 

Stunned is not enough to describe how the rest of the peers and myself reacted to this. I kept in mind this little idea I had and asked him “Ok, lets use sidewalks. What would be a good argument for sidewalks?”

Then he explained how sidewalks on campus were too small for groups of friends to walk together and this piqued other students to join in, students that haven’t had spoken yet in class even, to include some more points. From having wider sidewalks would in create less accidents of speeding students on bike with walking students to having more access for students with disabilities. I realize now that what I did was removing my power as the instructor and giving it to the students, allowing them to lead the discussion and create their own outcomes.

Since then, I have asked more open-ended questions in class to allow them to brainstorm out loud. What I thought was going to be a tough situation dealing with a group of trouble students then became one where they frequently help in class discussion. Taking it as a win! #SucksYes!

Can I Hit the Panic Button Now?

Credibility was something that I was extremely worried about when stepping into the classroom and being the class’s instructor. Who was I to be these student’s instructor? I mean, their grades are on me (not really but the pressure sure felt like it was). The beginning notes of the song Under Pressure would play in an anxiety inducing loop in my head. Much like the Jaws theme, just looming over me as this unseen impending doom approached from the shadows.

I would reassure myself that everything would be ok. I mean, what could be the worst that would happen? The most extreme would be that an accident occurs, I get fired on the spot, or worse: death. These far fetched and extreme scenario would calm my anxiety but no matter how anxious I was, I knew I needed to fit into the role in order to gain the classrooms respect. But first! in order for that to work, needed to have confidence in myself to step into the role. 

Hmmm, what to do, what to do... I could share with the class how nervous I was but that could risk them potentially taking advantage of it. Like dinosaurs, students can smell fear. For sure wasn’t going to risk that! So, I told myself ‘It’s ok Jen, you got this. You’ve tutored students before and that’s, in a sense, like being the instructor. You got this!’ and with a deep breath, stepped into my role and went into the classroom.

As stated by Dannels, having credibility will help in managing a classroom but also, it’s absolutely human to be anxious about being in front of a crowd of students and teaching them. I’m already a shy and awkward person, it’s only amplified when I ask a question to the class and receive back seconds of prolonged silence that feel like a whole hour. Then the self-doubt ceremoniously enters the room with trumpets and shouting “HEY JEN! YOU'VE FUCKED UP!” 

But you know what, nip it at the bud and take a deep breath. Instead listen to the word of Dannels and have comfort that I will get better at this with more experience and will soon gain credibility as well. It might suck now but the situation will get better with time.

As the character Delia from Beetlejuice says “Every success begins with sucks… but ends with yes. SucksYes!” so it might suck right now, but without a doubt, it will all end out well. #SucksYes!

A Note to the Good Girls and Smart Women Within Us All

A note to my Sisters -

When I look into my classrooms, I see both Good Girls and Smart Women. However, these are not separate students - the Good Girls in my class are Smart Women. As questions are posed and discussions unravel, I see Good Girls battling within to further silence not only their voices but ultimately the Smart Women within themselves. This silence comes from a fear of disrupting the status quo of what it means to be feminine and imposing their voices on others, as well as the belief that voice subtracts from their niceness.

While white heterosexual males dominate the classroom without hesitation it is the Good Girls who watch on as if it is a part of a performance, processing what has been said and internalizing their own thoughts. While 'dynamic' African American women ooze with self-confidence and the enate ability to speak their mind to get to the heart of the issue it is the Good Girls that gaze in amazement with a storm cloud of envy brewing within. And through all this, it is me, the teacher who watches the Good Girl in desperation with the hopes to be graced by their voices.

As I watch the Good Girls, I assume my role as a classroom researcher who is continuously evaluating my teaching and my students' learning. I see all the ways in which my classroom practices are not empowering or inclusive to the Good Girl. I never believed that self-actualization could be achieved in the classroom, that through my teaching there is opportunity for students to realize and fulfill their own possibilities. I have come to learn through the Bell and Golombisky reading that I have the tools to help Good Girls reach self-actualization, embrace the Smart Women within them, and realize the value of their voices.

As someone who has never been a Good Girl, I see the importance of engaging in classroom practices that give life to the voices of not just the man's-man or the dynamic students but also Good Girls. To do otherwise is to be oppressive, by further silencing the voices of those who have been socialized to approach communicating their thoughts apprehensively, disvalue their ideas, and undermine the Smart Woman within them.

I also must understand the burden placed on African American women that strips away their innocence and childhood by assuming that they are 'born' Smart Women. This belief is oppressive in nature, reinforces white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, and perpetuates the demonization and hypersexualization of black girls. I make this point to raise awareness of the dangers of the belief that black girls are 'born' to be loud or bossy in nature or 'women' but instead understand they have been socialized to use their voice as a performative strategy to assert their presence in a society that has worked to dismiss their experiences, thoughts, and ideas. Within these black girls, there is envy for the Good Girl who does not have to carry this heavy burden. Envy for the Good Girl who does not carry the at times paralyzing weight of ensuring sexism and racism do not silence their voice any longer.

I, along with hooks, believe in the possibility of true sisterhood between not just black and white women but Smart Women and Good Girls who have yet to embrace the Smart Women within themselves. Through this solidarity, it is my hope that our classrooms can be a site for transformative acts of meaningful dialogue and reflexivity that trickle far beyond the classroom.

With love,

#misswittheS%#!

Teaching Good Girls

My favorite article that we read for class today is the one by Bell and Golombisky about Voices & Silences. I particularly identified with the section on Good Girls. I really liked that the authors acknowledged that they understand where Good Girls are coming from because they used to be them. I'm sure it will surprise no one who reads this to know that I fall pretty neatly into the category of Good Girl. Thankfully, I have had eye-opening experiences that have helped me become aware of both the performance and its consequences. Something that I'm invested in now is mentoring other Good Girls as they start to make the difficult transition to being Smart Women. As I write that, I want to acknowledge that I still fall into the Good Girl mentality at times, even now that I'm more self aware. I believe that this is something I'll need to keep working at throughout my entire life, because the pressure to be the Good Girl at all times is so insidious and pervasive.

 The anecdote that the authors recounted about not giving the student an answer of "okay" when she offered a superficial answer really hit home for me. Even after the two women had a conversation and got on the same page, "both women were bruised" (Bell and Golombsky, 2004, pg. 300). One of the characteristics of a Good Girl that comes naturally to me is the urge to protect others. I genuinely never want to cause harm to anyone else. However, this makes things difficult for me when it's a matter of short-term good/protection and long-term ignorance/harm, or vice-versa, as in the anecdote shared. By providing helpful feedback, the teacher was helping/protecting the student in the long run. However, in the short term, the exchange caused both participants a lot of hurt. I think it takes a lot of courage for someone who has been socialized as a Good Girl to be willing to cause short-term discomfort in order to help in the long-term.

As I reflect on the anecdote, my instinct is to try to think of alternate ways that the feedback could have been conveyed. My heart goes out to the student who was put on the spot and corrected in front of the entire class, especially within the context of this piece. What if that student often employed silences as a Good Girl and was pushing herself to participate in class in the example given? Being put in such an uncomfortable situation could have the effect of silencing her further. Certainly if I were put in a similar situation early in my undergraduate education, that would have been my response. I would have deliberately refrained from participating in class to protect myself from repeating such a demoralizing experience.

My point is, pushing the Good Girls too hard or in the wrong ways seems to me to have the potential to cause harm just as much as enabling the Good Girl behaviors. As I reflected in my previous post, forcing people to change before they're ready is a form of violence. I instinctively want to find a gentler, kinder way to help these Good Girls without causing harm to them. However, I also wonder if that's my own conditioning as a Good Girl raising its head, as I want to simultaneously protect these Good Girls and also help them learn and grow. But then I think about the literature we've read over the course of the semester about being an authentic teacher. To me, that instinct to protect and nurture is part of my authentic self, whether or not it came from my conditioning as a Good Girl. Palmer would say that I'm doing harm both to myself and to my students but not being authentic.

As I mull over these concepts, I find that I agree with Bell and Golombisky's conclusion to this section-- the best thing to do is to "make the dilemma explicit... thus re-skilling Good Girls to make informed choices" (Bell et. al., 2004, pg. 304). And as I offer feedback throughout the process of making the dilemma explicit, I will do my best to do so in a manner that is honest, straightforward, and also authentic to me.

What to Juggle

You’re back again, huh? Welcome, welcome. You can keep your ticket this time. The show is on me. 

Have we ever assessed how we create an open environment with our peers? We have talked a lot about how we engage with our students, but what about with our peers? Have we really taken the time to cultivate an open environment among each other? We might have an informal get together here and there, but I wonder if this is enough sometimes. Of course, it’s unrealistic to know how all of my colleagues tick, but it would be interesting to have another forum to get to know one another. Pedagogy has served as that meeting place, in some ways, but I hope that over the course of the next few semesters we find new and other ways to have that. I know that most of us, from pedagogy at least, will be taking introduction to graduate studies (I think that’s the course name) so hopefully that course will help foster more of a sense of family amongst us TAs. 

I wanted to reflect on a quote from hooks’s book Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. I could relate to a lot of what hooks says in the book and some of it was really interesting to see explained out in words that I would have never grasped for. Words to express things I did not know I had been feeling and words to express things that I had felt before but never really mulled on. 

I recall discovering hooks back in undergrad during one of my communication courses. We watched her video Cultural criticism and transformation. From there I tried to eat everything hooks on Youtube. For a while, I was on a hooks hook. I even got my aunt to feast alongside me and I gushed to my professor about the bonding activity hooks had created for my aunt and I. I had read other authors before, but at that time hooks seemed to feed my soul in a new way. Perhaps, it was the change in demographics that made me more attached to her in that moment. 

It is always inspiring to see someone who looks like me in an academic setting. It was usually something I never really thought of. But gradually as I got older, I began to notice, especially in college, as the black and brown faces of my teachers, professors, and faculty dwindled. However, the school’s president was a woman of color, which reminded me, even if I didn’t see the faces as much in my everyday life that I could go anywhere. It was feasible to be as I am and get where I want. I doubted myself relentlessly, usually just for being me. But, I realized others doubted me for what they saw on the outside.

“Students of color and some white women expressed fear that they will be judged as intellectually inadequate by these peers. I have taught brilliant students of color, many of them seniors, who manage never to speak in classroom settings. Some express the feeling that they are less likely to suffer any kind of assault if they simply do not assert their subjectivity” (bell hooks, p. 40)

To most, it’s no secret that I am a mouse in my personal classes, at least I try to be...or that’s the role at least that my brain instantly says I should play in that setting. I find that the cycle is so much harder to break in pedagogy specifically. I’m not exactly sure why this is the case. It could be the seating. All eyes can shift onto me, when I speak, (which is uncomfortable) though sometimes I do find certain head nods from peers to be encouraging. It is almost as if they understand what I am talking about. I’m glad to know that that makes one of us! Smaller groups seem to make me have increased communication apprehension. 

I second guess my perception of things quite a bit, regardless of what it is. I could know the answer backwards and forwards and still wonder if it was correct. But, this role is again different from 1010. I am not afraid to not know the answer there. I would love to have the answers for all of my students all of the time, but sometimes I cannot. Therefore, I am honest with them and say to them something like, “That is a good question. I don’t know the answer to that right now, but I will find out. ``. I am not afraid to be truthful with them and I have little shame in doing so. But in a graduate class of mine, I would shrivel up and die before such words would escape my mouth. I monitor myself a lot. I am secretly the government agent in my own life. Neither of us really stops listening, we’re always there, y’know? It’s just your average Tuesday. 

BIGS tip: Give yourself permission to feel, to do, and to be without provocation.

You can't force people to change

I did a presentation in my Performance History class last night about a scholar named Sarah Amira De la Garza. De la Garza is an ethnographer. She's very interested in embracing alternate methodologies and ontologies that challenge the hegemony that's rampant in academia currently (I know, it's a mouthful. Think hooks and Freire-- she's on board with their perspectives). As part of the assignment, I had the opportunity to speak to De la Garza on the phone and ask her about her work. One of the things that she said that really stood out to me was that forcing people to change before they're ready is a form of violence.

It's really easy for me to look at people around me who are not only content with, put actively participate in, perpetuating the current power imbalances in the world and want to persuade them to change their minds. Tying back into hooks and Freire, it's a form of violence to oppress people, and as such I want to convince people to do what they can to stop contributing to the oppression of others. However, De la Garza's point was a really good check for me. If I am trying to force others to adopt my beliefs, however right I believe that they are, I am oppressing and inflicting violence myself. Also, as a side note, it most likely won't even work, as it's impossible to force someone else to change. No human being has that power.

De la Garza's quote has led me to reflect back on many of the discussions that we've had in this class throughout the semester.  And yes, this includes Fish. I think this is a scenario where his caution about not teaching from a soap box is very relevant. But I also believe, along with Freire, that continuing to maintain the status quo is unacceptable as it perpetuates a form of violence. So what's the solution? I believe that it all comes down to dialogue, just as we've discussed in class. The key is to expose students to new ideas and ways of thinking without trying to influence them to adopt them. It's essential that I do not try to prevent them from speaking, even if what they're saying is, in my opinion, inappropriate. Instead, I can use that as a teaching moment and have a discussion about some of these larger issues.

Thankfully, this is still pretty theoretical for me. I'm not aware of any instances where I've tried to force people to my way of thinking (this is something I actively try to avoid, whether as a teacher or in other areas of my life). Though I suppose that doesn't mean that I haven't done it unwittingly. However, I think that it's important for me to actively do all I can to help and teach people while consciously trying to avoid oppressing them in any way. My reflexivity is key as I try to make my actions match up with my beliefs-- especially as I interact with others.

I feel like I keep coming back to this theme, but I suppose that's because it resonates with me so deeply. My job is to teach students how to think critically for themselves, and then trust them to use what they've learned in ways that they choose. I suspect that this will be the main point of my teaching philosophy paper, as all the theories and tools that we discuss in class are ultimately, for me, ways to make this happen more effectively.

It's more than just teaching

I've been seeing so many memes lately saying "it's November. I'm tired" or "go to grad school they said..it'll be fun, they said..", and many more. 

It's November and I'm feeling it. The end of the semester is bringing final projects, papers, presentations, and everything in between. While I may be losing some steam here, I have to keep telling myself "it's worth it." The hours working on everything- teaching, grading, reading, writing- it's making me better. Getting my masters is more than just getting another diploma. Getting my masters is about being equipped with the skills and knowledge I need to confidently move to the next chapter in my professional career. Getting my masters and being in grad school is about the opportunities I have while I'm here.  

Being in grad school has taught me a lot already in my first semester. The biggest thing I've learned is that I am capable. I am capable of learning more than I thought I could, writing more than I ever have, and teaching independently. Teaching in grad school has exceeded my expectations by far. I came in not knowing what I was doing, and let's be honest I still have some days like that, but now I'm more confident when I walk into a classroom. All the readings this semester have slowly been influencing my outlook on teaching, and I'm thankful for the scholarship that has shaped my foundation of pedagogy. But one scholar, to me, stands out above all- Freire. 

Freire will be forever ingrained in my memory. He has been the most influential scholar from this semester regarding my approach to pedagogy. From him, I've learned that it's not just about reverting to a banking model of education. I don't want to be the teacher who mindlessly deposits information into my students expecting them to simply memorize it and repeat it (p. 72) Where's the power in that? Not with my students. The thing I hate to see is when students are blankly staring off when I'm talking. That's when I know I've lost them. That's when I know I need to get them up and moving and actively involved in the content. I don't want to be a teacher who dictates the power in the classroom, I want to engage in co-intentional learning and help work with students to engage in education as a practice of freedom (p. 81)

Freire leaves some big shoes to fill. Of course, I'm not perfect. I have to make a conscious effort to work with my students and actively distribute power in the classroom. It's going to take a lot of reflexivity and self-awareness for me to follow in Freire's footsteps. But I also want to be more in my pedagogy. I want to be a teacher that uses Freire's perspectives in combination with critical communication pedagogy, heart work, and engaged pedagogy. I want to offer my students tools they can use to feel empowered and become co-creators in their learning. 

It's more than just teaching. It's about talking with my students and engaging in dialogue. It's about empowering them. It's about breaking down barriers and making the classroom a place of learning and engagement. It's about speaking with my students and not for them. It's about questioning the positions in the classroom and making it a place of co-creation. It's about caring about them as individuals. My job is much more than just teaching. 

I'm grateful for the mentors, authors, fellow TAs, and friends who have helped guide me through my first semester of teaching. We almost have one semester, or two, under our belts!

#andthatstheT