Empowering Students Through Grading #empowered

 It has been an interesting first month of being in academia, even tangetially. I'm learning a lot about teaching, students, and myself, and how all three are affected by experiences and expectations. I wasn't sure what to expect out of this experience, but I was pretty certain I would have to do a lot of grading. Sure enough, that is a major responsibility of mine right now. 

I grew up going to pretty highly rated schools. All public schools, but probably about as private as a public school can get. It was a phenomenal education, one that I didn't appreciate until later in life when I realized I had developed certain skills that peers of mine might not have. I remember my freshman year of undergrad my roommate on a whim asked me to review one of his papers. It was terrible. He switched writing perspectives constantly, had run-ons everywhere, and had no concept of a thesis. I couldn't believe he had gotten into college with an essay that might have looked like that. The thing is, he's a brilliant guy. He is always so articulate in conversations and has some level of insight into anything he's asked about. But he didn't grow up learning those same writing skills that I had, which led to him getting worse grades on papers he turned in. Should his educational background affect his ability to succeed in a class that much?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I grade students papers and case studies. It all culminated when we discussed grading as a form of oppression, and teachers as oppressors. I was prescribed a certain way of learning, writing, and grading, and I feel compelled to subject my students now to that same prescription. Not really for any other reason besides the fact that that's all I know. Certainly there are students who weren't prescribed to the same education growing up, and their experiences contradict my own. Does that warrant receiving poor grades on their assignments? What does that say about me that I only grade to my expectations and am unable to understand the context of their education?

Freire discussed the idea of "education as a practice of freedom" and how true education can lead to liberation. I feel compelled to empower students to seek this freedom and knowledge, but realize that my actions of grading to my expectations are doing the opposite. True empowerment will require students from all educational backgrounds to thrive in an environment where their individual strengths can be shown.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have received the education I did, and it’s ok that I was afforded that privilege. Just as it’s ok that students who come from different educational backgrounds might not have those same skills that I had during my undergraduate years. But each student has a strength that I probably haven’t found yet. If I am to truly empower students then it is my obligation to give each student a chance to display those strengths, without being held down by the arbitrary grades I give them based on my educational expectations. I think this is the first step in understanding what it means to really empower students.

 

Freiere, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin Education.

I do not want to be an oppressor...

After this week’s discussion over our reading and understanding of Pedagogy and the Oppressed by Paul Freire, I discovered that as a teacher I am an oppressor. Initially, it was unsettling to see myself outside of the consistent role of being oppressed based on the color of my skin and my gender; but the assertion of power I reflect upon my students is indeed a form of questionable oppression. 

When I started teaching this semester, I noticed that the position came naturally to me, and I really liked because I felt an overwhelming amount of confidence just in the first week. I said to myself and several other people “I really enjoy being in roles of power.” Thinking back at that statement after reading Paul Freire’s (1970/2000) text, I am disgusted with myself that I found that feeling to be enjoyable and had the never to speak aloud about the feeling using that specific terminology? I was not #Mindful whatsoever in how my statement may have come across to other individuals in my same role as an educator let alone the individuals of a different race who could have overheard the inappropriate comment. 

I am #Learning that this is an ignorant manner of depicting leadership and how I stated my role as an educator is not how the role resonates with me in having power over other people. I am going to make a conscious effort to engage in appropriate #MindfulLearning when it comes to the Dialogue, I chose to reflect my feelings associated with my actions. If Dialogue requires “an intense faith in human-kind, faith in their power to make and remake, to create and re-create faith in their vocation to be more fully human” (Freire, 1970/2000, pp. 90) I should be implementing this practice with my students to establish a trusting relationship.

I have a student who I have been disappointed with for a couple of weeks now and I have recently become #Mindful that losing faith in him as a student is not practicing the foundation of love and humility that I should be instilling into him as an educator.For the past six weeks, he has shown up to his lecture over thirty minutes late. Our recitation is right after the lecture, and he will come in over thirty minutes late as well. He also has the lowest grade in my class and asks for accommodations thirty minutes before an assignment is due at midnight.  

I have had several conversations with him about his tardiness and his explanation is that he does not know where the buildings are located. I told him that he could walk with me to our recitation, but he chooses not too.  I told myself that if he continued to disrupt my teaching environment by walking in late that I would ask him to leave the classroom but after reading Freire’s text I will not do that because that feels like an over assertion of power, and I want to establish equal opportunity in my classroom. I do not want to engage in the practice of abusing the power given to me because of my own frustration. Taking away the opportunity to learn away from any of my students even if it is due to their own faults is oppressive. 

What I am going to be #MindfullyLearning and practicing moving forward is serving as a guide to my students and talking through the different and specific ways they can succeed in their undergraduate career. Instead of telling my specific student to “please do better” I need to provide him with different options and approaches in which he can try to do so, even if it seems remedial. I want to show him that I care about him as a student and most importantly as a human being in this learning community. 

I do not enjoy being in positions of power, I enjoy being in positions of guidance. #MindfulLearning

Source:

Freire, P.  (1970/2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition. New York:  Continuum.

Queering the Traditional Classroom

 On my first day leading class this semester, a kind student approached me nervously and confided in me that they had a 6-year-old who would need to join us for class most weeks. I watched her face as she began to describe the details of WHY he must join us and HOW she would occupy him and all the ways she tried so hard to make this work and her deepest apologies for putting me in this position.

I felt anger. 

It wasn’t directed towards them. Truth be told, I adore kids and couldn’t wait to see them in class. My anger was towards the situation that makes it impossible for so many women and people who can get pregnant who are constantly in a position where they may have to sacrifice their needs or wants for their kids. I know that parenting comes with sacrifice, but when we look at the research, children and families overall are more successful when parents have college degrees. It affects their income, job flexibility, places they can live and move to, the schools they attend, childcare is more easily afforded to those with better paying jobs, often achieved through college education (Miller, 2011). 

Miller writes about the ways pregnant people should simply delay their pregnancies to prioritize career to achieve all these options (2011, p. 1098). But we must acknowledge the disparity in this. Pregnancy is not always planned or even wanted. And if it is wanted, it may not be wanted at the TIME it happens. I could speculate all day on the reasons pregnancy is or is not wanted and truth be told, it doesn’t matter. Because there shouldn’t be speculation or judgement on parents, I as a teacher shouldn’t look at my student with kids and say “you should have waited to have your child after education.”

That isn’t my job. My job is to do everything I can to teach people. And teaching differently for different people. My job isn’t to just mold traditional students or only benefit them. My job is to emphatically welcome every student under my wing and adjust my teaching so they can all grow. 

I long for a world where women and pregnant-abled people can be afforded the same opportunities as those who don’t worry about pregnancies. Once I listened to my favorite undergraduate professor recall how her lectures in her final year of PHD were often done with her baby in hand. Childcare was not afforded to her in her PHD. While I know and admire her strength in doing that, I also believe that parents shouldn’t have to do that. I believe childcare should be a right, not a luxury. 

So step into my queer world for a moment. Envision how free childcare for all could greater increase education for all. Opportunities for all. While I don’t have the ability to cultivate free childcare in the United States, I do have the ability to embrace my student and her child and welcome the child into class every week. It is so easy to take an extra minute to have a conversation with a 6 year old who wants to explore and engage. I can accommodate with GRACE and LOVE. I can reimagine what a classroom can look like and what education looks like by changing my perception of the traditional student. Queering the college classroom allows me to look past how students ‘should’ act in class and allows me to see what students need in class. For this student, she needs a teacher ready to embrace and accept her motherhood and her child. For another student, they will need something entirely different, and I feel thankful for each one of my students that engage in tailoring my teaching to their needs. And I feel especially thankful for my student who has given me the opportunity to firsthand engage in ways motherhood can take different forms in the college experience. #EducatedWorldmaking gives me the opportunity to queer my classroom and to embrace the ways my students teach me and how all of our combined circumstances creates a community where we must lean on each other and help each other.

 

Miller, A. R. (2011). The effects of motherhood timing on career path. Journal of Population Economics, 24(3), 1071–1100. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41488341

I am not okay... and that is okay.

I often wonder if we as living, breathing, and communicating human beings are aware that sometimes, it is okay to not to be okay. Every day may seem repetitive in a sense, but each of our individually different days consist of different emotions, situations, and outcomes that can either have a positive or negative affect on each of us. My ultimate goal in promoting #MindfulLearning is to create a protective and open atmosphere by using this post and future blog posts to acknowledge my everyday thoughts and feelings about being a young woman who is currently a full-time master’s student and a part time teacher with two other jobs outside of school. 

When you are practicing being #Mindful that means you are making yourself aware of your thoughts, emotions, and how you are feeling mentally and physically. I am #mindful that I am an emotional and sensitive individual. I cry a lot; I get overly upset at small things when I am under a lot of stress and pressure. Most of the time, I get so overwhelmed to the point where I shut down and shut everyone out. On top of my crippling anxiety and chronic depression, I am a Black woman that is constantly reminded that I do not look black, so I must be mixed. I am a black woman so I must have at least two children by now. I am a black woman so I must be insane. I am a black woman, therefore anything and everything I do or say matters ten times more than the next race because Black women are heavily stereotyped to be angry, poor, miserable, loud, uneducated, aggressive, unapproachable, and or “ghetto”. I constantly have to fight the stereotype placed upon me and be #mindful of how I may be perceived ultimately for the comfortability of others. 

Gendron (2019) developed a mindfulness program referred to as Acceptance Commitment Training (ACT) in effort to develop students’ emotional competencies. Rather than teaching individuals to control their thoughts and feelings, the ACT promotes individuals to observe, accept, and embrace their feelings and emotions (especially the ones we do not want to talk about). Implementing this training can promote better “self-esteem, self-knowledge, and relation with others as empathy or conflict management”(Gendrom, 2019). I am teaching myself how to unlearn this practice of shrinking myself and my personality to make other people fit when they never belonged in the first place. I am ready to learn how to accept myself and be accepted while being my true authentic self, including all of the emotion, stress, and sometimes negative thoughts that can come with being me, without judgement. The Acceptance and Commitment training can help us all learn how to cope and fight through our painful thoughts, emotions, memories, and perceptions in order to reach our goals and concentrate on what is most important by using six processes: cognitive diffusion, acceptance, contact with the present moment, observing the self, values, and committed action (Gendrom, 2019).

In the cognitive diffusion process, we will be #learning how to reduce our natural tendency to conceptualize thoughts, images, emotions, and memories. During the acceptance process we will be #learning how to not struggle with our thoughts by allowing them to come but also allowing them to go. When #learning how to stay in contact with the present moment, we will concentrate on the here and now, not yesterday or tomorrow but right now. In the process of observing the self, we will be #learning our values and what is most important to our true selves and in the process of committed action we will be #learning how to set our goals in alignment to what we value the most and responsibly carrying out those goals (Gendrom, 2019).

In order to teach #MindfulLearning to our students, we must first engage and practice learning about ourselves and be comfortable in verbalizing who we are and how we feel. 

If you are open to growing and being venerable with me, I would like to invite you to engage with me in the therapeutic technique of #MindfulLearning. I look forward to learning with you and learning more about you.

Mindfully,

Chrissy Stephenson

Source:

Gendron, B. (2019). Emotional Capital, Positive Psychology, and Active Learning and Mindful Teaching. New Directions for Teaching & Learning, 2019 (160), 63–76. https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1002/tl.20365

A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With One Step

#beYOUtiful

That intention to be a teacher in a university somewhere sat on my list for a long time. I had no idea where to start, to be honest, I was intimidated.  A big chunk of doubt crept in even though I’d been teaching in a non-academic environment, I knew exactly what I was doing then but lost all the school of thought in the new setting. I almost talked myself out of this possibility, but instead, I have decided to lean in. Leaning in so far has given me the opportunity to start my first ever teaching journey in an academic setting (UNT)

The inner critic is an interesting thing and, if we are open enough, a great teacher.

 

Today I invite you to stop playing small. Let this be your turn to shine, let this be your time to time, to be your greatest and grandest version, be magnificent you, in the best possible way.

I want you to start speaking your truth more and start living your life exactly how you want. 

I hope your real purpose be revealed to you soon.

 

I strongly insist that you must use these remaining 3 months of the year in becoming the person you always wanted to be and illuminate your world with your inborn abilities, talents, and person. Always tell yourself that you’re choosing to take care of yourself so that you can show up in your roles full vs. depleted.

 

I want you to stop telling yourself that you are faulty, lacking, or incomplete somehow- that you don’t have what others possess to be happy and successful, that you don’t have what it takes to make your life great.

Be committed to showing up for yourself because you’re worthy of your own time, space, and energy.

Remember, no one has what it takes at the beginning of their life journey, we all learn and acquire what’s needed during the journey.

You should create the life you desire by slowing down and turning inward.

Nourish yourself by saying no to overextending and yes to more rest.

 

Remember you are only stuck if you let yourself be stuck. Start doing something that will bring some positive change in your life today and then tomorrow.

 

Remember on this journey, you should outgrow who you once were and project towards who you’re destined to be. Honor your process and stay close to your truth no matter what.

 

I must remind you again that inside you are a star, an incredible person, and a divine being. You have always been enough.

In doubts? Look into the mirror and give yourself some re-affirmation that you got this. I will start: “Hi my name is Cynthia. and I am capable.” Say it with me. “Hi, my name is (Insert name) and I am capable.” Rather, “Hi, we are capable.”

Be comfortable with your heads up high when saying these repeatedly. Let’s call it a daily dose of re-affirmation.

 

Your sleeping genius is ready to wake up, your hidden greatness is ready to manifest, your real worth is ready to sprout. Allow your own sunshine (your passions, natural talents, and abilities) to bloom your seeds of greatness.

 

 

#beYOUtiful

 

SOURCES

hooks, bell. Engaged pedagogy: A transgressive education for critical consciousness, 1998

dannels, deanna. 8 Essential question teachers ask: A guidebook for communicating with students, 2005 

 

Writing as World Making

    Before I introduce the topic of my first post, I wanted to introduce myself and my purpose in mapping #EducatedWorldmaking throughout this semester. As a teacher I am invested in the ways education should go beyond the parameters of the classroom and how education should be an integrated process. Education is impactful when students have agency in creating their own connections to the content instead of being information regurgitating robots. I implement world making as my blog post’s theory/theme to interrogate how deconstructing hegemonic standards of education and living should be deconstructed. 

For this blog I want to look at how world making can be integrated into my classroom. World making is developed through our symbolic activities where individuals can create meanings and collaborate with other student and teacher’s created social meanings. I draw from research conducted by Stornaiulo and Whitney to see how writing can be implemented as a world making tool (2018). As I teach 3010 this semester, I find it important to tap into writing as a world making activity and the implications for it in the classroom. 

As Stornaiulo and Whitney analyze, writing is a world making tool when students use it to write themselves into narratives they are excluded and left out in. I can already see how this can be encouraged in 3010 in two ways. First, encouraging students to use their research proposal to challenge normative practices in academia would be a productive endeavor I would love to help guide them in. When we consider the formalities of academia are sometimes steeped in whitewashed and classist practices, allowing students to engage in writing that challenges these notions can create a world in which academia is accessible to all willing to engage in it. Secondly, when students are crafting proposals, allowing students who experience marginalization to find the gaps in literature that leave them out can help bridge gaps of research, therefore creating a world in which more people are included. Worlds cannot be constructed individually, worlds are always parts of collaboration and multiple people crafting them, therefore a role I have as instructor is to be a collaborator in building these worlds and seeking out other spaces that build these worlds as well. 

While I believe in the power of the flipped power classrooms, I do believe the ‘power’ I hold should take form in introducing my students to multi-cultural information and to disseminate information in ways that highlights marginalized voices, and the ways hegemony has been solidified in place. As I guide my students through their writing process, taking a further step to ensure materials and lectures provided to them are not complacent in hegemonic structures or at the very least highlighting the problematic areas and why they are. 

To conclude, as I teach, I want to ground all discussions in materials in diverse representations while also helping them challenge hegemony. By doing these things, we can implement accurate representation. Once these representations are the expectation, we can help them implement these materials into their writing. Allowing their research and writings to be spaces where normative standards can be challenged and resisted, world making can begin happening in my 3010 classroom.

Stornaiuolo, A., & Whitney, E. H. (2018). Writing as Worldmaking. Language Arts, 95(4), 205-217. https://libproxy.library.unt.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-                      journals/writing-as-  worldmaking/docview/2010773128/se-2?accountid=7113

an inconvenient start.

Click.

The light flicks on. My eyes shoot open to the sound of jingling keys and rustling plastic. I scan my brain to try to remember hat day it is. Yep, legs are still angling on top of one another as I am sill pressing up against the desk bar that's only a few inches above the carpet floor. My left hip is screaming at me again, no that I'm awake. It recognizes that it is sore, again. I pick up my phone to see if there's any progress at burning away the night. It's barely past 1. Six more hours of this.

----- - - - -----

It's only been a week since school had started. Two since the week long Teaching Assistant orientation. And yet, the anxiety that had built up since stepping onto the green and eagle clad campus hadn't gone away. At this point, others had already gone up to face their students, had gone to face their own anxieties, and came back to regale about their adventures under the banner of 'it wasn't too bad.' I, on the other hand, felt like a late bloomer, feeling so far behind as I had yet to face the horde. No grades to submit, no one requesting an office hour, no emails to reply to. Just waiting. Waiting for someone to need me.

Ledbetter and Finn talked about creating credibility, mainly through the use of PowerPoint and email. I saw other TAs create really engaging and creative PowerPoints in their down time. I saw emails being sent around, the occasional zero struck down in the gradebook, and yet, I haven't done anything. I was just uselessly existing in the TA space. What kind of credibility could I have based on all of that? I didn't present well enough at orientation to begin with, and now I became more uncertain if I can actually keep my promise to any of the students when I told them to email with any of their questions. Could I answer them correctly? Am I qualified to judge them when I don't know the material myself?     

And as I laid enervated, smushed between my office chair and desk, with the sound of the cleaning team taking out the garbage, I had hoped half-heartedly that they would return to the room and toss me out too. After 30 minutes when I was certain they had left, as I decided to weakly limp over to light switch to turn it off, I thought about how, in this moment, I had no one to lean on again. I could've asked for help, to spend the night, to burden someone with my existence again, but I couldn't bring myself to say the words. I had asked to use someone else's shower already, as much shame and embarrassment that had already brought me. I had no credibility, as an instructor or as a person.

----- - - - -----

But, #LifeGoesOn. Between sleep and watching 'Freedom Writers' so I could cry so my tears would prevent my contacts from drying out, I thought about my life before the pandemic, when I was just starting to feel comfortable and at home in my major of English. I kept putting myself in uncomfortable situations academically, which triggered domino effects throughout the rest of my life. I kept adding things. Even when at a certain point I should've stopped. I kept trying. And when I got up that morning at 7, and as I typed up my notes for Pedagogy for the next day, I wasn't as saddened by that night. As unqualified as I am, life is about trying. No one, I'd imagine, is a natural at being credible, but it's built up with effort. 

    I'll keep trying. Day by Day.

        #LifeGoesOn