Teaching Philosophy

As an introverted misfit child with an academic bent growing up on a twenty six mile island not steeped in intellectualism, reading provided an escape. Meg the Hen, Spot the Dog, Nancy Drew, Anne Frank, Anne of Green Gables were my companions and transported me to worlds within my imagination. By age six, I had written a story about a squirrel and her community which my indulgent mother and father helped me type up and send off to Penguin to fulfil my aspirations of becoming an author.  Unsurprisingly, Penguin declined but I knew that words and the stories I told had a place in the world and that through putting my words out into the world I created my identity. This relationship between literacy, action and identity fascinates me to this day and it is the skills and practices of being able to produce word products that assert students’ identity in the world that I aspire to teach students who enter my classroom. 

Enabling students to create a public identity as producers of written products first requires me to understand their private identities.  I incorporate visual reference check-ins at the beginning of every class to ensure every student feels seen, heard and cared for.  Primacy of investigation of student identity also transfers into my role in class. As a teacher of literacy one of my key goals is to empower students to develop and hear their own voice.  I keep instructions brief and use open-ended questions and phrases like “Tell me more” to encourage expansive thought. I set myself a one minute think time timer to allow every processor time to show up. Establishing a classroom culture in which individual identities are valued and nurtured creates a sense of security that allows students to explore and express who they are in that moment. 

Nothing is ever developed in a vacuum: our identities are formed as much in reaction to others as from our own exploration. Enabling students to explore who they are as readers and writers of different mediums of text is a second but equally important goal of my humanities instruction. I incorporate content from writers, artists and activists (Ta Nehisi Coates, Sandra Cisneros and Layla Saad)  whose voices are culturally responsive and demonstrate how all identities claim a voice and place in the world. I have also engaged with the counter narratives of the foundation of America, Trump, Twitter and the purpose of the First Amendment to ensure that students see their own histories and identities reflected in the vision of the world I present. By using culturally responsive texts I make my classroom a space where all students' identities are mirrored back to them and from which they emerge with strengthened self-concepts to incorporate into their writing products. 

My final goal is for students to refine their identities by experimenting with different modes of work product. My full classroom takeover project will develop students' ability to identify and use rhetoric in words, video and image to produce opinion editorials or portfolio social media accounts that amplify their voice. I rely on model read aloud and defining success by reference to professional mentor texts to teach students that by using meta-cognitive thought they can assert their identity through any textual medium they like. Using professional mentor examples to drive assessment enables students to have agency over whether they believe their work is good enough or not and teaches them that skill building is a lifelong pursuit not just done for the purpose of a grade. Through the experience of serving their communities, I will enable students to see how reading, writing, speaking and listening skills they develop in class show up in a real world context and how developing these skills might serve them in the future. 

Entering into the humanities classroom in a teaching role, I plan to channel as much of that creative and practical six year old. My classroom will be a place where identity and voice flourishes, where creativity and advocacy are embraced. It will be a place of investigation and deep critical thought, not just about the techniques used by authors and journalists but also of the systems and structures omitted from history. So come along for the ride - I just can’t promise any squirrels.