One of the longest threads connecting many of my courses in college is the idea of social justice and equity which are ideas that I also want to extend to the classroom. Although there is not a particular subject that explores this area, it is an incredibly important aspect of education that must be present in all subjects. As such, including other narratives in the classroom, critiquing power and hegemony, and understanding institutionalized inequality were some of the core qualities in several of my classes that I want to bring into my own teaching in whatever spaces that may be.

 

One class that with a lot of relevant readings was my Multicultural Education course that explored what it means to have diversity in the classroom, what that might look like, and how to navigate those complex spaces. Because of the subject matter of the course, we were constantly exploring issues of power and inequality. One reading - Race: Some Teachable and Uncomfortable Moments - really provided me with a greater context on how to have these conversations in the classroom and how to be okay with the discomfort that comes with bringing more sensitive topics to the forefront of students’ minds. Another reading - The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children - was also really powerful to me in allowing me to understand the racialized differences in the ways that we are expected to learn how to teach and how these differences can be positively or negatively associated with white or Black teachers. These readings and other readings in this class have not only provided pathways for having difficult conversations with students, but also provided a lot of the context needed to better understand the social context of these issues to be better be able to speak on them.

 

Another class with a lot of relevant readings as well was my Advocating Diversity in Higher Education class which explored how students and administrators might incorporate diversity on their campuses and what that diversity might look like. Similar to the Multicultural Education class, there were a lot of readings that gave me a new perspective on how to engage in difficult conversations. One reading - The Profound Emptiness of Resilience - really sticks out in my mind because of its focus on problematizing the need to center painful narratives in order to display a resiliency often expected from students of color and low-income students. Another reading - Students as Leaders and Learners: Toward Self-Authorship and Social Change on a College Campus - pertain specifically to me because it took a deeper look into how students act as leaders on their college campuses and what that process of engagement looked like. These readings, and others in the class, provided me with greater personal support in terms of restructuring how I thought about how to engage students not only in the classroom, but also in their lives and/or on campus.

 

In terms of courses that have prepared me to teach on specific subject matter, different courses have allowed me to see different ways in which information can be presented and engaged with in either productive or unproductive ways. I have learned a lot about what can be expected of students, but also about how to make assessments and content more interesting and engaging to students so that they will want to engage in their own learning. An example of this was having to create a project that encompassed our learning for the semester in the two education courses listed above. While the students could choose the format in which they were presented (which was also a great way to allow students choice in their learning), I really enjoyed creating websites as my final projects because it taught me practical skills about website creation and allowed me to learn the content that I was invested in.

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*Links to the readings mentioned above and additional readings are previded to the left.