Engaged Pedagogy and The Holistic Classroom: Foundational Beliefs and Knowledge

TRSL B: Educational Platform

Amy Hewett-Olatunde

Hamline University

May 10, 2012

Engaged Pedagogy and the Holistic Classroom: Foundational Beliefs and Knowledge

I sit here at my desk on a Friday afternoon at 2:00pm, the buses are gone, the

hallways are quiet, the sound of the trees are whispering outside my window. I am

reflecting on the week as I have always done for the past thirteen years. What could I

have done better? Was there a student I didn’t get the chance to talk to this week? Did

all of my students go home to enough food, enough love, and enough support? My heart

aches thinking of these things. My eyes well with tears just as my mum’s did so many

years ago when she talked about teaching, and the children in the world who were denied

education. Teaching is a gift, and those who do it are charged with an awesome

responsibility. To educate another person as the practice of freedom is teaching so anyone

can learn. This comes easiest to us who believe that our work is not only to share

information, but to share in the spiritual and intellectual growth of our students. We

respect and care for the souls of our students and provide the essential conditions where

learning deepens and becomes more intimate (hooks, 1994). Engaged pedagogy stresses

well-being. Teachers must be committed to a process of “self-actualization that promotes

their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students” (hooks,

1994). Teachers should employ the understanding that all children in the world are our

children, all children have the right to learn, all children have the capacity for greatness,

and all children deserve love and nurturing.

A Footprint in the Sand

The women who came before me always told I would become a teacher, but it fell

on deaf ears. My grandmother was a Sunday school teacher for 50 years and my mother

was a nursery school and elementary school teacher for 35 years. My mother told me

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about teaching near Dale and Selby back in the late 60’s. Being the only white woman in

a black neighborhood along with the racial tension that existed in that era was intense.

“The social fabric of community is formed from an expanding shared sense of belonging.

It is shaped by the idea that only when we are connected and care for the well-being of

the whole that a civil and democratic society is created” (Block, 2009, p. 9). My mother

felt connected to this community and framed her thinking around the idea that

“communities are built from the assets and gifts of their citizens, not from the citizens’

needs or deficiencies” (Block, 2009, p. 14). Poverty, racial tension, and inequality

enveloped this neighborhood from the outside, but transformation was constructed in that

community where the citizens chose to pull together to produce a desired outcome

(hooks, 1994). This is what my mother witnessed, and she believed it was her civic and

moral duty to give a quality education to every child in her classroom. “When citizens

care for each other, they become accountable to each other. Care and accountability

create a healthy community” (Block, 2009, p. 30). She held this mentality and saw the

light in every child she taught, and knew her responsibility was to provide each child with

the belief that they could succeed and they were loved. This would, in turn, help create

this collective community. Our current context is a far way from one of generosity, gifts,

and accountability. “The dominant context we now hold is one of deficiencies, interests,

and entitlement. Out of this context grows the belief that the suffering of communities is

a set of problems to be solved” (Block, 2009, p. 32). There was no problem to be solved;

there were children who needed the opportunity to develop to their own true potential.

This was a catalyst for my mum’s philosophy of education and eventually mine.

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Then, after marriage and three children, she found herself in a very different

environment from the urban streets of Saint Paul, Minnesota. She started a nursery school

in a small town in southern Manitoba. As I grew up, I was exposed to a different kind of

teaching. The way in which my mother mapped out the year and developed innovative

activities for her three and four year olds was nothing short of spectacular. She wasn’t

their friend; she was who they looked up to, followed, and loved, because she loved them

with overt and sincere affection. This is where my educational foundations were

imprinted.

Through lived experience

As time passed, teaching had become woven into my blood both from what I had

seen and what I had started doing. My knowledge base was in part due to my mother but

also gained through various experiences. In hindsight, my experiences with teaching

never became visible to me until many years later. My first experiences with teaching

began in the water where I taught the art of the stroke and resuscitation. I then used my

breath to teach my mother tongue in Norway. Leaving Norway with trills exploding in

my mouth, I became a Norwegian instructor that began north of the border and led me

south to Concordia College. Throughout all of this, my mum asked, “What are you going

to do with your life? What is your plan?” My response being, “I want to be an artist, an

interior designer or maybe a carpenter.” That was not the response she wanted to hear.

“You need to get a teaching license or a nursing degree, because the world always needs

teachers and nurses.” Well, the thought of being a teacher was the last thing I wanted to

do and being a nurse had never crossed my mind. “You have been given the ability to

teach and not everyone is that lucky. Use it to your advantage, Amy.” I felt my talent

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was being an artist, painting, writing poetry, and designing, all of which were far more

inspiring that being in education or medicine. Little did I know that my mum’s words

would become my reality sooner than I thought.

One night in the early spring of 1999, an opportunity was presented to me, which

I accepted. Stuck in a horrible job unrelated to my college degree, I was ready for any

kind of change from my monotonous existence. I volunteered for the first time at an after-

school club called the ‘International Kids’ Club’. That night changed the path of my life

forever. It was in those two hours and the nights that followed for the next few months

that I saw the infinite beauty of these children (and their parents). These children were

my children, they had the right to learn, they had the capacity for greatness, and they

deserved to be loved and nurtured.

The future unfolds

Fast-forward three years with a Master’s Degree in Education and an ELL

License where I landed in the right place at the right time. Just four blocks from where I

had received my degree, LEAP High School welcomed me. Within these walls, I found

students from over 30 different countries, from backgrounds of poverty, oppression, and

illiteracy, and I felt I had found my way ‘home’. Although I had no children of my own,

I had them. They were and still are my heroes. In Garrison Keillor’s “Thank Our

Immigrant Heroes”, he sheds light on many of the populations I teach.

Thank Our Immigrant Heroes

To give up your country is the hardest thing a person can do: to leave the

old familiar places and ship out over the edge of the world to America

and learn everything over again different than you learned as a child,

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learn the new language that you will never be so smart or funny in as in

your true language. It takes years to start to feel semi-normal. And yet

people still come from Russia, Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos,

Ethiopia, Iran, Haiti, Korea, Cuba, Chile, and they come on behalf of

their children, and they come for freedom. Not for our land (Russia is

as beautiful), not for our culture (they have their own, thank you), not

for our system of government (they don't even know about it, maybe

not even agree with it), but for freedom. They are heroes who make an

adventure on our behalf, showing by their struggle how precious

beyond words freedom is, and if we knew their stories, we could not

keep back the tears. (Keillor, 1998, Newsweek)

The dedication and passion I feel towards the refugee/newcomer population is

immeasurable. Every experience I have had working with English Language Learners has

been an honor and a privilege. I have felt deeply blessed each and every day spending

my life with children to senior citizens who come from countries of limited resources. I

have come to know myself better as a woman, an individual, and a teacher. Every human

being has the ability to learn. Every human being should be given the right to learn and

be fostered in an environment that regards education and the development of its people.

A Constructivist Approach

Education never ends, the knowledge you gain deepens with time, and all people

deserve an above average education. Time and experience have shown me that there is

always a way to teach to the individual and “foster intellectual, sociomoral, and affective

development” (DeVries & Zan, 2005, p. 132). In order to create a constructivist

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classroom, mutual respect must be continually practiced in a sociomoral atmosphere.

This type of atmosphere is referred to as the entire network of interpersonal relations that

make up a child’s experience in school” (DeVries & Zan, 2005, p. 132). In this day and

age of increased behavior management and a growing achievement gap, children need

teachers to be present and proactive in the classroom. Every day that I walk into my

classroom, I am excited for the day, and to get involved with all of my students. One of

the tragedies of education today is that there are “a lot of people who don’t recognize that

being a teacher is being with people” (hooks, 1994, p. 165). Educators need to

acknowledge and take into consideration that shifting their paradigms to reflect a

multicultural standpoint should not be a fearful concept (hooks, 1994, p. 36). We are all

connected to each other, and until humankind recognizes this, children suffer.

Towards the summit

It was just days ago that I read the most personal story I have ever written in my

Level 4 Perspectives in Language and Literature class. Before reading my narrative to the

class every year, I have to mentally prepare for a day or two with prayer and

visualization. You see, the story is about my mum’s death back in August of 2003. The

narrative goes into great detail of how cancer took hold of her and she eventually

succumbed to the disease and passed away in my arms. The emotional impact is raw, for

the students and myself. The intent is not to make my students cry and feel sorry that I

lost my mum, but to “to share, to confess. Engaged pedagogy does not seek simply to

empower students” (hooks, 1994, p. 21). A holistic model of learning allows the

classroom to be a place where teachers grow, and can be empowered by the process. If

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we refuse to be vulnerable, how can we encourage students to take risks (hooks, 1994, p.

21)? This empowerment has revealed powerful and personal narratives on their behalf.

Pa Cher, a Karen student from Thailand, is deeply invested in the personal

narrative he is writing for me. Pa Cher passes in his paper along with the other students

on the due-date. As usual, I bring home the essays, and after I put my children to bed, I

prepare for a long night ahead. I decide to read Pa Cher’s first because it is the longest

with 24 handwritten, pages. I have to get comfortable for this. It was in this narrative that

he told me the story of his first love, a Thai soldier. He came out to me and to the world,

so to speak. I laughed, I cried, I felt what he felt, and it was beautiful; I was humbled. I

was humbled to be the person he shared this information with. The next day when he got

to school and saw me, he looked nervous. I went up to him and gave him a hug and said,

“Thank you for trusting me. You are a beautiful person.” What happened later that day

was nothing short of spectacular; Pa Cher stood up in front of the class, took a deep

breath, and told everyone he was gay. The classroom, with 18 students, seven different

cultures, young men and women, clapped. “Hearing each other’s voices, individual

thoughts, and sometimes associating these voices with personal experience makes us

more acutely aware of each other” (hooks, 1994, p. 186) There are times when a person’s

personal experience keeps him from reaching the mountaintop. He has to let go because

the weight of it is too heavy. It is sometimes the case where the mountaintop is difficult

to reach with all his resources, factual and confessional, so he is just left grasping, feeling

the limitations of how to reach the climax. (Block, 2009, p. 92). I witnessed Pa Cher

make it past the first ridge on his way to the summit.

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A Single Wish

My single wish is that each and every person in the world understands that

educating and treasuring our children is the only hope we have for a future. And the

words of my mum echo in my ear, ““You have been given the ability to teach and not

everyone is that lucky. Use it to your advantage, Amy.” I have and I will. Mum, thank

you for seeing my light, so it may shine upon those who have been hidden in the dark for

far too long.

“Memories of Childhood” (Therein lies the silhouette of my mother’s face, unbeknownst to me at the time.)

“Into the Light: From Oppression to Progression” (A tribute to my students)

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References

Block, P. (2009). Community: The structure of belonging. San Fransisco, CA:

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

DeVries, R. & Zan, B. (2005). A constructivist perspective on the role of the sociomoral

atmosphere in promoting children’s development, In Fosnot, C.T. (Ed.).

(2005). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2nd ed.). New York:

Teachers College Press.

Fosnot, C.T. (Ed.). (2005). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2nd ed.).

New York: Teachers College Press.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom.

New York: Routledge.

Keillor, G. (1998, July 4). Thank our immigrant heroes. Newsweek. Retrieved from

http://openweb1.salon.com/blog/jraney67/2012/02/19/thank_our_immigrant_heroes

Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. M. (2006). How languages are learned. Oxford England:

Oxford University Press.

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GED 8514: Doctoral Writing Seminar (Spring, 2012)TRSL B: Rubric for Revised and Expanded Educational Platform

Strong - shows control and skill; many strengths presentMaturing - strengths outweigh weaknesses; small amount of revision neededDeveloping - strengths and weaknesses are about equal; first-draft stageEmerging - isolated moments begin to show what writer intends; need for revision outweighs strengthsNot Yet - getting started, but the result is unclear, struggling, tentative; writer is searching and exploring

MAJOR CRITERIA Not Yet Developing Maturing StrongIdeas and ContentClearly identifies espoused theory(ies) and/or beliefs.Provides concrete, relevant examples and descriptions that illuminate the platform’s ideas.Cites (paraphrased or verbatim) specific authors, theorists, researchers that support platform ideas.Comments:

OrganizationComposes a platform that is logically sequenced and well-organized so that the reader may move easily through text.Provides an obvious and inviting introduction that draw the reader in.Provides a synthesizing or summarizing conclusion that gives closure and resolution.Includes thoughtful transitions between sentences and paragraphs.Comments:

ADDITIONAL CRITERIA Not Yet Developing Maturing StrongVoiceConnects with audience through interesting topic focus and relevant details that reveal the writer’s ideas or points of view.Comments:

Conventions/Citations/FormatDemonstrates standard spelling, punctuation and grammar.Cites sources accurately in the platform.Cites sources accurately in Bibliography or Reference List.Formats platform according to requirements.Comments:

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