I believe students learn best when they feel connected to their learning environment and are given authentic opportunities to collaborate and communicate with their peers in a structure that is responsive to their lives.
For my final project, I decided to make a website. I know, I know. How cliche, right? A teacher takes a class on digital media literacy and decides that the best use of her time moving forward is to make a class website. Real original. And yet, after watching Simon Sinek’s TED Talk “How great leaders inspire action” I was confronted with asking myself why I teach in the first place.
From a business perspective, Sinek repeatedly tells the audience that “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” (2010). Sinek asserts that the only reason people follow the leadership of one individual over another is due to that individual’s outward communication of their beliefs (as opposed to their title and power in the world). We listen to, and get inspired by, individuals who communicate their beliefs because at a biological level, we connect with what they say–their beliefs align with our own. Once this connection is made, we are willing to follow their lead. In terms of teaching, this is exactly what I suspect the majority, if not all, teachers hope for: that they can inspire their students to learn from them in spite of any obstacles that may impede their learning. So, I had to ask myself, what is my “why” anyway?
In order to get there, you need to know a bit more about me. Raised in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, I am a product of the Pawtucket Public School system. Depending on what part of Rhode Island you're from, you either see this as a positive or a negative fact.
Let’s start with the negative: Pawtucket is often referred to as “the bucket”. The stereotype I often encountered as a child (and still encounter to this day as an adult) is that Pawtucket is where people of little “worth” live. It’s trashy. What I know now that I didn’t know as a child is that this negative bias towards Pawtucket is a coded way of describing the average population of Pawtucket as racially and economically deficient. Which brings me to what I want to highlight as a positive: Pawtucket is a place of culture. Certainly, there are issues that need to be addressed within this community but I’m more concerned about making clear here in this post, that what outsiders of this community like to pigeon-hole as deficits are actually major strengths. Thanks to the diversity of Pawtucket, I grew up learning alongside people who were externally as well as internally different from me. Coming from a monolingual, conservative, working class household, my time in school enabled me to develop relationships with people across lines of differences repeatedly throughout my entire educational career.
It was only until college that I realized this was not the norm for everyone. I learned from many of my white, female roommates that attending URI was a bit of a culture shock for them because it was the first time in their lives that they had been around so many people of color. I recall myself being stunned when I heard this because as someone who just finished her TD Summer Program (iykyk), I felt like I was suddenly around A LOT of white people and often wondering where all my friends from Pawtucket and Central Falls had retreated to while on URI’s Kingston campus.
And this is where I need to go back a bit more. Until high school, I had never imagined myself being a college student. Although I grew up in a double-income household, with supportive parents, I was often left to my own devices to figure out how to navigate the world around me, so much so that when my brother was born, I quickly learned how to become both sister and caregiver. Thankfully there is a seven year age difference between us, but, what I need you to understand is that this difference required me to step up in ways that influenced the future I envisioned for myself. Although my parents never forced me to work, I was expected to assist with household chores: dishes, laundry, house cleaning, dinner, watching my brother. This new life of mine never struck me as odd, though. All of my friends had similar situations as well. So, I just assumed this is what life was like: you work, take care of your family, repeat.
In high school, my understanding of myself and the world shifted. This influence is largely due to the educators who were a part of my life during this time. Like many of the TED Talks we have watched this summer, my high school educators crafted learning spaces that put their students’ lives forefront and center. Like Coffey (from Rethinking Popular Culture and Media), Wesch, and Mitra, I encountered teachers who started units with big essential questions. The expectation was that by the end of each unit, we, the students, would develop our own answers to each question and that those answers would likely vary based on our experiences; not only was this difference of opinion accepted, it was encouraged.
However, it wasn’t just this new approach to teaching and learning that influenced me. The genuine care my school community provided me with motivated me to want more for myself (even in moments when I didn’t think I was capable of more). I think of Brian who called my house to ask my parents if I could join the yearbook club or Liz who often pushed me to apply to the BELL Summer Program even though I questioned my eligibility every time I worked on the application with her. I think of John who always referred to me as Dr. Mason. And Kyleen who could have suspended me when I started a petition to bring back a beloved math teacher but instead called me into her office to to praise me for my efforts. But of them all, the one who inspired me most, was Sarah.
Sarah was my advisor for all four years of high school and my English teacher twice. Sarah communicated her care for students in a variety of ways. From the set-up of her classroom (we always sat in a circle) to regularly inviting her advisory to her house to connect in a space outside of school; her actions, as well as her teaching, communicated that you mattered to her. Of all the memories I have of Sarah (and believe me, there are many), there is one I think I should highlight here to demonstrate my beliefs about teaching.
As you might have guessed by now, my high school experience changed the relationship I had with my family. High school was the first time in my life when I wasn’t going straight home after school. I was participating in multiple clubs during the school year and I had spent multiple summers in enrichment camps. My parents were no longer the only people I looked to when I needed advice. My world had widened and by my senior year, I knew I wanted it to keep widening. With some mentoring from my teachers, I came to the conclusion that college was the next best step for me.
The story of my college decision is tumultuous. Without relaying all of the details here, know that it was the first time the perfect daughter disappointed her hard-working parents. Their response? They shut me out. The familial support I was accustomed to had been stripped away not because of death or divorce, but simply because my parents did not agree with the decision I was making. At a time when I needed guidance, I had my teachers. I can still remember the nights I called Sarah, crying, because my parents would still not talk to me. Sarah didn’t have to pick up when I called her on those nights, but she did. She gave me the love and support she knew I was missing at this critical time in my life. To this day, I am certain that my relationship with Sarah is what grounded me to keep going, even when my home environment was challenging.
Sarah, and many of the other educators named here, redefined what teaching means for me. I am certain the relationships I developed with my teachers altered the way I saw myself, my peers, and the world around me. Their relationships helped me feel connected in a way I did not think was possible outside of my household. They taught me that relationships are the foundation for learning; that learning occurs when you are authentically connected to a community that cares about you.
So, why a website? Next year, I am starting a new position at a new school. Outside of a few friendly faces from my hiring committee, I have yet to meet anyone else. Knowing that my first few days on campus will be pivotal in setting the tone for the relationships I develop, I have decided to create a website that I can share with my students (and by extension their caregivers) so that I can expedite the process of getting to know my students as well as provide a living resource that will help us stay connected throughout the school year. Although this website is still under construction, I envision it as playing a key role in how I connect with my students within and outside classroom spaces.
As we have discussed in this class, Prensky views today’s youth as digital natives and though I take issue with his definition of what it means to be a “digital native” I agree with his belief that our youth today “think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors” (Prensky, 2001, p. 1). I also know from my own experiences as a teacher that students often turn to their phones for answers rather than the person standing front of them. This is where I see my website becoming a connecting tool for myself and my new students. Although Turkle would probably shake her head in disapproval of this approach, I believe, like Wesch, that technology can enable us to connect in ways that the traditional classroom setting often thwarts. Regardless of space and time, an online community can thrive so long as people contribute to it.
Considering Scott Noon’s stages of technology identities I’d say I'm in an active transition of being an electronic traditionalist and going towards a techno-constructivist. Coming into this class, I felt firm in my electronic traditionalist identity: I primarily used technology to streamline my instruction (as well as to cut-down on paper). However, I now see that I can use technology as a way to build community with my students. Unlike my Google classroom days, my goal for this website is to incorporate students’ insights and, if interested, welcome them as contributors to the content that gets created for this site.
Given that I have yet to meet my new students (or even learn about the logistics of my new role) I am creating my website with mindful discretion. Certainly, I will have time with my students but what that actually looks like in practice is still unknown for me. Will I have my own classroom? Will I be pushing into other teacher’s classrooms? Will my time with my students be individualized? These are questions I do not yet have answers to. What I do know, however, is that whatever time and space I can share with my future students, be it in person or online, will be co-constructed and informed by their experiences.
Outside of incorporating the tool Remind so that I can communicate with my students and their caregivers, my vision for this site is very much open-ended. Surely, my time in this class has given me some ideas of how this site could operate. For example, in addition to having web pages dedicated to contact information and my bio, I envision a page that houses links to students’ individual blogs. Perhaps these blogs could be a way for us to stay connected throughout the year, especially if we do not get to share time as a collective group. Or, taking into consideration the popularity of social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, we could have a page that houses photos and/or video submissions that reflect the experiences of my students as they navigate the school year.
For now, I am intentionally keeping things minimalistic so that students can have as much freedom to create without being stifled by my perspective. To get their creative juices flowing, I currently have the following questions on our homepage for students to consider in relation to our website’s design:
What does it mean to be a part of a community? (What about an online community?)
How do you know when you feel connected to someone or something?
What matters to you? to us? to the world?
Following the theme of asking our students questions (rather than giving them answers), my hope is that my students will come to their own conclusions about what they need from a class website and, through collaboration and support, create the space they envision for themselves. What this means, I do not yet know. But, like Wesch, I am willing to put myself “in the wonderful but awkward position of not knowing exactly what I am doing but blissfully learning along the way” (2010, p. 7).
** Website (published but still in the works!) **
*** Pecha Kucha ***
No comments:
Post a Comment