Category: teaching

Ode to Dewey: Powers, Prophecy and Dignity of Teaching

by Raquel Rios, posted in agency, community, conscientious engagement, consciousness, leadership, learning, mindfulness, nyc, Parenting, Poverty, refuge, School, social emotional learning, spirit, teaching, Uncategorized

I believe that this educational process has two sides – one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following.

Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed, 1897

The last few days have been dreadful— a real deep freeze. Not only has the weather been unbearably cold, but our boiler collapsed on New Year’s Eve leaving my family without heat and carbon dioxide scares for three days. On the third morning, I lay paralyzed with madness. I was cocooned in an old blue sleeping bag, several layers of fleece and wool covered feet. In that moment I thought, I’m losing my mind. Trust in my existence waned. I sank deep into my sofa and considered what happens to our body, mind, spirit when outer conditions become increasingly challenging?

My eyes land on the portable heater we borrowed. The steady hum muffles my brain. It didn’t help that I had seen the Mountain Between Us and The Zookeeper’s Wife over the holiday. Everything felt like it could spiral out of control in a minute. What happens when outer conditions become increasingly challenging, arduous and pained? What happens to us when the world fails us, when society fails us— as it happened for the millions of Jews, Poles, Slavs during World War II, the African slaves for over three hundred years, for the Puerto Ricans after the hurricane?

It’s only been three days and I’m feeling bi-polar. I am tight lipped, sullen and defensive. Then suddenly, I’m running outside with a surge of energy and gratitude for life. I log onto the internet. Diane Ravitch posted Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed on her website. I want to read it, to feed my intellect, but I can’t. I’m too cold and lethargic. I decide it makes better sense to drive my daughter to school. I can do this, I think.

I am driving her to school and a yellow bus suddenly stops holding us hostage in the middle of a narrow block. Usually I’d feel agitated, but I’m warm so I relax and observe the scene. Shortly, a mother appears out of the house ushering two children. She zips a coat, tinkers with a hat, hugs, kisses and onto the school bus, one by one they go. There are four cars behind me. The longer we wait, the more I become breathless, the more I surrender to this image— the love and devotion for our children and their education has the power to stop a stream of traffic. It is in an instant a lesson on how our inner world can dictate social consciousness.

I am zooming down the West Side highway. My high school age daughter snoozes in the back seat and I am filled with gratitude for her life, my freedom, her school. The dead boiler and the cold feels temporary and insignificant suddenly. I think about the day to day life of a teacher and school leader who choose a life of service. They build learning communities for children and families who may be experiencing hardship and challenges caused by cracks and gaps in society. We hear stories of fires, natural disasters, trauma. We imagine or know intimately the life of a refugee where suffering and displacement are prolonged. Homelessness, family illness, separations, poverty. So many of us come to school as part-time survivors. How should we approach teaching and learning when our outer conditions appear to be increasingly challenging? How might we design learning communities that are conscientious, that are responsive to the frailty of our society, structures and political arrangements that often fail us miserably? How can we institutionalize our universal love and devotion for the inner and outer lives of all of our children?

When I get back home, I am ready for Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed.

I highlight and bold so many beautiful lines. I interrogate his thinking. Then, I close my lap top and think, what is the best way to share my day’s important discoveries.

I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.

       Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed, 1897

 

How do you know if you’re making a difference that matters?

by Raquel Rios, posted in agency, change, community, conscientious engagement, consciousness, Education, ELA, energy, equity, faith, hope, inquiry, learning, mindfulness, social emotional learning, spirit, teaching, Uncategorized

This is the year that everything seems to matter— and yet no one knows if what they do day-to-day matters very much at all. It’s certainly the paradox of our time and especially for teachers. I think it’s important to reflect on our everyday practice and put into question our views about the purpose of education and how we engage young people.

Jacob Needleman writes about an all too typical experience:

“There they were, about fifteen boys and girls, there I was—talking, talking, talking. I couldn’t stop talking. Hands started waving in the air and I finally called on one of the students. But no sooner did she start to bring her question out that I steamrolled over it with an answer that left her absolutely no room for further questioning. I went on talking, amusingly, animatedly bringing in Plato’s cave here, the Upanishads there… Time flew by. The bell rang and suddenly the class was over. That was it, that was all. As the students cheerfully filed past me and I smiled to each of them, exchanging a few informal remarks, I began to realize in my gut what had happened. To be precise: nothing.”

This fiasco, as Needleman called it, propelled him to engage in deep reflection and eventually to take on a high school class in San Francisco after years of teaching at the college level. Later he writes, “My task is to engage that part of them that needs to achieve while calling gently to the part that dreams of Truth.”

Needleman designs his philosophy class around enduring questions that he categorizes as “real, gut-level questions of life that often students are not free to address in educational institutions.” Questions such as:

Why are we here?

Why are we given more advanced brains than other animals?

Is taking another human life ever justified?

What is a human being?

What can we hope for?

Who am I?

What is love?

While I read Needleman’s words in a thin book I found on a cluttered shelf at Strand bookstore (Schools with Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers, edited by Linda Lantieri) I inhale and exhale deeply. I am inspired and reassured. It is so easy to question.

This is a message to all my fellow writers, philosophers and teachers out there who feel deeply about the quality and character of life. What matters is your willingness to inquire within and to find the magic that transforms the outer world through honest, everyday practice. It is keeping humanity at the center of all things.

Sometimes we are stuck in a place where we have to ask: How do I break through this robotic stance? How do I metamorphose this lifeless, sterile, empty space, this institutionalized public space into a personalized, soul-searching, heartbreaking, life-altering space where the spark of curiosity dances through us continuously?

It is easy to get bullied or brow beaten especially considering the real challenges of teaching and learning. It is easy to be fooled into thinking that examining, exploring, honoring, nurturing the quality of our character, our souls, the core of our human existence is somehow someone else’s job or not so important.

Mathematics, science, ELA and technology are important, but not so much if we do not have the capacity to use knowledge in an ethical and mindful way so that we better our world, ensure we are working for peace. Without an investment in the soul work of teaching every day, in nurturing a sense of belonging, purpose, meaning, and value for all life– we may be accidentally contributing to the self-destructive, violent, and hateful behavior we see tormenting our nation.

We Need Evolutionary Teachers: A Growing Consciousness

by Raquel Rios, posted in agency, conscientious engagement, Education, leadership, learning, politics, Poverty, race, schools, teaching, Uncategorized

The impact of the presidential campaign and transition of power have resulted in large-scale social movements mobilizing women, teachers and school leaders to consider our work for equity. Over the last two decades, we have narrowed our focus on closing ‘achievement gaps’ and collecting data at the expense of examining the very foundation of how we do teaching and schooling in America. Now is the time for us to be responsive to the cry out for change. Now is a good time to look at the character of our schools and our role as teachers and change agents. How can we ensure our schools are sanctuaries for peace, equity and democracy?

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One of the important tasks ahead of us is building systems, structures and practices that truly reflect the values of equity and democracy. As an in-service teacher educator and instructional designer, I wonder how we can best support teachers and school leaders to stand firm in their commitment to truth, shared responsibility and care for the well-being of all human beings? No one can argue that we are facing the greatest challenges of our time such a global warming, rising income inequality, war and terrorism and the privatization of our public spaces.

I am also deeply concerned with how we can help our teachers shift their attention away from spectacle and rhetoric that debilitates us through divisiveness and pay greater attention to our collective wisdom about what it means to work for equity. In my forthcoming book, Teacher Agency for Equity: A Framework for Conscientious Engagement (Routledge Press, 2017), I argue that we need to stop action for actions sake and take the time to examine and develop a new agency for equity in light of our failure to realize these goals. In addition to critically analyzing our context, we need to consider our inner thoughts, our use of language, the complexity of our professional relationships and how we often channel energy in ways that leave us exhausted without any real change.

Our school system and communities often divided by race, class and ideologies perpetuate bias and politically driven decision-making. These divisions are a manifestation of something deeper, a consciousness that is based on rivalry, fear and compartmentalization. Schools and whole communities that are divided by race and class in areas where there is sufficient diversity should not be acceptable in the 21st century. The way we distribute resources should not be acceptable either. More importantly, the election of a President that based his campaign on divisive rhetoric targeting very specific groups must be seen as a red flag in the education community that we are fundamentally lacking in holistic, critical thinking.

There are very important matters we must address if we are to consider schools the foundation of a healthy democracy and a place where all children flourish. Without prioritizing the time and space to dialogue about these matters in groups that cut across race, class and ideology—we can not ensure that we are in fact working together to build a culture of tolerance, inclusivity and critical mindfulness.

In my experience as an educator over the last fifteen years, I have learned that grappling with tough questions that pertain to education are not easy for teachers and school leaders. I am referring to questions that reveal our personal values, feelings about race and racism, the notion of equity and poverty. These types of questions surface fears, our shame and attachment to identity. Many teachers and school leaders wonder if they are positioned in society to do anything about these big issues when their roles are clearly defined by compliance and market driven expectations. However, teachers and school leaders know that they are at the epicenter of all social and cultural movements. They know these big questions are at the heart of the work we do every day. So, how are we to manage this angry sea of conflicting ideologies and stay focused on what matters for equity?

First, we must turn our attention to the hard work in front of us. In doing so, we will realize that we are hungry to step up to the challenge. As demonstrated at the Women’s March, we are ready to give voice to our concerns, our fears, our shameful thoughts, our suffering and confusion about these perennial issues that continue to plague our society such as race and poverty and—what do we really mean when we say student achievement in a society with widening inequality and a break down in access to opportunities? We also know that part of this work is confronting our own economic insecurities and confusion about our role as teachers. What do we owe the communities in which we teach, that are often not our own? In this process of mindful inquiry, we all will need a guarantee that engaging in these important conversations can lead not only to healing, but to a shared vision and concrete action steps to move us forward.

In working on my book, my goal was to offer educators a framework that can help teachers and school leaders examine and develop authenticity and agency for equity. In all my years of service to the field, I know teachers and school leaders want to make a difference that matters and often that means looking beyond the four walls of our classrooms. The Conscientious Engagement framework that is based on six principles (Spirit Consciousness, Authentic Presence, Entanglement, Freedom, Meliorism and Emergence) helps teachers and school leaders heighten their awareness of the nature of our thoughts and how we use language, the complexity of our professional relationships and the need for belonging and, lastly— how we channel our energy in ways that either impede or strengthen our work for equity. Engaging in critical mindful inquiry with ourselves and with others will build awareness that we are all connected—that each and every one of us belongs to a larger human spirit consciousness that gives us rise and access to our inner wisdom and strength to work for the common good. Knowing that we belong to something greater than ourselves can unify us in ways we’ve not known before.

What does it mean to be an evolutionary teacher at this critical time in our history? For me, an evolutionary teacher makes a commitment to stay conscientiously engaged in the school and in the community. This requires critical mindfulness and deliberation over the real foundational issues in education. An evolutionary teacher understands that we are interconnected and we all have creative intelligence. An evolutionary teacher practices authentic presence. An evolutionary teacher rises above all that is divisive and values all life equally. Seeking out and living truth, being authentic, and honoring all life equally as demonstrated in every day practice is the next step in our human evolution and teachers are central to this process.

Our time is now. We are in the position to make a difference that matters, a difference that extends beyond the four walls of a classroom. Ultimately, we know that this is our work, this is our true nature as teachers— to model, to grow, to teach, to have courage, to advocate, to ensure that schools remain sanctuaries for peace and equity.