My Teaching Philosophy - March 2024
Always a learner and keen to understand how languages work and how we learn them, I discovered the desire to become an educator shortly after my first study abroad experience in Russia. I discovered that learning and teaching are interrelated concepts that draw upon and inform one another. However, while the ultimate responsibilities in, for example, language education, often fall onto the teacher's shoulders, that teacher can encourage and guide the students to become more independent, critical and self-confident learners while also becoming effective collaborators who can learn from and with peers, as the individual has much to learn from the collective and vice versa. As such creating spaces for dialogue can help to foster deeper, more critical thinking.
The shaping of my identity as a teacher has been significantly influenced by interactions with a range of individuals, including my past school teachers and lecturers, as well as both former and current peers who have provided guidance and mentorship. These individuals, whom I view as 'critical friends', demonstrate with their actions the kind of attentive, caring, guiding, and pivotal influence described by Sachs (2016:418) as 'mediators of knowledge and values’ often through dialogue. They embody what Fromm (1956:21) calls 'the active character of love' and what Sorokin (2015:53) references, drawing from Aristotle, as the act of doing good for someone else's benefit. Their collective influences resonate with the principles hooks (2001; 2003) outlines as articulating love as a multifaceted synergy of care, knowledge, recognition, trust, respect, dedication, and honest dialogue. From my own understanding, it is through dialogue that educators help learners to become more deeply critical thinkers who are cognizant of their role within the world.
Enacting this collegial love gives me pause for consideration of learners and the need for collaboration wherever possible. Such values proved invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed me to respond quickly to circumstances by proactively organizing support for colleagues to support their students wherever they were located. Reflecting on my development from a schoolchild into an educator, I recognize the importance of sharing good practices while seeking critical friends and approaching students and colleagues as a critical friend who expresses collegial love. I do this by creating spaces for dialogue where learners feel safe, supported and able to express themselves at ease.
Drawing on my doctoral studies, I define critical friends as those that embody a type of love whose ‘actions, care, guidance’ (Hosseini, 2021:1) support the development of colleagues as a whole. Further, they nurture the formation of their colleagues’ professional knowledge, practice, identity and values. I apply this same critical friendship in the educative processes with students. I strive to engage students (and colleagues) with an ‘active character of love’ (Fromm, 1956:21) through enacting love that intertwines respect, trust, recognition, care, knowledge and frank communication (hooks, 2001; 2003) regarding learning and teaching. This, I have found, has helped to establish rapport with students, gain trust and establish good relationships with students that indicate to them that they are working with an experienced educator.
As I reflect, I attempt, through my teaching, to create supportive, nurturing environments that allow learners to support one another while encouraging criticality and creativity in learning and teaching. At the same time, I strive to develop a recognition of the importance of raising one another up. This reflects the good practices that I have picked up along the way at various workplaces and within various subject/disciplines. To this end, I strive to enact spaces that foster true dialogue such that learners come together to discuss things important to them, while being driven by their shared relationships and interests, to effect positive change in a way that reflects inclusivity and respect for one another while achieving goals for the greater good of education.
Last but not least, I endeavor to incorporate reflective practice into my teaching to convey to my students the significant role that reflection plays in self-awareness, in understanding our current position and actions, as highlighted by Dewey (1933:17) who emphasized the importance of being conscious of our actions for self-improvement and recognizing our strengths. Although I recognize the importance of reflection, I find myself pressed for time to engage in reflective practices, much less in critical reflection; however, I do strive to make space for (critical) reflection and demonstrate its importance for not only students but my own professional practice. Reflecting critically, I recognize that love has been a constant throughout my career as an educator: it has maintained a positive presence from my school years and throughout my developmental journey as an educator. What I have experienced is love as a praxis enacted by critical friends, and this informs my teaching practice.
References:
Brookfield, S. D. (2017). Becoming a critically reflective teacher (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. DC Heath.
Fromm, E. 1956. The art of loving: An enquiry into the nature of love. New York: Harper & Row.
hooks, b. (2001). All about love: New visions (1st ed). William Morrow.
hooks, b. (2003). Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. Routledge.
Sachs, J. (2016). Teacher professionalism: Why are we still talking about it. Teachers and Teaching, 22(4), 413–425. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1082732
Sorokin, P. A. (2015). Ways & power of love: Techniques of moral transformation. Templeton Foundation Press.