My Teaching Philosophy

Belonging in the classroom is a human right.  My teaching philosophy is an idea that should be explicit in the field of education but it isn’t.  Drawn from the works of Lisa Delpit and Dr. Angela Valenzuela, this idea dares to challenge the status quo of public education; A system built on passivity in shaping student academic success, defining resistance, and social change on their own terms.  I see my role as an educator with a passion and responsibility that transcends any job title.  My role is not to participate in schooling, in which we institutionalize people to accept their proper station in life.  My role is educating students to fundamentally change the society in which they live.  My students’ reality outside the classroom is a constant battle with oppressions such as classism, patriarchy, xenophobia & homophobia that incapacitate our society.  What I teach must be a direct response to the conditions of their lives, not what is convenient for the school, district, or state. 

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For my students to fundamentally change the society in which they live I must know their real needs and assets; I must seek to understand my students as whole persons: their languages, neighborhoods, and histories.  In order to achieve these goals, I have chosen to become an ethnographer of the communities in which my students live, the communities in which I serve.  This dedication and commitment to go above and beyond the job requirements are evident in these early stages of my career.  In my first years of living in San Diego, I embedded myself with the community by joining grassroots/non-profit organizations such as The Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities and The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth.  These organizations are committed to providing students with educational and social justice alternatives to military service.   I remain humble, reflective, and open to learning from different mentors and experiences in order to create culturally relevant, safe, and transformative experiences for our diverse set of students.  

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My zeal to educate and build deep connections emanates from my experiences growing up as a young man of color from a working-class background who seldom made authentic connections with his teachers.  I have the first-hand experience of districts investing so much into curriculums and not into teachers that actually care about the students they serve.  Due to these experiences, I first thought of my identity as a deficit; I now use my identity as an asset.  I am a young man of color from the border city of El Paso, relatable to the students of our school that need the most support: working-class students that have historically struggled in spaces like the one I currently teach at. 

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As an educator, it is my duty to inculcate the importance of education and its power to transform the lives of my students. I believe every school space, especially my classroom should reflect relevance to my students’ lives. Within the context of my classroom, this begins with the language we use when we talk with our students.  Students willfully won’t learn from us until they know we genuinely care about them.  Students reflect back to us what they think we think about them.  If we think students exhibit brilliance, it will manifest within them.  If we think students aren’t capable it will manifest within them as well. Belief in our students, coupled with understanding and deep connections are essential for meaningful engagement.    

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To focus on reclaiming our identities I like to practice empathy interviews in the classroom.  These interviews take place within the first days in the classroom and help build a ‘whole’ picture of our students.  Students choose questions we are comfortable asking each other during these interviews.  We leave the classroom and seek a comfortable place.  These ‘interviews’ look, sound, and feel like a meaningful conversation between peers.  We then create these visually pleasing representations of our conversations, students choose what they want to be displayed such as inspirations, passions, aspirations, advice, and things they wish people knew about them.  Reclaiming their identities directly challenges assimilationist practices that encourage the youth to de-identify from their culture that results in sacrificing opportunities to cultivate multiculturalism and multilingualism.  

 

By supporting students in learning their own values and loving themselves, our culturally sustaining practices take a deeper effect.  Students will choose academic success if we provide culturally relevant content and universally design learning for all students in our classroom.  I am a firm believer that to inculcate the importance of education, my humanities classroom must implement consistent literacy-rich experiences with culturally relevant texts that include indigenous peoples, resistance through identity, rebellion, immigration issues in the U.S., social movements across the globe, gentrification, and texts proposed by the students.  In order to extend engagement, I would like to administer a variety of mediums and modalities for student expression; They will include film, art, music, poetry, and theatre.  These approaches must be taught authentically and enthusiastically to reinforce a culture of family in the classroom.  

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By learning our histories, traditions, and struggles, we reclaim our identities, enabling all students to see themselves reflected in what they learn.  My students come from culturally rich backgrounds and experiences to which they can share and collaborate from one another to enacting the separation of social capital from the classroom. Students reactivate prior knowledge that tells a different narrative than the status quo of the current systems; This precious knowledge equips our students with the necessary critical thinking skills to survive, enabling a sense of responsibility towards their own communities.  My focus is to inspire my students to be empowered by their cultures, histories, and identities; In turn, they will rise up, speak out to restore the achievements of prior generations and fundamentally change the society in which they live.