{"id":17,"date":"2020-02-27T20:45:08","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T20:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020\/?page_id=17"},"modified":"2020-05-16T15:03:27","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T19:03:27","slug":"what-have-i-learned","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/what-have-i-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"What have I learned?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Throughout the course of this class we have often discussed the role of the teacher as an organizer or activist. <\/span>Because I plan to one day be a teacher, I have done a lot of thinking about how I will fit into the bigge<\/span>r picture. <\/span>I have thought often and deeply about where race and systematic inquiry come into a classroom, and how a teacher is meant to facilitate that relationship.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>My own position as a white-passing Hispanic woman has often been on my mind and made me consider how that might be a setback as well as a significant source of capital, especially in light of our class discussions about the increasingly young, white, and female teacher populations in the U.S. <\/span>In considering how my own race impacts my role as a teacher activist in the future, I have come to the temporary conclusion that race and systematic inquiry are inextricable from the classroom, and that as a teacher my baseline goal mus<\/span>t be to move beyond purely inquiry in order to enact change.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this course as well as my research into grassroots organizations I have seen incredible examples of people going beyond public inquiry <\/span>and using their own capital to create power. I have been struck by <\/span>the power that <\/span>has been generated by groups as well as leaders.<\/span>\u00a0In thinking about the role I\u2019d like to take on as a teacher, I often think about what Bettina Love wrote about white people as participants i<\/span>n the struggle of black students. Love explained the difference between acting as an ally <\/span>and acting as a <\/span>coconspirator<\/span>, and I have certainly added \u201ccoconspirator\u201d to the list of roles that I will continue to strive towards. <\/span>I have concluded that <\/span>in order for<\/span> teachers to be true coconspirators for all their students, they must be guides, rather than directors,<\/span>\u00a0in redirecting <\/span>the <\/span>power that already exists in the communities in which they teach.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In thinking about the kind of teacher I\u2019d like to be, I also often think back to our class visit with Amy Tan. <\/span>As both a teacher and activist, Tan <\/span>is a perfect example of how one can take on both roles and affect change in- and outside the classroom. <\/span>When discussing her experience as an activist, <\/span>she shared a few pieces of insight that stuck with me. Firstly, she painted a picture of how much power teachers have when they come together. Her explanation <\/span>of how New York City staged sick-outs caused the city\u2019s schools to shut down<\/span>\u00a0highlighted how much even big urban areas rely entirely on teachers<\/span>. Secondly, Tan gave advice on <\/span>where to direct power once it has been built. She <\/span>suggested that organizers must choose which issues people will most likely rally around and feel deeply for, labeling these \u201c<\/span>winnable<\/span> fights.\u201d <\/span>This idea really <\/span>struck me as <\/span>i<\/span>t sets realistic goals for activists ye<\/span>t promotes the hope that change really is possible.<\/span>\u00a0Tan also described how her role as a teacher has shifted during the corona virus pandemic. Now more than ever it has become crucial for teachers to <\/span>maintain connections and mourn with their students.<\/span> This idea is striking because it indicates the power <\/span>that <\/span>teachers have within the classroom, as well as outside of it.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The qualities that I saw in Amy Tan as a teacher and activist I have also seen in the grassroots organizers I investigated during my research. <\/span>I have seen incredible power being built by small and large actions. Activists and organizers <\/span>are able to<\/span> empathize<\/span> with and support individuals while simultaneously enacting large scale operations, an<\/span>d these things together affect significant change. <\/span>Throughout the course of this class, I have put together somewhat of a <\/span>call sheet of roles that a teacher can play as an organizer: activist, leader of inquiry, support system, director of power, and coconspirator<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>to name a few.<\/span>\u00a0As I\u2019ve developed my <\/span>plan to be a teacher-activist over the last few years, I\u2019ve often been asked why I would not elect to <\/span>pursue a more profitable career. I was reminded of this when we read Barack Obama\u2019s \u201cWhy Organize?\u201d in which he described being similarly questioned for his choice to be an organizer. To that he answered<\/span>,<\/span> \u201cit needs to be done, and not enough folks are doing it\u201d (Obama, <\/span>1998, p. 27). <\/span>In that one statement, Obama perfectly encapsulates <\/span>why I plan to be a teacher and what I have taken away about teacher activism<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout the course of this class we have often discussed the role of the teacher as an organizer or activist. Because I plan to one day be a teacher, I have done a lot of thinking about how I will fit into the bigger picture. I have thought often and deeply about where race and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}