Monthly Archives: October 2013

This semester in the IPS Foundations of Social Justice course, students began the semester by thinking about what it means to teach and learn. They were challenged to not only think of themselves as students or learners, but also as teachers who will share the knowledge they learn as they practice social justice in their communities. This week we’re featuring some of their reflections on teaching and learning at IPS.

I cannot believe that I am starting this blog post with a confession, but here goes nothing. I’m an over-achieving perfectionist.  Why would I start with such a confession?  Well, after reading the progressive works of Pablo Freire, Sarah Amsler, bell hooks and Sharon Welch, I realized that while perfectionism could be sometimes seen as such a desirable character trait in academic settings, and in fact it has pushed me in many ways, it has actually been my greatest stumbling block.

In my high school classes and my early years of undergraduate work, I saw the classroom as yet another way to prove, mostly to my insecure self, that I was excellent, hard-working, and, if I applied myself enough, maybe even close to perfect.  With this mindset, though, I also thought I would eventually learn something along the way, but the goal of learning never took precedent over the most important goal: the good grade.  If I got a good enough grade, then that meant I must have learned something, right?  After reading Freire, I realized that, pushed by my perfectionistic tendencies, I lived within, what he calls, the “banking system” of education but had no personal stake or interest in actually being “engaged in a continuous transform,” which Freire claims is “true learning” (33).  Who knew that my own fear of failure had kept me from transformation?

Just like for hooks, who speaks of educators in her early educational life that “were on a mission” and impacted how she thought about learning, I feel like I had such encounter once I attended Georgetown.  Andria Wisler, my sophomore year Justice and Peace Studies professor, revolutionized my previously held thoughts and feelings toward the goals of a formal education.  Operating from a largely Freirian, non-violent educational pedagogy, Andria forced me to fail and be uncomfortable, which was all I needed to actually begin to learn.   Hooks claims, “any radical pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged.”  Andria firmly practiced such pedagogy, to my own dismay.  My perfectionism, up until this point in the classroom, expressed itself as hiding, keeping my head down, and memorizing in order to regurgitate exactly what the professor emptied into my consciousness, because in previous classes that would give me the best grade.  I would never want to participate out of fear that what I had to say would not sound enlightened or would basically be wrong.  Well, Andria decided to do things differently.  She created a classroom environment in which everyone’s voices were expected to be heard and valued.  Essentially, this course began as my worst nightmare but ended as the mark of my first real educational experience.

I did not have to know the ‘right’ answer or any answer at all to have my voice heard.  The classroom became a place for me that was defined by failing, or what I began to understand as experimenting, more than it was about achieving unattainable perfection.  I fully understand Freire’s claim that “the necessary requirements for correct thinking is a capacity for not being overly convinced of one’s own certitudes.”  Through this conversion and transformation process within my education, I now understand the need for people that want to be involved in communal or society change to be open to failing and changing within their own lives.  My short time within the MA in Social Justice and Community Development program at Loyola University of Chicago has continued this educational transformation and reinforced my beliefs that hands-on experience and the willingness to fail are the marks of a genuine and committed learner. Welch concludes her first chapter in After the Empire with a quote that speaks to the importance in life and in social justice work of recognizing our own and others’ capacities for being wrong, which I will try to remember during any experience or even the courses I take at Loyola.  Welch writes, “I and every person, movement, group and institution that I trust can be deeply, profoundly, tragically wrong.” Through accepting that notion, I am able to think critically and deeply allowing the information I encounter to transform me personally.  Freire would probably say that I have finally begun to really learn.

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Mackensey Carter is a first year dual degree (MSW/ MASJCD) student at Loyola University Chicago. After completing her BA in Theology at Georgetown University, she moved to Chicago to participate in a year of post-grad service through a faith-based program called Amate House.  During this year, she worked at parish’s after school program for middle school and high school students in the Mckinley Park neighborhood. She hopes to work specifically with social justice issues relating to racial reconciliation and the prevention of youth violence in the city of Chicago.

This semester in the IPS Foundations of Social Justice course, students began the semester by thinking about what it means to teach and learn. They were challenged to not only think of themselves as students or learners, but also as teachers who will share the knowledge they learn as they practice social justice in their communities. This week we’re featuring some of their reflections on teaching and learning at IPS.

It was a typical Tuesday morning. My 20 teammates and I had awoken before the sun and stumbled our way over to the weight room, using our cold breath as a guide. Many of us had been up late the night before (reading, writing papers, catching up with friends and family). As a result, when we spotted each other during bench presses, it wasn’t uncommon to see “crusties“ in each other’s eyes, or toothpaste smudged across our chins from a quick morning brush.

Most mornings I could go back to my room after these crack of dawn workouts. Change my clothes, wash my face, and give my teeth a proper brushing – maybe even fit in a solid 30-minute mid-morning nap before enjoying a buffet breakfast in the Wege cafeteria.

Not on Tuesdays, however: there was something better in store.

Tuesdays were a rush. Just as the sun started to rise, I would power walk out of the weight room to the main Academic Building. My peers (much like myself a couple hours earlier) would be groggily climbing the stairs to the ivy covered building, wondering, begrudgingly, why on earth they signed up for an 8am class.

My clothes still sweaty and hair damp, tightly twisted into a bun on top of my head, I made my way up to our second floor classroom. The chairs were arranged in a circle. Sometimes it was hard to find an opening and we acrobatically threw our book bags into the middle and jumped our way into a seat. There was no teacher desk – it was not needed. The professor, Dr. Jennifer Dawson, joined right in.

Before reading Friere, Amsler, and Welch, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I’d been blessed from kindergarten through undergraduate studies with passionate teachers. Educators who were experts in their fields, whether it be teaching multiplication tables or dissecting “The Wasteland.” Many seemed to genuinely love their jobs, and equally so, were invested in educating their students. There was something about Dr. Dawson, however, that made her stand out from the rest. In Friere’s words, she lived out his belief that, “Whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning.” Her mind was brilliant, but so was her heart. Because of this, she had the ability to educate my mind as a teacher, and educated my heart in her ability to be a student.

Dr. Dawson’s class was a seminar on Margaret Atwood. I had previously read only some of Atwood’s poetry, and I came into the class with no real expectations.

Each week became a spiritual experience. We came into class, formed our circle, and with an opening sentence, “So what did you guys think?” our class would begin. When I or a classmate shared a comment, Dr. Dawson would look them intensely in the eye. Not the eye of an examining authority, but the eyes like that of a mother. One who has absolutely every intention on hearing what you have to say. If your comments offered a genuine insight that clearly reflected your time and effort spent digging into the words, it wasn’t uncommon for Dr. Dawson to respond, “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!”

She allowed her emotions to shine through. She told us sections of books that always made her cry. Themes that left her up at night, worrying about the future of her children. Certain quotations and threaded motifs that identified what she considered the mark of a genius writer. She shared her intellectual mastery, but also her intimate vulnerability. In response, my classmates and I took on the individual challenge to do the same.

For all intents and purposes, this class could be considered an accelerated book club. Dr. Dawson would provide historical and literary tidbits to provide a deeper context, but the majority of our classes were group discussions of the book at hand. As Amsler and Welch suggest, she was radical in her trust and willingness to allow us, the students, guide the flow of the class. One person would offer up a quotation of interest, and others would start uncovering another piece, another connection. The purpose of this class was not to “transfer knowledge” but to embrace “creating possibilities” (Friere).

This to me was perhaps the most meaningful of educational experiences. Because my voice was valued, I felt a responsibility to dive into our class materials, to make connections that could be offered in class and see if anyone else made the same connection. After all, we were the teachers just as much as Dr. Dawson (something I have only recently come to understand).

As a result, the themes, topics, and questions we discussed in this class nearly four years ago are still among the freshest in mind. They stuck. Not simply because I felt my voice was valued, but also as Welch suggests, I was diving into the social awareness of the themes at hand. Hearing how they were played out in my classmates and how they play out in our society at large.

Needless to say, it was worth every smudge of toothpaste left on my face.

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Monica Rischiotto is originally from Portland, OR and just finished up a year in Detroit as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corp where she worked with school gardening programs in Detroit Public Schools. She studied English and Community Leadership at Aquinas College (Grand Rapids, MI) and feels extremely honored and privileged to continue her studies at the graduate level through LUC’s Social Justice & Community Development program. 

This semester in the IPS Foundations of Social Justice course, students began the semester by thinking about what it means to teach and learn. They were challenged to not only think of themselves as students or learners, but also as teachers who will share the knowledge they learn as they practice social justice in their communities. This week we’re featuring some of their reflections on teaching and learning at IPS.

This semester in the IPS Foundations of Social Justice course, students began the semester by thinking about what it means to teach and learn. They were challenged to not only think of themselves as students or learners, but also as teachers who will share the knowledge they learn as they practice social justice in their communities. This week we’re featuring some of their reflections on teaching and learning at IPS.