Teaching and Learning: Discussing Poetry at the Crack of Dawn
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.