The Teachers
We are now in our third week in Peru, which is hard to believe. Our visits to Colegio Roosevelt, La Inmaculada, and Fe y Alegria have given us the opportunity to interact and learn from a variety of students and educators in different contexts. As my classmates and I continue to grapple with the idea of what a fair and just education looks like in both marginalized and privileged schools, we have now started to consider the role of the teacher within these classrooms and how the teachers we have worked with approach their work.
This week, my classmates and I are spending three days in Fe y Alegria II in the San Martin de Porres district of Lima. There are quite a few differences between Fe y Alegria and La Inmaculada, most visibly the amount of resources available, including technology, school supplies, and space. Despite any struggles with resources, the students and faculty of Fe y Alegria maintain strong relationships based on mutual respect and caring. I have personally seen this in the first-grade classroom that I have been working in. The thirty-three students and two teachers seem very comfortable with each other and have created a community that is conducive to both academic and social growth. The two mornings I have spent at Fe y Alegria thus far have seemed to involve a lot of play — painting, music, and singing. However, within these activities, I have noticed that my cooperating teacher has created a child-centered classroom and expects active participation from all her students. For example, after free-play, the students “debrief” by talking about who they played with and what they did together. While this discussion may initially seem trivial, when I thought about it through a Freirean perspective, I began to see its value. In Paolo Freire’s condemnation of the banking model of education, he emphasized the reciprocal relationship that students and teachers should have. In true learning, students “become authentic subjects of the construction and reconstruction of what is being taught, side by side with the teacher, who is equally subject to the same process,” Freire writes in his Pedagogy of Freedom. Freire promotes a reciprocal relationship between the students and the teacher, meaning that the teacher is not the only one who does the teaching: the students’ contributions are also vital to the learning process. Letting the students share their thoughts and feelings about the morning’s activities begins to foster this idea that their thoughts and experiences are valuable. My cooperating teacher ensures that she is not the only one talking all day long. Instead, she gives her students a chance to express themselves, which is a simple way to allow the students to be active collaborators in the classroom.
As Freire suggests, the students should also be teachers in the classroom. However, the traditional classroom teacher also has an important role. When thinking about the question “who is the teacher?” many educational philosophers would argue that the teacher is a reflective being and that reflection is an essential quality of education. Multiple educational writings have included discussions on the importance of reflection, including Marc Clara’s piece “What is Reflection? Looking for Clarity in an Ambiguous Notion.” Using the work of seminal authors, Clara attempts to clarify what “reflection” is and is not. For example, he writes that reflection is a constant meaning-making process and one of his definitions of reflection is: “a thinking process which gives coherence to a situation which is initially incoherent and unclear.” During my class’s discussion on reflection, we too explored the different ways “reflection” is used. While we did not establish an undisputed definition of “reflection,” we agreed that reflection is vital for educators. Reflection is necessary for learning, which leads into another answer to the question “Who is the teacher?” The teacher is also a learner. Whether they are learning from pedagogical theorists like Dewey or Freire, from their co-workers, or from their students, teachers are constantly learning and improving their practice. By acknowledging that they too are continuing to learn and grow, teachers can further build that collaborative, reciprocal relationship with their students.
My cooperating teachers at both La Inmaculada and Fe y Alegria approach their work with a genuine desire to help their students. The fourth-grade English teacher that I shadowed at La Inmaculada promoted a student-centered classroom by providing time for discussions. In addition, he and his students had a relationship outside the classroom, talking about sports or television shows during break times. Establishing a personal relationship with the students improves the learning that occurs within the classroom because students are more comfortable when contributing to discussion and posing new ideas. When approaching his work, this teacher also keeps students’ needs in mind. For example, his students were struggling with forming verbs in the past tense, so he made the decision to spend another day on this concept, even though he had originally planned to move on. As we discussed his decision, he told me that his students will take a standardized English test at the end of the year, but he feels that if he is taking his time with the lessons and focusing on the areas in which the students are struggling the most, they will ultimately do well on the test. His explanation further demonstrated that his first priority is the needs of his students. Further, both teachers approached their work from a place of care and respect. In her chapter “Engaged Pedagogy,” author and activist bell hooks writes, “To teach in a manner that respects and cares for our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.” My Fe y Alegria cooperating teacher has done this; she uses terms of endearment for her students and always listens to what they have to say, establishing a strong relationship based on care and respect. Although these two teachers are working in schools with very different contexts, the ways they approach their work and their students are similar, and I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to observe and learn from them.
