Before I started teaching, my teaching philosophy was centered around cariño (Duncan-Andrade) and conscientização (Friere); I felt strongly that my duty as a teacher is to show authentic care to the students and to push them towards political consciousness. As a first-year teacher, however, I was humbled with the multitude of struggles I faced teaching in a working-class community. The following illustration and excerpts are pulled from my masters inquiry and are a more fully-developed conceptualization of my teaching philosophy. As teachers, we grow: so here is a snapshot of my growth after my first year of teaching.
bell hooks (1994) describes it best in her theorization of engaged pedagogy: she says that engaged pedagogy “is more demanding than conventional critical or feminist pedagogy. . . it emphasizes well-being. That means that teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students” (hooks, 1994, p. 15). In addition, teachers must not only be committed to self-actualization, but must also be willing to initiate and model taking the risk of being vulnerable—especially if they ask that of their students as well.
...As Duncan-Andrade points out, research repeatedly proves that “exposure to chronic stress associated with living in… ‘socially toxic environments’ is now thought of as one of the most—if not the most—significant contributors to poor health… inequality is making us sick” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009, p. 185)... He describes material hope as pursuing high quality teaching to afford some “leaking in of sunlight, water, and other resources” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009, p. 186). By being meticulous and thoughtful in my lessons, and by planning lessons with my students’ needs in mind, I may not be getting rid of the “concrete” but I am providing other things like a (relatively) well-managed class to learn in.
...Del Carmen Salazar argues that to counter such standardized and reductionist education systems, we must move away from the one-size-fits-all approach and instead move towards humanizing pedagogy, which is rooted in Freirean philosophy as well. Freire’s focus on humanism is “centered on his curiosity in the cognitive capacity of humans to. . . achieve personal and collective self-actualization, thus developing their full humanity” (del Carmen Salazar, 2013, p. 125).