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Learning with my Students

Thoughts as my first classroom teaching experience ends.

Author: Irene Fernando, STLF

As some of you read in a previous blog, a few STLF staff had the chance in the classroom, teaching to students.  Starting with creating the syllabus, and now as I wrap up grades, this has been a few months that have really challenged the way I view teaching, learning, and the role formal education has in our society.  In our classroom, teachers and students were roles that each of us had the responsibility to play.  Voices were heard, concepts were questioned, and a continued commitment to action was reinforced.  For us, teaching and learning was not only reciprocal... but joint.  I have learned WITH my students, and am very proud of each and every one of them.

To close the class, I reflected back to the first day.  I told the class that my goals were simple:  my hope for you as a class is for your outlook to change... for you to see the world differently than today, from a different lens, with added perspectives. 

With that, our class closing was a poem of sorts.  Some excerpts are:

Today I see the world as a composition of generations, whose axes only tilt at the progressive and experiential measures taken by each respective generation.  I see the world as a mosaic of the simple group I’m a member of, and the narrative our actions will produce.

My outlook has changed because I see differently.  I see that challenges are inevitable, but we can always overcome.  I see a world in which young people can decide how to make their neighborhoods a better place.  I see a world that lives each day to the fullest to achieve a better tomorrow.

Today I see the world as a resilient place.  When all else fails, the human spirit keeps the faith, the human spirit holds out in hopes for a better day, and the human spirit loves all that is good while it waits for the negatives to turn into positives.

Today I see the world as a place that can’t limit what I am about to do.  I see it as a place that will mold to facilitate that which I want to accomplish, and to keep out any hate that can bring me down.

My outlook has changed in maturity.  Every year—every day—I fall prey to thinking I know everything.  Guess what?  I don’t.  No one does.  It’s a hard lesson to learn.

Today I see the world as a place learning and growing together.  With globalization we are more connected than ever before and this new connection allows for greater knowledge of other cultures, hopefully leading to a broader tolerance of diversity and culture.  Today I see the world as something I am going to change.

My outlook has changed because I am beginning to realize my true purpose and place in the world.

 

 

 

 

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