Teaching Philosophy

Representation matters. Period. I had an elaborate hedge written about why I want to be a teacher, with answers meandering around a purpose that focuses on students as the future and my goal as one that helps them succeed. And, honestly, that’s all true: I do want to teach because kids are the future; I do want to teach to help students succeed and thrive. But, ultimately—as a trans person–I want to be the teacher I never saw in my own experience nor felt like would ever exist. If there is one raging fire of purpose behind my actions, it’s that I can think of nothing more driving than my desire to simply be better than the teachers I had, to be more for the next generations of learners who are looking for support, safety, and stability in this evermore hostile and competitive world—which is exceedingly more and more dangerous for queer, trans, or other marginalized students. That starts with classrooms focusing on equity at all levels.

 Cultivating an equitable classroom culture is essential to me because before students can learn, they need to feel safe emotionally; they need to feel that the environment is welcoming and that they are seen and wanted at school. I therefore embrace equitable learning as a teacher because it engages with the students not only as people but also makes them feel what they’re learning is relevant to them and achievable for them to learn. Students should be able to walk into the classroom and feel not only seen and supported, but also that the goal of the day is to share with them knowledge in ways that they can immediately insert into their lives and build upon their schema. 

That means designing projects incorporate that incorporate UDL strategies to ensure that all students have an entry point to learning; that means asking them to read and interpret a story and share differing perspectives with each other; that means asking them to think about how they understand a concept before and after hearing other viewpoints; that means understanding how they learn and what I can do to make them see the value in adding what I have to teach to their overall pool of resources and knowledge. 

One of my main ways of providing equity in the classroom is by introducing representative and inclusive content and contexts.  If I want to bring any amount of this to the classroom, though, not only does there need to be an established understanding that it’s a safe place to do so, there also needs to be—aside from this—a sense amongst the marginalized students that they feel safe enough to bring their own life experiences to the conversation.  Establishing an understanding with students that what they know and have experienced is relevant not only gives them the agency and confidence that they have some insight and angle to any subject, but also provides further equity by providing students with the knowledge that they and their perspective have a place in the classroom, and in fact are incredibly important to the learning experience of themselves and every other student. 

If my overall goal for teaching is to be a positive representational figure for my students, to bring representation to the classroom, then it starts with making sure that students can feel comfortable being themselves in the classroom and that they can actively bring their experiences and perspectives to the classroom to help them learn as they need to.