Welcome to My Journey:
"Is this as good as it gets?"
After teaching in the San Diego Unified School District since 2001, I came to a critical point in my career as an educator by asking myself the question "Is this as good as it gets? Is this it?". I was faced with the fact that there was a disconnect between my ideals and the reality at work within my classroom. Education was meant to empower and inspire students to love the act of learning within a safe, collaborative environment where everyone has equal access and a voice. In essence, I discovered that I was doing the opposite by trying to control my students. I told them what to learn and how to learn. From an outsider's point of view, my class appeared to be well-organized, but did my students love coming to class each day to learn?
My students and I had been going through what Alfie Kohn says is "burnout- just going through the motions of learning, handing in uninspired work and counting the minutes or days until freedom. Rather, it was due to powerlessness- a lack of control over what one is doing". I decided that I needed to be an agent of change to this powerlessness and foster a culture of democracy within my classroom where student voice is an essential value and put into practice. Through HTH GSE's Teacher Leadership program, I explored what happened when student voice and student reflection guided my teaching and our learning by giving my students "a chance to be actively involved in deciding what kind of people they want to be and what kind of classroom or school they want to have." (Kohn) And so my journey towards a democratic classroom began...
My students and I had been going through what Alfie Kohn says is "burnout- just going through the motions of learning, handing in uninspired work and counting the minutes or days until freedom. Rather, it was due to powerlessness- a lack of control over what one is doing". I decided that I needed to be an agent of change to this powerlessness and foster a culture of democracy within my classroom where student voice is an essential value and put into practice. Through HTH GSE's Teacher Leadership program, I explored what happened when student voice and student reflection guided my teaching and our learning by giving my students "a chance to be actively involved in deciding what kind of people they want to be and what kind of classroom or school they want to have." (Kohn) And so my journey towards a democratic classroom began...
My journey continues...
When I completed my action research in 2013, my initial questions sprouted more questions around distributed leadership and student voice. I knew that I had to keep going to see where these new questions led me. Click here to see the progress of my journey as I continue to listen to students while at the UCSD/CSUSM Educational Leadership Joint Doctorate program.
Contact: melissahan411 [@] gmail.com