This is a bit different than a normal blog post, less academic and more reflective.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process. \u2026 In my classrooms, I do not expect students to take any risks that I would not take, to share in any way that I would not share.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s Spring semester of 2022. There\u2019s an oppressive stillness in the air. The news had come last night, that Roe v Wade is likely to be overturned. I didn\u2019t know how to get out of bed, I didn\u2019t know how to take in the information. It was an expected turn of events, but even as a political scientist, I felt in shock. I couldn\u2019t process it.<\/p>\n I go to my class on autopilot. It\u2019s class of 20 women and a professor who identifies as a woman. None of us say anything. How do we process a loss like this? My professor begins the class, opening up space to talk about the news. No one speaks. I\u2019m not sure if there\u2019s anything to say.<\/p>\n Then, my professor begins to cry. I\u2019ve been in a lot of classrooms\u2014I even got kicked out once for crying while watching Trump being inaugurated. But I\u2019ve never had a professor cry in front of a class before. It was a moment of vulnerability, one that I think about a lot when I try to imagine the type of professor I want to be.<\/p>\n bell hooks\u2019 words reminded me of this moment and the empowerment I felt as a woman in that moment. I felt seen and heard, an expression of emotion that I was feeling but couldn\u2019t put into words. I saw in those moments what bell hooks means by \u2018the classroom is a place where teachers grow\u2019 \u2013 to share an emotion with a class is an act of strength empowering not only the professor, but those who attended class that day.<\/p>\n None of the students said anything, but the moment bridged the divide between teacher and student\u2014humanizing both of us in our collective pain. bell hooks is right in that a teacher must be willing to take risks that she expects of her students and I felt that that day. As a classroom, that vulnerability was acknowledged and cherished.<\/p>\n The engaged pedagogy that bell hooks described is a way to create a classroom that moves both of us (teacher and student) towards liberation, learning from each other, and in some cases, leaning on each other for support. I didn\u2019t know a name for it until reading this excerpt, but I have a feeling that as I get my own classroom, bell hooks words will not leave me and that moment last spring will not leave me either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a bit different than a normal blog post, less academic and more reflective. \u201cAny classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process. \u2026 In my classrooms, I do not expect students to take any risks that I would not … Continue reading To the professor who changed my life\u2026<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169404],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2022-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}