|
Liz Kleinfeld's Teaching Philosophy
I love what I do. I don't just teach writing and literature; as a practitioner in the discipline of English, I am always involved in inquiry, discovery, and learning. I am passionate about writing and literature, and I want my students to be passionate about them, too. My pedagogy is based on five premises:
Students learn when they are engaged and invested. Plato said, "Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind." My goal is to engage and involve every student in every class meeting and to make them want to learn. I help students realize that reading and writing can drive their personal development, not just as readers and writers, but as thinkers, workers, and citizens. I employ strategies such as goal setting, individualized action plans, self-assessments, conferencing, and reflection activities with individual students, and service learning projects, workshops, discussion forums, debates, and collaborative projects with entire classes. Students are invested in their writing and research because they engage in real writing and real research for real audiences.
Teachers should help students see the complexities in what appears simple. When students think there are two sides to an issue, I help them see the range of other possible positions between the two sides. Students need to know that critical thinking is hard work and there are no shortcuts. I allow students to see me grappling with difficult texts and ideas, and I let them see me enjoying these tasks. Writing a difficult essay or cracking a poem's code is my idea of fun, and I want to convey my love of complexity to students.
Learning should empower rather than stifle students. Students often come into my writing classes assuming they must erase their individual voices and personal opinions from their writing. I aim to show them that good writing is honest and doesn't simply tell the reader what she wants to hear. I want my students to discover their voices and that they do have something to say. Likewise, students often come into my literature classes expecting me to tell them the "correct" interpretations of the readings. I help them understand that a poem has multiple legitimate meanings and that the fun part is discovering them. Students, not I, do the interpreting in my literature classes.
Students deserve respect. I choose to teach in a community college because I have tremendous respect for our students. I make that respect an integral part of my teaching. I speak to my students as intellectual equals. When I respond to student writing, I assume there's a logic and real idea to be expressed, and I respond first as an interested reader. I believe they can grasp complex, abstract ideas, and I refuse to condescend to them by oversimplifying concepts.
Learning can be scary and frustrating. I regularly put myself in the position of learner. I don't want to forget how it feels to be overwhelmed by a seemingly impossible task and to discover, with the help of a dedicated teacher, a well of strength and determination inside of me. I share my experiences - the successes as well as the frustrations - as a student and learner with my students, modeling successful learning strategies and the intellectual struggles that often go along with real learning.
|
