In this episode:
Greg McClure shares a powerful experience regarding what could happen when we look critically at why we do what we do, the position from which we speak when we engage in what we are doing, and how we position ourselves and others in the process.

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Produced by:
Andy Bilodeau

Greetings CLIP Listeners,

First, we’d like to extend our gratitude to Vivian for giving us the opportunity to share this experience with you all.

My name is Greg McClure and this poemCast attempts to document our class’ transformation from a group of students and a teacher to a community of caring and engaged learners.

The project began as I decided to keep a reflective journal to explore my teaching in an undergraduate course on language and culture in the classroom. I was committed to being brutally honest with myself and determined to examine the biases and stereotypes I was bringing into the classroom. How did these biases interact with my intentions of implementing a critical and engaged pedagogy? How did they limit our potential as a class to connect in true dialogue with one another? While I have never been a journal writer, it became the perfect tool to work through the possible answers to these important questions. The journal acted like a sieve, filtering and sorting my observations and reflections, slowing them down and disentangling them from one another. This process allowed me to recognize both the limits and possibilities of my teaching, giving me the reflective space necessary to begin moving towards a more open and democratic pedagogy.

Throughout the semester I maintained this creative tension between reflection and action and invited the class into the process as well. I was enthused and inspired often by the results in class, but always by the process we were taking. We incorporated a healthy mix of group work, student led discussions of the texts, and frequently used writing as a means to develop and share our individual thoughts on difficult topics like immigration, racism & privilege. I constantly tried to facilitate an environment that encouraged sharing individual lived experiences, but in a way that connected us to and enriched our understanding of the course concepts. We engaged in many activities that helped build community and deepen our understanding of each others’ perspectives, often questioning our own in the process. Here, it is important to highlight our initial experience of writing and sharing “I Am” poems. This simple act of exploring our “cultural selves” together was a powerful process and moved our sense of community forward, as folks showed their willingness to be vulnerable and supportive of one another. It was this initial experience that set the direction for the rest of our course and inspired our decision to develop our “We Are” poem and to share it as a poemCast.

Realizing the “insider” nature of “We Are” poems, we struggled to generate something meaningful beyond the limits of our classroom, yet still authentically represent our experiences in the course. Our goal was to create something that reads not so much as a collective profile of our personalities and experiences, but rather a statement of our evolving philosophies on education, learning, and human relationships. We’ve tried to capture the spirit of our classroom here and to document our development as a community of engaged, critical educators. We feel our experience is a testament to the power of dialogue and community building in education. With that we leave you with our poemcast, in hopes that it may inspire you to look critically at your own pedagogy, wherever you are.

We Are…

We are the swarming gnats of South Georgia and the cold, misty mountains of the Bavarian Alps.

We are la douce France, Vietnam and Nigeria.

We are Latinos, Koreans, and North Americans, blending and becoming, defined as much by our aspirations as by our ethnicity and location.

We are the prejudices of our childhood, both enduring and imposing. Our collective experience knows the sting of English only, the sorrow of monolingualism, and the beauty and power of linguistic diversity. For some, the language of our ancestors is within reach, yet somehow just beyond.

We are a class where worlds collide, a medley of races, beliefs, backgrounds and religions. We are not merely individuals with incredible pasts; we are a class with one powerful story to tell.

We were once strangers, but have connected to build supportive and understanding relationships erected on a foundation of dialogue and trust. Once a week, we are seated at the intersection of our various paths, en route towards our diverse destinations; all the while enjoying the opportunity to journey vicariously through each others’ gifts of language and culture.

Uniquely united for a short time, we have become a community of learners, teaching each other and growing along the way. We are acting, thinking, reflecting, doing. Taking risks, sharing, and crossing boundaries. We are peeling back the layers of our once concealed culture, taking stock of influence and ideology.

Perhaps not all future educators of children, we are all future educators of society. We are willing to discard our prior misconceptions of the unknown, to step outside of ourselves and be vulnerable, willing to view the world through the eyes of another.

We are different experiences joined together in a common vision for education. A vision of compassion and possibility, fueled by a commitment to equity. We are motivated to change the unjust through reflection, struggle, and action, recognizing the power of experience and solidarity.

Alone, I am not able, but together, we are.

Tags : Greg McClure, poemcast, positioning, reflection journal