Learning to be a Community

"The process of teaching is a conversation that takes place at the intersection of a web of communities in which we are situated."

The more I research I do on alternative teaching philosophies and theories the more I am committed to attempting to create classes as communal learning environments, which benefit all learners in multiple ways. I use the word "alternative" due to the oppressive educative practices my primary and secondary school teachers employed as a result of doing things by the book and refraining from group work. Throughout my years of schooling my 8th grade Reading instructor Melissa Evans was the only teacher I had who assigned group work and required community service. I always enjoyed attending her class. She applied many successful teaching techniques that the (Temple) College of Education supports and promotes to engage learners, such as completing an art project with each lesson. Ms. Evans empowered us through educational opportunities that warranted growth, innovation, and ownership. We had a reciprocal relationship; as she taught us, we taught her. Malea Powell's "Learning (Teaching) to Teach (Learn)" article demonstrates the natural way we simultaneously exist as learners and teachers.
Recalling her days of learning beadwork in a community setting, Powell connects the awkward feeling she felt in attempting something new mixed with her desire to master the skill with how her students feel in writing in a new discourse, on a new subject, for a new instructor. She can relate, because she has not forgotten her discomfort as a novice.  Years later as she helps a peer achieve a pattern of beadwork, Powell senses the woman's feelings of awkwardness and revisits her previous experience only to recognize the cycle. If only more educators held on to this novice feeling and the sensitivity that was essential or at least desired for successful maturation. Furthermore, as the learner strengthens one's skills they transform into a guide for others towards achievement. Powell expresses the need for educators to recognize they are not the sole authority in academic environments and should be open to learning from or at least listening to the student-body. Paulo Freire taught us the opposite are pedagogical practices which continue the oppression of student development regarding autonomy and critical consciousness. Throughout our society there are numerous examples of communal learning.

The Met School in Rhode Island is a prime example. The visionary institution without fences that provides the community with a fitness center, recording studio, academic classes, library, technology labs, a park, and more is open to EVERYONE, between 7am - 10pm, six days a week! It would not possible without community discussion and input. There were no assumptions that professional contractors were making all the decisions. The collaboration of architectures, government officials at the state and city level, and community members embodies the process in how interdisciplinary techniques fashion success and benefit the majority. The media clip (below) explains how this six building community school came into existence.

Beyond the notion of building a community campus that serves and welcomes the needs of ALL, the actual process of creating such an institution included a variety of voices where everyone had the opportunity to be heard and involved. The idea was not maintained in mere rhetoric; the theory of community was practiced.

Powell communicates,

"Remember, too, that race, gender, ethnicity, class, orientation, ableness, etc. are not "topics" to be introduced into the classroom, or "issues" that "come up" in the classroom --- they are lived realities that are always already present in the lives of the students who sit in classrooms, in the lives of administrators who make decisions about which students to admit and which teachers to hire, even in the fact that there are classrooms in universities --- classrooms built and maintained by laboring bodies, erected on lands gained through the blood of colonization, of slavery, of oppression, of empire."

She reminds us we cannot be blind to the cultures we belong to or the cultures of others, as some are physically present and others unknowingly exist internally and externally to be shared when we are comfortable to do so. Ignoring the layers of an individual is dismissing parts of one's identity. At the forefront of every person's perspective are the experiences that have shaped one's point of view. Working in any group we have the opportunity to learn something new about ourselves and others. As educators we should not adopt color, or any other form of, blindness for it opens doors for disconnection and distrust among students. The responsibility of working through conflict is upon every one of us; however we have had few opportunities to recognize the benefits in discussing uncomfortable content. Through writing one can communicate their thoughts without interruption in a safe space. Educators need to determine how we can form learning environments where sensitive content is expressed and discussed that embraces positive conflict for the development of the class/community. 

*Please note: I will provide source information once I locate Malea Powell's article.