A while back on my personal blog, I asked if there was a secret sauce for education. I have tweaked that a bit to ask if there is a secret sauce for pedagogical practice. Those of you in the program probably have guessed my answer already: No. The longer I am in the program, and the more I learn about culturally responsive teaching, the more convinced I am of the following things.
- Teaching is a craft. Like all crafts, it will take years to master. If we have taken the time to critically reflect upon our work and seek ways to improve upon previous attempts, our novice efforts will look weak in comparison to efforts we make years from now.
- Each child is unique. We cannot lump kids into categories, nor can we label them based upon our preconceived notions. A teacher can quickly get overwhelmed by realizing that each child in the classroom will learn the same “content” in a slightly different way based upon their unique cognitive processes, prior experiences and cultural ways of knowing. It’s a heady thought, but one that needs consideration.
- What we do has a huge impact on a learner’s identity. If we work hard to create a learning community, students will respond to our invitation to become part of that community and will benefit from a warm, caring environment. Each time, we will find we have to re-create and re-conceive this community in different ways based on the incoming members.
Teaching is messy. Teaching is rewarding, fun, challenging, joyful, sorrowful, thought-provoking and life-altering. Learning is messy. Learning, too, is rewarding, fun, challenging, joyful, sorrowful, thought-provoking and life-altering. Teachers and students are in it together; striving toward the common goal of helping a student emerge from cognitive apprenticeship to take on the task of helping others. As much as that is teamwork based, it also reminds me that we are dealing with individuals with their own personal tastes. That is specifically why there is no secret sauce for pedagogical practice.
If you’d like to know more about how MAT@USC can prepare you to earn your teaching certificate and make a difference in your community, contact our Admissions office at 888.MAT.1USC or email us at matadmit@usc.edu.
