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ENGL567A: Short Paper #7: Philosophy of Teaching
by Edmond Chang
Written for |
I know I am a teacher. If reading and writing are my loves, then teaching is my ambition, my activism. The Myers-Brigg Type Indicator agrees; I am extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging (ENFJ), the teacher archetype. I have taught at nearly all levels of education, and I offer my commitment to teaching, learning, and student advocacy. I believe teaching is a concert of education, inspiration, leadership, mentorship, alchemy, and stand-up comedy. For eight years, I taught English 101: Introduction to Academic writing at the University of Maryland--that’s thirty sections, over 600 students, over 3,000 papers, over three million words. I have taught Honors sections, first year living-learning community programs called College Park Scholars and First Year Focus sections, English as a Second Language sections, and standard sections of 101. And though they were argumentative writing classes, my course invited and incorporated continuing discussions about current events, gender, sexuality, race, civil rights, and popular culture. If you were to ask Richard Fulkerson, author of “Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century,” he would most likely classify me as part of the “social turn” in teaching. My class and my philosophy align with the projects of critical and cultural studies. A past course description reveals this: “This particular incarnation of 101 promises a healthy inclusion of popular culture, cultural studies, politics, gender studies, everyday activism, new media, and experiential learning.” Overall, I encourage students daily to think about, speak about, write about, and participate in diversity. As I half-jokingly tell students on the first day of term, teaching is about infecting their minds, their lives so that they will have and show curiosity about their world. I have received consistent and excellent evaluations from students, peers, and supervisors; in fact, I was nominated for the 2003-04 UM Parents Association Outstanding Faculty Award and was named Outstanding Teaching Assistant by the UM Center for Teaching Excellence in 2004. Currently, I am teaching English 131: College Composition in my first year of my PhD at the University of Washington. I hope to continue to teach at the university level, to eventually seek professorship, to push the idea that teaching is empowerment, activism, entertainment, and world-making, and that learning is centrally about reading, thinking, writing, making, and doing. There is no greater gift than to teach, but teaching comes in many forms and guises. I have served as faculty advisor to an undergraduate literary magazine and spent the last year of my MA as an academic advisor for UM’s Division of Letters and Sciences. Outside of the classroom, I was active in the University of Maryland’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community serving in organizing events, creating publications, speaking in speakers bureaus, and facilitating the LGBT peer-support group. In a day and age when Matthew Shepard, Colombine, and September 11 are a reality, there can be no failure in teaching and in the value of education. I believe that teaching is and should be direct action. Allied to teaching at the University of Maryland, I count myself as one of the out and proud and vocal citizens on campus. I am an advocate. I am a leader. And I am an activist. For example, I am committed to LGBT affairs at UM for myself, for students, for faculty and staff, and for the community at large. Over the years, I have worked extensively with UM’s queer campus groups including the Pride Alliance, the Graduate Lambda Coalition, and allied groups such as the Rainbow Terrapin Network. From 1997 to 1998, I served as a facilitator for UM’s Safe Space LGBT peer support group establishing a regular format and creating an informational brochure. I have rallied, shouted, carried signs, marched, cried, chalked sidewalks, written, and organized for the LGBT community on campus. Of note, I organized a vigil and speak out for Matthew Shepard in 1998. In addition, I designed the National Coming Out Day Out List and Allies List printed in UM’s student newspaper The Diamondback two years running in 1997 and 1998. Since 1997, I have served as an active and consummate presenter for the UM Speakers Bureau program. Now in a new city, a new campus, a new community, I hope to pursue similar extracurricular, coalitional teaching and learning opportunities. Teaching is about unions, about coalitions, about intersections, and about communication. It is about being a cheerleader, a short-order cook, a judge, and a good neighbor. Teaching is also about honesty, reciprocity, respect, and trust and self-confidence on both sides of the desk or lectern. The best teachers in my life have always modeled the ideas, philosophies, excitement, and investment they possessed themselves and encouraged in their work. They taught me to ways to grow, ways to change, and ways to follow my heart. They taught me a teacher is only as successful as their student and vice-versa. They taught me to teach others. I wish to do the very same.
Works Cited
Fulkerson, Richard. "Composition and the Turn of the Twenty-First Century."
College Composition and Communication 56.4 (June 2005): 654-687.
© 2005 EYC.
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