Alumnus聽Olivia Jones, a Language Arts聽teacher at ,聽contributed the following commentary to The Denver Post, . Her message is at the heart of what we do in the School of Education.聽Find out more about our teacher education programs and commitments.
Make it matter, be a teacher
If teachers make the work we do in school truly matter, learning will follow. This is because students are human beings, and human beings are motivated by two hard-wired instincts: to learn and to use what they learn to make a place for themselves in the world.
Every child is born with a desire to experience and explore the novel, the unknown, the untested. Oftentimes curriculum, in a push to be standardized, can sometimes disrupt the ready and natural human energy to learn by muddling up the process with content that feels irrelevant to the learners.
Two recent experiences have convinced me if the work feels urgent and personal it will inspire incredible efforts. Students are motivated when they are acting on their innate imperative to acquire the knowledge they feel they need in order to become an integral part of their society.
The first thing I am usually asked about the students at Manual High School solicits a litany of statistics. These statistics typically become the lens we use to see and think about the challenges we face, and that perspective is not without significance. However, we see students through another lens. We must see them as people who care about the world and their place in it.
At the beginning of the year, my sophomore American Literature students sat down to sift through piles of American Literature syllabi from across the country. They looked up every book, poem, short story, author on these lists and were frustrated that someone somewhere had decided these were the only authentic stories and authors of America. These stories felt one-sided and disconnected from the experiences they know as Americans. One of my students put it this way, "American Literature must incorporate voices from many cultures because America is not one culture. If we teach only one cultural perspective, we will lose track of the story of ourselves."
This became an issue that mattered to them, and their work reflected that. There was power in the beautiful noise they made while developing their personal depictions of America. At the end of the semester they received an invitation from Colorado's public radio station to record their original poems about the American Dream. These readings were broadcast in a series on the morning news program. Public Radio journalists wanted to hear my students' voices. The broadcasters wanted their listeners to hear my students' stories, because their stories are a crucial piece of our community well-being and our understanding of being alive today in this country.
In this moment my students became social activists. And each day they came to class and expressed their natural desire to learn and engage.This is the alchemy that social justice brings to the classroom. It is rigorous and it energizes all players. There was joy and music in the chorus of voices that filled the days they spent on this project.
My AP language students also recently made the news when they hosted a community dialogue in response to the verdicts in Ferguson and Staten Island. This event drew a large crowd that included teachers, parents, administrators, students, members of the Colorado Board of Education, law enforcement, and the press. The students presented speeches and facilitated a dialogue among the participants.
My students, like others who marched, wanted to express their opinions on the non-indictments and their impact in our country and local community. But, they chose dialogue and rhetoric as their means. They spent weeks studying, writing, practicing, and revising their speeches and questions. They applied themselves to the work of language and composition with true fervor because they knew how important their voices would be on the day of the forum.
It was not an exercise in academics; it was an exercise in life. They knew that their work, their learning and their skills had relevance and power. This is why we must encourage more people to join us in education and bring social justice into our classrooms.
If you take one thing away from my story let it be this: teaching is not just challenging and important, it is exhilarating.
Choose teaching and you will be moved by the power, beauty and potential of humankind. Not every day is a symphony, but listen carefully and there is always the tuning of the instruments in preparation for a great and powerful swell that will thump your heart like a kettle drum.
Choose teaching, and you will hear the symphony of hearts and minds and voices that is humanity in its most perfect expression鈥� the student.
Olivia Jones is a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder and is a teacher at Manual High School.