Teaching & Leadership Statement
When I began teaching, in a high school English classroom in a big-city school, I believed that great teaching lay in competently conveying a love of literature, and a high degree of knowledge of the crafts of reading and writing. My desire to teach came from a desire to pass on a passion for communication through story, and the learning that comes from seeing the world through the eyes of those who write about their experience. As I have moved to a blended learning teaching and leadership context, I have continued to teach groups of students at various times to interpret the world through a novel study, or to help them craft a better essay, or to prepare for an annual school trip to Bard on the Beach by exploring the layers of meaning in a Shakespeare play.
That is still an aspect of teaching that is very important to me, but my views on what constitutes great teaching have evolved. More important by far are the relationships that are formed in an educational context, and the layers of support, encouragement, and mentorship that teachers and administrators provide. Meaningful engagement with knowledge through curriculum, in order to prepare students for interaction with their world, is of critical importance as well. But without a sense of belonging, a sense of connection to the adults and peers in their educational settings and beyond, there is rarely an opportunity for deep and connected learning that sticks, and that is transferable to the contexts they will inhabit in the future.
I also know that beyond the building of a structure of knowledge, a true education involves the architecture of confident competency: allowing students to explore and identify who they are, and their strengths and challenges in the world, through developing foundational skills and understandings. These include thinking creatively and critically, being self-advocates and advocating for others, becoming personally and socially responsible, and claiming their personal and cultural place in the world. This is a journey that all of us are on as well, as educators and as humans, and the privilege we have to be part of that journey with our students needs to be acknowledged and validated.
My vision for teaching also includes a ground-level belief in the importance of inclusive education. Students who do not fit into the definitions of ‘abled’ which have been developed within our systems of education and society, are othered in many ways. The ‘dis/abled’ who do not easily meet the “built world” physically (to use Sara Hendren’s term from her book, What Can a Body Do?) can be kept from activities in a bricks and mortar school. The emotional or behavioral outliers who lack understanding or control of their feelings or impulses are isolated and avoided. The people who process new information slowly are left behind when everyone at the same grade level is expected to fit into the ‘average’ speed of learning. We have created a system of special education that supports, lifts up, and brings care in many ways to students with many different needs, but there is a lack of true inclusiveness when the entire physical and nonmaterial environment is constructed to fit the needs of the majority – the average student – and then requires a raft of accommodations and efforts to provide for diverse needs, and rightly so. I have instead become convinced of the benefit of blended learning here too, where a physical plant is sometimes the context for education, and sometimes not, but all students have choice and freedom in how to best approach their learning needs, and their ways of being in the world. Inclusion happens automatically when every student begins a school day with the same opportunities to learn, and co-creates the context that allows for learning and growth in the fullest sense.
I am ambitious for progress in the best way of thinking about education that’s possible. I believe that the most engaged and meaningful education is that which allows for some individualization, as well as challenging students to try on ways of learning that may not be the most natural for them. I am ambitious for an understanding of flexible contexts for schooling, such as blended learning, which both fits the philosophy of allowing for unique and personalized learning, and makes space for the pathways of the future. We need an educational setting that allows for the use of technology, the need to quarantine at times in today’s globally connected world, and the best use of flexible time and space for students, teachers, support staff, and school buildings, and homes. I believe that teaching and leading as educators involves a commitment to examining our educational contexts without any sense of being beholden to the ‘average’, or to the way things have always been done. I am committed to making my own school context, wherever that may be during my career, the best place possible for all students, and an exemplar to other educators.
Women’s Leadership Panel Discussion
This video is a joint presentation of the women of the University of Kansas EdD Vancouver Cohort, a panel discussion facilitated by Dr. Lisa Wolf-Wendel.
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/BBR7yDsqcFc?
Lisa Taylor 