"My Teaching Philosophy" Transcript
[Description: White male with brown/grayish goatee and short hair in dark gray shirt in a hallway, lined with black bookshelves with books] My name is Marvin Miller. [Lower 1/3 white background banner: “Marvin Miller’s Teaching Philosophy”] My bilingual teaching philosophy includes a strong belief in having students truly understand and have their light bulbs go off by making critical connections in what they learn. That's really important! How do I do that? I carefully choose different and proven approaches in teaching. [Lower 1/3 white background banner: “Principled Electicism” with citation (Brown & Lee, 2015. P. 42)] There is one approach I rely on heavily for my teaching, and this is the content-based instruction. [Lower 1/3 white background banner: “Content-Based Instruction” with citation (Brown & Lee, 2015. P. 57)] But what kind of content do I use? Deafhood. [White left 1/3 side: Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood by Dr. Paddy Ladd with citation (Ladd, 2003)] That is the work of Dr. Paddy Ladd, a Deaf man [Marvin adds Paddy’s sign name which looks like Jesus’ sign name] and his work is so in depth, profound and life-changing for many. His work helps us see the world differently. Not only the history, but the in depth analysis and meanings behind the stories we learn of ourselves. Deafhood helps us better understand oppression. How is that relevant to our lives and our community today? The ripple effect from this will be felt by all whether they are Deaf or hearing or they are new or well-versed in ASL. This would include those who are studying to become audiologists, speech-language pathologists different kinds of specialists working with the Deaf including educators, and interpreters. I believe it is critical for all of these students to engage in meaningful critical thinking, discussions and analysis. All of that through the content on Deafhood being shared with them and that kind of content relies heavily on story-driven examples and metaphors. As a teacher, I am always on the look out for the patterns on student learning key concepts, and some would struggle. I always ask, "Why?" Please allow me to illustrate that point with a real-life story that took place in Indiana. Activists in the Deaf community along with hearing parents and others were stunned to learn of a new campaign by HearIndiana, an organization that explicitly forbids ASL and any contact with Deaf community and our culture. HearIndiana developed an offensive new slogan, "Doing deaf differently" in order to represent an "new" idea that continued technological progress has rendered ASL and Deaf culture completely unnecessary. [Citation: (Deaf Bilingual Coalition, 2008)] They argued for exclusive use of oral-only approach without Deaf adult role models! HearIndiana went on to describe Deaf kids growing up without their natural language and culture as "doing deaf differently"! Naturally, we were offended and upset with their blatant marginalization of our language and culture. No way we are going to take that lightly. We banded together and came up with ideas to respond to them. We came up with a new T-shirt campaign called, "Doing Deaf Organically". Many of us within our group absolutely loved the idea, and we agreed to go ahead with it. But... there were two people in our group who went, "Huh?" Even though they were as involved as everyone else in the group. They were like, "I don't get it? Why use that word, 'organically'?" Everyone responded by saying, "OK, we will come up with something different." I actually stopped for a moment and took a step back, and I took a look at these two people. What did they have in common with each other that puts them at odds with everyone else in the group? There had to be a common ground between these two. What did they have in common? One was a male, other a woman. [White left 1/3 side with entire video in reddish hue: “Not gender”] One was Deaf, other was hearing. Hmm. [White left 1/3 side with entire video in reddish hue: “Not Deaf status”] I wrestled with this for a while. What else did they have in common? The group eventually came up with an alternative, "Doing Deaf Naturally." Whoa! Everyone truly loved the new phrase, including these two -- they agreed that it made sense. Everyone was thrilled. I was still puzzled. However, this provided me with an additional clue. This led to a light blub moment for me. These two people actually shared a conservative Republican belief system! [White left 1/3 side with entire video in reddish hue: “Shared Political ideology”] Their ideology actually provides them with an emotional resonance with the term, "naturally" as opposed to "organically". "Organic" usually are more resonant among the liberals, the environmentalists and green movement. [Citation: (Kastel, 2013)] "Natural" is found more commonly among the conservatives in reflection of their belief system. Even though they were aware of the meaning of the word, it did not activate the necessary neural networks. That was truly a remarkable "Aha!" moment for me, and the experience tied into my study of framing and the work of George Lakoff, and how this impacts our ability to communicate meaning across the divides. [White left 1/3 side: Do not think of an elephant! Know your values book by Dr. George Lakoff with citation (Lakoff & Wilson, 2016)] There is a real need for students to understand this and analyze their subconscious in order to reveal our own distorted views and to effectively reframe these within ourselves and become the change agents. With that, we can begin to see light bulbs popping up over each student's heads and begin to work together to change the world for better. As a people, collectively working together and making a huge impact everywhere. Fade to black. References
|
|