by Maria Stolyarova
Education is recognized as one of the basic human rights, yet the extent of humane approaches in education varies. Over the last 3 years, with the rest of humanity, teachers and students have lived an unprecedented experience of illness, isolation, trauma, loss, rapid social change, adaptation, consequent incredible flexibility as well as personal and professional growth. The “duoethnographic reflection” by Blum and Dale (Blum et.al., 2021) is a qualitative inquiry that explores methods of humanizing pedagogy used during COVID-19 pandemic. As institutions shifted to online and hybrid modes of learning, a multitude of policies and protocols (at times lack of them) have been continually revisited and reimagined. The study discusses the authors’ individual and collective experiences navigating the pandemic while practicing humanizing and culturally sustaining pedagogies within their teacher preparation program. The purpose of their study is to “reimagine teacher preparation embedded in humanizing pedagogies in education spaces where both teacher candidates and teacher educators are engaged in humanizing practices, culturally sustaining pedagogies, and critically compassionate intellectualism with and among one another” (Blum et.al., 2021). The study offers a personalized delicate evidence-based layout of how prioritization of human condition, emotional needs, cultural awareness, empathy and care are crucial for the future of education and teacher training.
The Literature Review that the authors titled “Theoretical Background”, offers a historical excursus into humanizing pedagogy and critical consciousness:
Salazar (2013) identifies five core tenets of humanizing pedagogy:
1) the full development of the person is essential for humanization;
2) to deny someone else’s humanization is also to deny one’s own;
3) the journey for humanization is both an individual and collective endeavor toward
critical consciousness;
4) critical reflection and action can transform structures that impede our own and
others’ humanness, thus facilitating liberation for all; and
5) educators are responsible for promoting a more fully human world through their
pedagogical principles and practices. (Blum et.al., 2021)
While further citing Carter, they observed necessities fro “social justice- oriented teacher education programs to commit to “critical self-reflection, truth -telling, radical honesty, resisting binaries, demonstrating activism, and enacting ontological and epistemological plurality” in program structure, curricular alignment, and instructional practice”, etc. The authors discuss and cite such authors as Freire (1970), Salazar (2013), Giroux (1988), Osorio (2018), Carter Andre et al. (2019), etc.
Blum and Dale chose duoethnography as a format for their study. Duoethnography is a qualitative methodology that allows for two or more individuals to bring together different lived experiences, ways of knowing and being, and perspectives to shared phenomena (Norris, 2017).
Norris (2017) outlines four central tenets critical to the implementation of a duoethnographic study: 1) the dialogic nature of the research where the narratives of the researchers are juxtaposed to each other; 2) the examination of past experiences and stories; 3) differences are crucial to exploring a larger shared experience; and 4) the methodology must be open and flexible, not restrictive in terms of procedure. Their methodology offers such data and records as email correspondence, excerpts of written transcriptions of phone conversations, written narrative reflections on the structured question prompts followed by collaborative, participatory, and iterative data analysis.
The findings of the study are revealed through records of dialogic introspections of both Mexican-American teacher candidate Leah and Korean-American teacher instructor Grace. As the evidence suggests, Grace, as a teacher instructor, recognized the power to make choices in instructional delivery, curriculum structure, flexibility with deadlines, partial submissions, recognition of social struggle (COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, etc.) in order to tailor the learning experience. Leah, as her former student, has reported (or rather confessed) that Grace was the only professor out of 5 that approached students with empathy, understanding, solidarity and care, all of which were reflected in her educational practices. Leah found this learning experience empowering, invigorating and motivating.
In the Discussion, both scholars call for the emphasis on the constructivist model to be in the heart of every syllabus and teacher training. They claim there is a need to recognize all prior knowledge and experiences of every student, however young. They wrap the discussion with a powerful rhetorical question: “How can future educators be expected to create and maintain classroom practices that are humanizing, when their own experience has been dehumanizing?” (Blum et.al., 2021)
I found profound appreciation for this study and the fact it was accepted in the academic journal, although based on personal experiences of 2 people. I wholeheartedly support the track of research that focuses on, at times, immeasurable yet easily observable human experience, exposed vulnerability and caring inclusive communities.
For my Capstone Project, I will likely look into leadership styles and, possibly, create a proposal of my own. This study helped me to broaden my perception of possible formats of data collection and presentation. Humanizing pedagogy should be rooted into humanizing leadership.
References
Blum, G. I., & Dale, L. M. (2021). Becoming humanizing educators during inhumane times:
Valuing compassion and care above productivity and performance. Current Issues in
Education, 22 (3). https://doi.org/10.14507/cie.vol22iss3.1992
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