Liberation begins with education. From this Freirean perspective, all practices in teaching and learning follow. At the center of these practices then, there must be a profound sense of partnership between students and teachers in which critical thinking and humanization guide our liberatory actions. In a learning space, each is supportive of another’s creative potential in identifying, analyzing, interrogating, and reflecting on the layers of power and positionality that are embedded in our day-to-day lives and in subjects of knowledge, both inside and outside the classroom. In essence, learning requires a mutual trust between students and teachers. This trust is cultivated through a praxis of relational and reflective interactions between students, teachers, and communities in which shared learning experiences become the common ground for reciprocal understanding and encouragement—we commit to liberatory actions because we are learning together.

A good teacher, regardless of the subject-matter, brings to the classroom a sense of humility and self-efficacy that is grounded in a holistic model of learning. This requires teachers to be vulnerable because, as bell hooks suggests, they are engaged with students and curriculum through mind, body, and spirit. To be a vulnerable teacher means to divest oneself of power and trust students’ personal desires for transforming the world in emergent and innovative ways. In this process teachers become empowered themselves because they grow in their capacity to hold space for new possibilities within classrooms and across contexts.

"To be a vulnerable teacher means to divest oneself of power and trust students’ personal desires for transforming the world in emergent and innovative ways."

Too often, education is framed within isolated contexts where transmission and transfer of knowledge are expected outcomes of learning. Certainly, it is the hope of a teacher that students can employ new skills or express new ideas beyond the immediate context of classroom learning. This is why, in order to elevate classroom practices toward more liberatory processes of growth and development, my classrooms are sites of learning that encourage and support community relationships. I strive to implement transformative and critical pedagogy beyond the walls of classrooms—with our communities—so that students can experience the world in relation to the knowledge and skills we are cultivating together across social identities and broader community spaces. Then, the physical classroom becomes a protected place for students to explore and question subject-specific ideas based on the shared experiences they have with our communities through collaborative inquiry and problem-solving.

Underlying all my beliefs and practices is my dedication to equity and social justice. It is my responsibility as a teacher to meet students where they are; to validate their life stories as uniquely powerful perspectives formed through personal experiences and socially situated positionalities. For my own part, my Queer identity lends me a perspective that is often an absent identity among higher education faculty. My course designs and pedagogy seek to redistribute power within learning processes because they are driven by student identity, expression, interest, and expertise. Each day, each week, each quarter of instruction is developed in context and in coordination with student feedback alongside our successes and productive failures together. I take up my role as a teacher to mediate program and course objectives in relation to students’ desires and their cultural repertoires of experience; whether that be influenced by gender expression, sexuality, race, ethnicity, dis/ability, or other social identities. We join in side-by-side advocacy toward liberation as we come to understand each other based on mutually developed goals and intertwining values.

"My course designs and pedagogy seek to redistribute power within learning processes because they are driven by student identity, expression, interest, and expertise."

No matter the discipline of practice, teaching and learning should deepen our perspectives about the world, and in turn, position us to act from a place of new understanding, a place of developing agency, a place of power. Since liberation begins with education, then one might assume liberation ends with education as well. But the truth is, liberation is a continual process. And together, teachers and learners endeavor toward always becoming self-actualized for transforming our complex world.

Often, in the field of education, the words “equity,” “social justice,” or “inclusion” are discussed as important factors in developing pedagogy and course designs. Though, in my professional experience it has often felt as if these words are disconnected from our day-to-day work as educators and how we live our daily lives. This is especially true when we consider that we continue to live within the long history of violence and discrimination against Black and Brown bodies in the American education system. Sociopolitical tensions dominate our public discourse more than ever, and white supremacy continues to endanger the well-being of so many marginalized communities in both overt and discreet ways. Reparations seem a far-off dream. Yet, contemporary possibilities are out there. More directly, we are at an inflection point in the United States, and quite frankly the entire world. The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly shown us all the systemic problems that exist across our institutions. As an educator, academic, and civic participant, I feel that I have a responsibility to meet this moment head on. Therefore, I strive to enact equity as a praxis through my pedagogy, my research, and my professional presence so that we might build something ‘new’ together as we begin to exit our social isolation and sedentary lifestyles.

As a Queer, cisgender, white man, I have experienced a small share of identity struggles. Having lived through times of poverty with a single mom and having endured acts of violence because of my sexuality, I know that my social identity is part of a broader complex system of injustice bound up in white supremacy and Western colonialism. When I look in the mirror every day to comb my hair and to brush my teeth, I remember to take note of the privileged white face looking back at me; but I also remember to love my Queer self; and I remember it is this whole identity—my history and my presence—which goes out into the world to teach and engage with my community towards just futures. I know there is much to fight against in the world, especially systemic racism in the US. Which also means one of the most important elements of my work is to de-center whiteness. Though, I often feel that taking up the practices of an anti-racist in professional spaces is not enough. Being against racism and white supremacy, and against the school-to-prison pipeline, and against immigrant detention is not enough because it does not foster solutions for our futures. It also situates many issues as a comparison to whiteness. Make no mistake, this is certainly a list of many things I am against. But I am also for so many things, too.

I am for honoring peoples’ truths and lived experiences that are counter-narrative to white, male heteronormativity. I am for holding spaces that generate critical dialogue and shared understanding across difference. I am for being in right relations with land and waters, and I am for building sustainable futures in which we value cross-cultural and intergenerational connections to guide our nature-culture relationships. These things that I am for guide my course designs toward structures of practice that can protect students so they can take risks together. I support students with transformative pedagogy that promotes civic participation and action through community-based relationships. Explicitly, this means enacting designs of culturally responsive engagement in which power and privilege across contemporary society are more than a point of discussion; they are experienced as we engage in praxis in and outside of the classroom. Whether it is in small group community walks or projects with mobile devices, trips to cultural centers, parks, libraries, zoos, and museums, or sharing thoughts on discussions boards, I strive to develop learning experiences that allow us to leverage the university as a tool to protect student-driven inquiry and at the same time validate the everyday lives of the people who dwell and work with us in our communities.

"I am for honoring peoples’ truths and lived experiences that are counter-narrative to white, male heteronormativity. I am for holding spaces that generate critical dialogue and shared understanding across difference. I am for being in right relations with land and waters, and I am for building sustainable futures in which we value cross-cultural and intergenerational connections to guide our nature-culture relationships."

As for my research, I am nearly always a participant-observer, so I am acutely aware of the mutual influences we have on each other as we work in collaboration to identify problems and issues for reconceptualizing what is possible for resistance and resurgence within classrooms and community spaces—all constituted on Indigenous land, of course. Observing and analyzing how young people transform their relationships with purposes of teaching and learning has been the most fulfilling experience of my life. And, when my students/study participants recognize their own power and influence over their own futures, I am always excited to see new leaders arise from our shared learning experiences. This mindfulness is also something I bring into my professional development endeavors as well. When I participate in conferences, workshops, and professional learning communities, I do so as a person who is co-constructing an assembled space of people, environment, ideas, and practices seeking to build networks and relationships grounded in equity and justice.

I know I will continue this work both in my professional and personal life. In research labs and in classrooms, on Facebook and on Twitter, at my dinner table and in my friends’ living rooms, I will continue to unceasingly disrupt the status quo of normative male whiteness so that we build opportunities for change together—so that we find discoveries by learning together for shared futures across ideologies and in the ways we enact our everyday lives.

Rising Education Scholars Helping Advance Partnerships & Equity