Takeaways from RIWP

Since yesterday was my first attendance at the Rhode Island Writing Project, I was not sure what to expect. I knew only a few details--that teachers from across the state would be in attendance, that there would be workshops, and that lunch would be provided. Not only were these ignorant and vague expectations met, they were far exceeded.

Upon my prompt arrival (a rare occurrence), I was met with a plethora of people, many of whom I knew. I saw many of my past professors, fellow peers, colleagues from OASIS, and in general, some of the brightest people I've met in my academic career. For me, this was an excellent opportunity because not only was I intellectually interacting with peers and professionals, we were all engaging in the collective task of bettering our practice of social-emotional pedagogy.

When I read the program, I was immediately taken aback by the workshop offerings. I had assumed that we'd be doing workshops as a whole group (like in previous professional development events I've been to), but instead we broke apart into subgroups to attend mini-lectures on varying topics. While I wish I could have attended all fifteen, we were all limited to two. Thus for the first session, I attended a panel on mindfulness being implemented in the classroom, and the second on incorporating op-eds in the secondary and higher education levels.

The first session drew my attention because I have had a lot of exposure to mindfulness. I had even made an infographic on the benefits of mindfulness meditation in a multimodal rhetoric course. I believe it is essential to be mindful, or aware of, not only a student's own emotional and mental state, but to be in tune with what others' mental/emotional state is, and how the collective emotions of an environment can contribute to, and promote, learning. This workshop was the first time I had ever even considered bringing the practice of mindfulness to the classroom. Not only does mindfulness foster kindness and compassion in the classroom, there is data to suggest that it keeps kids in school and makes school easier. If I can spend a few moments of a class checking in with my students and/or encouraging breathing/mindfulness exercises which directly benefit their overall lives, then I shall do so, for would it not be my duty as a dedicated teacher to do so?

The next workshop that I chose, on using op-eds to foster writing skills, interested me because I have been invested in this genre for a while now. Not only have I been reading a lot of them, I've been writing a few as well. The workshop instructors essentially surmised that because op-eds are personal opinions driven to consider sociopolitical concerns, writing them challenges students to care and put voice in their writing. While they argued that writing op-eds was sufficient to replace a traditional term paper in higher level courses, I was not sure if I agreed because I feel students in higher levels should also foster scholarly writing and research skills. But who says one cannot do that with op-eds? I think that in my future practice I will integrate op-eds into my curriculum, but it will only be one genre of many my students write.

Perhaps most uplifting of all these events, however, was our keynote speaker, Tina Cane. She read some of her poetry, which was a stirring account of her American experience as an Asian woman. For me, I especially enjoyed Cane's use of binary opposition to express her separation from, yet inclusion with, American culture, such as quintessentialism and stoicism; waste and want; catch and release; and answers and questions. She also called for the value of social emotional learning because as teachers, we are going to get to know our kids, and kids unfortunately face all kinds of trauma. We may never know some of the true horrors our students may deal with, so it is important to be mindful of our students' emotional well-being. I had always been told by teachers and parents alike that teachers should limit their connection with their students because teachers need to stay professional, but after this event, my opinion changed to believe that that is bullshit. The best practice of the education profession is through socially and culturally relevant pedagogy. By fostering social emotional learning--which includes understanding how our students feel--we as educators can promote that pedagogy and ensure the best education for our students.

After going to this event, not only did I feel for the first time included within the educator/teacher club, I felt I could embrace my identity as an educator because like these established educators, I was also considering the same sociopolitical issues, and how social emotional learning--learning that brings out the humanity between instructor and instructed--is the most efficient way of teaching because it connects with our collective humanity. Our humanity is the only thing homo sapiens have; thereby as a result, we must foster that understanding in our classrooms and across the disciplines because if we are not cognizant of the fact that we almost exclusively communicate with humans, we limit our ability to communciate with, interact with, and educate, our fellow humans.


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