D BAUTISTA- Teaching the Teacher

“Ms Bautista, where are you from?” Not a surprising question to get from students. (I forget how candid kids can be when they ask questions very directly) So as usual,  I take the opportunity to launch into a conversation about trans-pacific migration, using my family’s personal history as a case study for thousands of others who experienced the same, and who are living testimonies to History- public history. I still find it so intriguing that names reflect so much history- in my case, personal histories and histories of colonization, migration, politics…..read more

Last week, my SS 9 class began learning about the Philosophes from the French Revolution (Montague, Rousseau, Voltaire, de Gouges, etc). I had been looking forward to begin this part of the unit because of the big take away to be learned from the philosophers. I was super excited to have students revel in how powerful ideas can be, how compelling thoughts can be in creating ideological change and resulting in physical change. Wow. One particular philosopher that I was thrilled to have them learn more about was Olympe de…read more

Empathy. What is it? How is it expressed? How much is too much? These are all questions that I’ve always wondered, but now within the context of a classroom… How much is too much? How is it expressed? What is it? These questions return to my inquiry focus on creating respectful classroom environments, and it is rooted deeply in my own teaching philosophy. These questions have found their way into my brain more consistently and intensely over the last week as I encountered by first instance of student dishonesty (a big hunch…read more

I could talk endlessly about power. But let me be specific. It’s really starting to dawn on me just how impactful being a teacher is, specifically to her students. I had a little bit of an existential moment last week when planning a lesson for my students about Jack London’s Call of the Wild. I was presenting to students London’s literary use of naturalism in his writing, and then doing a close reading of the text thus far. As I was pulling out key quotes to create an analysis worksheet, I suddenly recognized…read more