Kim’s Blog

Freire (2005) testifies that as a teacher, I must dare to 

fight for intellectual justice, he states that “the teaching task 

also requires the capacity to fight for freedom, without which 

the teaching task becomes meaningless”

I really enjoyed the class discussion and loved the sense of empowerment I felt that together we could have to overcome educational injustices. I fell that it is going to take educators coming together and working hard to overcome these problems. Fortunately, I feel that we are on our way! The Ed.S program experience has caused me to become a more critical thinker about my teaching, not only placing emphasis on my students’ identities, but also developing my identity as a teacher.  Freire (2005) stated that identity is formed through, “the dynamic relationship between what we inherit and what we acquire” (p.124). These courses have provoked me to reflect about how our true identity is always being modified and personalized by our daily interactions with others and the world. When humans are young, they are conditioned into believing and thinking a certain way. We are raised by others that impose their beliefs about family, customs, and traditions into our learning and understanding. However, as one begins to be exposed to community and school, we begin to learn about others’ views and we are exposed to new ways of thinking. I believe that we, as teachers, need to have open minds and let ourselves be exposed to these new ideas, but at the same time figure out how this new knowledge fits into our own intrinsic identity. Our knowledge is consistently changing, it is in the way that we acquire and apply this new knowledge into our lives as to how our identity is constructed. I truly believe that this program has changed my teaching identity and allowed me to take on a more critical view of teaching to benefit all children. I hope that my new teaching identity will have a positive effect on my students and allow them to share and help shape their own identities along the way.