Anjel Cuevas

Anjel, Represented:

What I do, How I think, and Who I am

I was raised in a semi-urban area but spent most of my time in an urban community where I had to navigate myself going to and from school alone since I was 10. When I turned 17, I was introduced to a bigger world than I've always known-- the United States. I was again left alone to navigate this journey. Both of these times I have learned a lot and I realized that learning is nonlinear. What I thought was right in the past might be wrong either today or years from today, because I also learned that I change as a person more frequently than I seem to think.

I started my college journey at UW in 2018, and at the time I was focused on graduating on time and planning years of my life ahead of me. I just moved to the United States a year before this and just graduated High School in a community that I barely knew; a culture and environment I barely have been exposed to. I was still holding on to my culture and its stereotypes, how I should graduate college at a certain age, and how this was the ONLY way I could be a successful person. Then life happened in 2019 and I dropped out of school. I don't necessarily think I was in an awful place at the time, but then I thought my learning journey was brought to a halt by this bump in my life. As a young person with no guidance from anyone, I thought learning back then was limited within the walls of educational institutions. I started working multiple jobs, meeting with a lot of people, and surviving death from COVID when I was working with the geriatric patients who were stuck with me in a home care facility and I realized that THIS is learning too!

These experiences taught me a lot that has made me the person I am today. I just had a different path and now I feel more equipped and informed going back to school. I won't say it is an ideal or good path for everyone to go through as well since I think it was some years of sacrifice and hardship in a different format, but learning through a different lens gives another kind of perspective that would be a great contribution for a better understanding of things. If we had the same journey, how can we learn from each other? While I acknowledge that it is a great privilege to be able to attend an institution to be able to grasp more complex topics and understand more of what's happening in our society, I believe it is necessary to not limit ourselves and to go out there and learn through others such as real-world experiences while we learn in school.

Responding to Jaymie

I want to acknowledge how our thoughts on how and where learning occurs are similar. We were both placed in different geographical locations but experienced the same kind of challenges the situation entailed and discovered how learning is not limited within the walls of a school and how academic achievement is not the only way of learning. These moments in our lives where we find hardships also can reveal learning opportunities we use to grow as learners, just like how Jaymie persevered and discovered her passion for art and education. It molds us to who we are today and what we want to pursue through these learning moments we get. Unlike Jaymie who had an art teacher help them realize their passion for art and education, I had no particular person but rather a collection of experiences that led to my realization. It includes a lot of people with their impacts on my learning.

Though we, fortunately, can find what we do rewarding, one must also remember that even when there are days we wonder why we do what we do, to find the light in the dark that we can always improve ourselves and learn from these moments that it's alright to not know everything and learning is a never-ending process. Passion and inspiration don't only thrive on past experiences where one persevered and survived but also on the forthcoming challenges that will test them. This is where perspective comes in and we have our own choice on how to deal with the circumstances presented to us.

Responding to bell hooks

In response to bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress Chapter 1, the author tackles the challenge towards those who teach to commit themselves to self-actualization as an approach instead of the traditional education approach wherein it is a banking system or students are only passive recipients of education from these educators. As a Filipino-American woman who has never experienced the university environment in the Philippines but has received education from primary to secondary level, graduating high school here in the United States, I have a contradictory experience in my high school years in the Philippines and here. This has both empowered and isolated me in terms of how I perceive myself and receive my education in the university environment at UW. The different identities I hold pose many similar and different challenges.

As an educator, with my experience tutoring middle school students in the past, I had a challenging time sharing my learning with students as a "practice of freedom" which I was not sure if it was for the reason that I was teaching math, or I was uncertain that they would not accept my teaching the same way they receive my other student counterparts who are well-versed in the American education system.

While I appreciate the focus on how we strive for an educator's self-actualization commitment to education, we must also acknowledge that conversations on an educator's Values and Visions should always be promoted. The reason why I thought of this with this reading is while we promote engagement between students and educators, as these educators practice their craft, vulnerability in the classroom does not just come from the start of the class. We have to reflect on our own which not only empowers but also promotes collaboration between them.

I say this with my experience of losing myself at the very moment I teach others, giving my perspective on how I have trouble being vulnerable as an educator. My own experiences in the education systems in two geographically and culturally different places have influenced the way I approach and will approach my ways of learning and teaching. I am in no way against what hooks' is promoting but only sharing some other perspective on how we can come to the point we are yearning for.

"Professors who embrace the challenge of self-actualization will be better able to create pedagogical practices that engage students. Providing them with ways of knowing that enhance their capacity to live fully and deeply." (hooks, 22) This very last part of the chapter resonated with me because as I always think that "learning is a never-ending process", also it is a two-way street and a team journey with all of our peers. hooks not only helped me recognize my challenges but also what I can do as my part in transitioning to a more engaging pedagogical approach.

Reference:

hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to transgress : education as the practice of freedom. Ch 1. Routledge.

My Impact, Represented:

An impact goal that aligns with my values and visions and understanding of the nature of learning is to be able to share one's cultural background as it unpacks a lot of a learners' and educators' learning experience in a classroom. I was raised in an education system wherein I was just expected to act like a sponge and absorb the information, not letting me articulate my thoughts properly such as to write about what I learned, and NOT write about what I thought about what I learned, which is still a struggle for me in the present.

I only am starting to learn to unpack my own identities and bring them to the table and I see how it helps me learn better. It creates an effective and more inclusive experience for me personally because I get to hear multiple perspectives to consider other than my own (strategy). I can see what helps me learn, why I approach things differently, and how to integrate others' learning strategies to be able to collaborate.

By letting learners learn about their peers' and educators' cultural backgrounds, promoting cultural diversity in the classroom, we can learn what ways of learning and challenges are present to be able to connect them to resources and form alternative strategies with the learners. Such as how one way of teaching a concept or lesson does not fit all learners, and they should be offerred additional support to be able to grasp the lesson or collaborate with their peers.

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