Aimee Cree Dunn
English, M.A.
Teaching Philosophy
OVERVIEW
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Teaching is about empowering connections: between the students themselves, between the students and the instructor, between the students and the material, between the students and our human society, between the students and the rest of the beautiful world of which we are a part.
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The art of teaching carries within it the art of creating a nurturing community capable of embarking together on the semester’s journey of uncovering knowledge, skills, and understandings. In this approach, educators act more as facilitators and guides, offering materials and the knowledge of a lifetime to aid students in their education.
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​TEACHING ENGLISH
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When teaching as an English instructor, honing students writing skills as well as their critical thinking abilities was key. Having taken a couple writing courses myself since first starting as an English instructor, I’ve added a few new approaches to my repertoire as well.
When training as a writing tutor while an undergrad, two of the most important skills I learned for teaching writing are
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... the pen always needs to be in the student’s hand, and
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... a tutor (or teacher) is a guide, not an editor.
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My writing courses incorporated this approach. After giving small talks on various writing skills (e.g. developing a thesis, formulating an argument, understanding coordinating conjunctions), the figurative pen goes back into the students’ hands, and they work on the skill on which that day or week is focused, sharing their work in small, guided workshops.
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A slight twist on this approach is to assign weekly writing topics on which students need to write for x amount of minutes. Students take turns choosing this topic (e.g. write a scene in which aliens have landed, describe a river, portray a heated conversation between two characters).
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Yet another key aspect to mastering the art of writing is to imitate the work of great writers, as many art students do of great artists as they strive to perfect their painting, drawing or sculpting skills. Likewise with writing, students can learn much from taking time to learn from the masters. This approach involves having students to choose an author (perhaps one they admire or perhapsct from a series of assigned writings for class), intensely study a couple of their favorite paragraphs written by that author, then attempt to write something of their own using what it was they liked in those paragraphs. Daily, or even weekly, exercises like this can help a student hone their writing skills.
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Writing isn’t only about learning the craft, however. As writers, we have the responsibility to convey information and ideas conscientiously. This means sharpening students’ critical thinking skills as well as their writing abilities. In my courses, this takes the form of reading analysis.
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Whether it is fiction or non-fiction, literary analysis and discussion helps students not only understand the craft of writing more thoroughly, it also can be a springboard to critical discussion of ideas, issues and perspectives.
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As long as discussion is respectful, all ideas and opinions presented as part of our analytical conversation are welcome. Airing these both helps us critically examine our own assumptions and thoughts as well as helps us help others critically examine their own assumptions and thoughts. Although these dialogues are always student-centric, through Socratic-style questioning I interject here and there to gently assist students in further developing their ideas or in recognizing any fallacies in their logic.
TEACHING NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
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In my Native American studies courses over the years, literature and film have figured prominently as well, allowing for similar conversations. Developing students’ critical thinking skills is a key goal as a Native American studies instructor. Helping students come to better understandings of Indigenous cultures, histories and experiences not only brings marginalized voices to students’ attention but also gives students the opportunity to expand their own understandings of the world and their role in it. Providing such varied perspectives allows us all to see the world from a greater variety of viewpoints, helping us to more critically understand our own worldviews as well as those of others. For example, one of the aspects of Indigenous experiences students find most shocking is the boarding/residential schools Indigenous youth were required to attend. Learning of this widespread experience, on that remains relatively unknown in non-Native communities, shifts students’ paradigms, makes them wonder what other paradigm-shaking things there are in the world that they have yet to learn.
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In teaching Native American studies at the Northern Michigan University Center for Native American Studies, we strive not only to convey information as is expected at a scholastic institution of higher learning, but we also strive to “indigenize” our teaching methods.
Drawing on my experiences in childhood with various cultural gatherings my family attended, in my courses I see myself as a guide and facilitator helping the people in my courses achieve greater understandings of the world, providing them with the skills necessary to
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... engage as active members of a democracy (a form of government that is Indigenous-derived)
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... make a living within our economic system through learning directly applicable skills and improving their abilities to relate to people from a variety of cultures
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... expand their personal paradigms so they can grow as individuals, and
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... become aware and responsible members of the community of the lands they call home.
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The methods I use include a great deal of discussion, combining both the Socratic method and the discussion-circle approach, this latter approach based on traditional teachings of speaking truth as we see it, each having a turn to do so.
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In my field-based courses, I add another approach, that of direct experience. With my forest immersion course (Kinomaage), wild animals course (Awesiinh), and astronomy course (Indigenous Star Knowledge), in both the online and in-person versions, students spend a significant amount of time “in the field” learning directly from what they observe of the forest, animals and the stars, respectively. From there they both orally share their observations and submit them as written essays.
ENDING THOUGHTS
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As an undergrad, I worked for a couple years as a writing tutor. The training proved invaluable in my career as an educator. The tutor training spent a great deal of time discussing how individual personalities and backgrounds create different learner needs. Analyzing our own Meyers-Briggs personality tests, it helped to realize the diversity of personalities is similar to the diversity of cultures: no two are exact replicas, and all offer the gift of experiencing the world in different ways.
While I understood cultural diversity well from my upbringing, and, of course, understood personality differences, taking the time to study in detail how misunderstood individuals often are in our daily assumptions about other people helped shift my own inner paradigm a little more. As an educator for many years now, this insight has helped me take students as they come, working to understand how they interact with the world as the individual they are, striving to meet them where their worldview and learning style intersect with the material I am teaching.
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My most favorite classes have been those in which the students are comfortable with each other and with me, ones in which people share laughter, ones in which at least one students says, “It never occurred to me to think of it that way.” For my field courses, we often wrap up with a sharing of food around a campfire at a wild lake somewhere in the Upper Peninsula. For my classroom-based courses, they conclude with a sharing circle on the students’ work, research and their visions for how to make the world a better place. It’s a satisfying thing to come full circle in this way. For those who stay in touch or remain a part of the local community, a bond persists and is renewed over the years each time we run into each other, exchange a smile, and maybe even stay and share our recent life experiences for a while.