Through my education, I didn’t just develop skills, I didn’t just develop the ability to learn, but I developed confidence. Michelle Obama
I believe in teaching the whole student by recognizing the wealth of experience in each individual.
Each student should be encouraged to reflect on their own identities and incorporate their unique outlook into each project or challenge that they are given. Students need to feel secure, in a safe space, to fully anchor themselves in their own experiences and use those to empathize with others. This safe space is created by developing a classroom culture of listening compassionately, giving constructive feedback, and allowing for the humor and playfulness which breaks down the barriers between student and instructor. Rather than transmitting knowledge to students like water is absorbed by a sponge, students learn through experimentation with new technologies and new ideas in order to build meaning for themselves. As a librarian, I combine information literacy with design and technical instruction in order to allow students to develop skills which apply wherever their dreams might take them.
Though I continuously update and refine my teaching methods, my unchanging objective is for students to have the confidence to initiate their own projects and experiment with solving the problems that they see in the world around them.
Leah Howd 