Aida Revilla- Student Teaching Portfolio 

Barry, Lynda. Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor.  Drawn & Quarterly, Canada, 2014. 

This book is a collection of Syllabuses, Agendas, Class Activities, and more that author Lynda Barry has used for her classes. It is supplemented by some notes or thoughts the author has about the material. Her book's main purpose and practice are to invite people to be more creative in academic settings. Her anything-goes attitude towards course construction and material counters stereotypes we hold in academia about ¨professionalism¨ effectively deconstructing elitism within institutions. She also deconstructs the myth that creatives and academics cannot coexist, and suggest they are the same.  

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 50th Anniversary edition. Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2018. 

In his book, Freire not only compares the teacher/ student hierarchy to oppression but shows how education continues to perpetuate cycles of oppression. He explains that Oppression is the same as dehumanization and that the pedagogy of the oppressed cannot be controlled by the oppressor if it is for the struggle of regaining humanity. So, students must achieve the creation of knowledge to break the hierarchy. The most recognized theory from Freire's pedagogy is that of ¨Banking Education¨. Banking Education suggests that teachers hold all the knowledge dehumanizing and devaluing the lived experiences of students. It promotes the oppressor's agenda by reducing students to empty containers waiting to be filled. To break the cycle of oppression in the classroom and transform the education of domination into liberation, professors must be willing to enter and create a dialogue with students. Freire explains that ¨dialogue cannot exist without a profound love for the world and for its people¨ because love is an act of courage and is committed to liberation.  

Kuh, George D. ¨High-Impact Educational Practices: What are they, Who has access to them, and Why they matter¨.               Association of American Colleges and Universities, Washington D.C., 2009.  

High Impact Educational Practices are those that encourage student engagement and promote retention. These are critical for students from underserved communities who rely on higher education for life improvement because they have not had the same opportunities to previously develop the skills sets for higher education.  High Impact Educational Practices help underserved students build skills and make their college experience more meaningful. These would include Internships, Capstones, Service learning, research, and more. High Impact practices develop student's skills, keep them on track, and connect them to mentors.   

Rendón, Laura I. Sentipensante (sensing/thinking) Pedagogy: Education for Wholeness, Social justice, and Liberation. Stylus     Publishing. Sterling, Virginia, 2009.  

This book is focused on Transdisciplinarity or the Pedagogical Dreamfield where educators can integrate their whole beings into their course materials to not feel worn out. Spiritual education for wholeness and Harmony. She expresses that we privilege intellectuality, individualism, monoculturalism, competition, and perfection in academia. These are rules we agreed upon in our society and they limit our Dreamfield. For a pedagogy of wholeness and harmony, we must focus on learning v. teaching, including spirituality, and balance competition and cooperation.  She argues for continuing those things that keep us alive and present. To find where our mind and feelings are connected, Complementarity v Duality. Connecting Epistemology (theory of knowledge) and Ontology (the nature of being).  One tool for complementarity is the Aztec writing practice of Difrasismo (studied by Garibay); seemingly opposite terms are used to refer to a thing/concept/phrase to give it maximum clarity two of its qualities are isolated and then pared to form a single metaphor. She also pushed educators to decenter education from themselves ¨The key to education is to be of service to the richly diverse human family. How to foster a sense of compassion, social responsibility, ethics, morality? ¨ Professors should be agents of social change, healers, and liberators by empowering their students. Educators don’t need to have all the answers, they should leave space for conversation. In conclusion, traditional knowledge can be a tool for uniting the mind and soul in academia.  

Hernández-Avila, Inés. ¨Ometeotl Moyocoyatzin: Nahuatl Spiritual Foundations for Holistic Healing¨. eaching Religion and     Healing. Edited by Linda L. Barnes and Inés Talamantez. Oxford Press, 2006. 

This text introduces a professor in California's approach to teaching an Aztec Indigenous Religion course and offers analysis on why it is significant. In her article she explains that by teaching this course she allows students to reflect on how Indigenous cultural traditions are traditions of healing, to recognize the modern iterations of those traditions in Mexican culture, and to begin their own process of healing through reconnecting with these traditions. She compares the process of healing to that of re-indigenization in Mexico. One method she uses is to teach students about genocide, dispossession, and colonization. Then she focuses her class on the relationships between the human, the spiritual, and the material worlds. Without failing to recognize the faults within the hierarchical Aztec society, as well as cautioning them against modern Mexica fundamentalists. More than a religious class it was focused on the humanistic and liberating qualities of Aztec religion. There is a lot of power in reconnecting students with their roots, especially when those are tools for healing.  

Parkes, Jay and Mary B. Harris. ¨The Purpose of a Syllabus¨.  

This article outlines the three purposes a syllabus plays: a contract, a permanent record, and an aid to student learning.  As a contract, a syllabus outlines the instructor and the student's agreed roles and responsibilities throughout the semester. The contract may be negotiable. It should address assignments/activities, possible consequences, expected behaviors, as wells as rights and accommodations. As a permanent record, a syllabus can be used to reflect on students' and professor's performance on the course's expected outcomes. They may be used when professors are being evaluated or in what ways the course is valuable to the academic program. It can also be used by students looking to transfer credits. For these reasons, the syllabus must have key information such as course number, credit hours, name, date, etc. And all revised copies should be saved. As a learning tool, a syllabus may guide students while working outside of the classroom, where most learning is done. It can be helpful to include the instructors and the institutions' educational philosophies. The syllabus should aid in student self-regulation, provide students with resources, ways in which the course can enrich students' lives, and can be an example of professional writing. 

Toscano Villanueva, Silvia. ¨Teaching as a Healing Craft: Decolonizing the Classroom and Creating Spaces of Hopeful Resistance through Chicano-Indigenous Pedagogical Praxis. ¨ Springer Science and Business Media, New York, 2013.  

This essay is in response to the banning of Mexican American studies, along with other ethnic studies programs in the state of Arizona in 2010. As well as a continuation of the conversation in El Plan de Santa Barabara to incorporate marginalized voices and their lived experiences into Education. In her essay, She explains how personal narratives are invalidated in higher education and the way that this decentralizes education from Hispanic students reinforcing the hegemony. She then refocuses personal narratives, in a way like that voiced in the El Plan de Santa Barbara, the collective experiences of those from Marginalized backgrounds to decolonize western conceptualizations of the individual; because Chicanos understand that they are communal beings. She explains the importance of educators decolonizing curriculum and pushing back against what she identifies as psychological violence in the university, to provide students with the education that is liberating. She describes the classroom as a place for hopeful resistance and ethnic studies curriculums as a pedagogical third space driven by the need to challenge the epistemological and ontological understanding of students and their backgrounds. In her discussion of pedagogy, she includes critical race theory, Freirean pedagogical practices, barrio pedagogy, and how they connect to the Mayan principle of In Lak´Ech and Love for one's community. As well as how this learning space transcends academia in the form of Social Justice work in the students' own communities, and how the educational space can be a place for healing through reconnecting with indigenous practices. She also argues for the reframing of indigenous practices, such as curanderismo, as pedagogical tools. And advocates for cultural wealth instead of deficit thinking models, and the humanization of education as a tool for healing and liberation. Finally, she describes how the previously mentioned decolonial practices and re-indigenization were used in Tucson to protest the banning of MAS.

 

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