Carter Hafif - A Digital Portfolio

My Teaching Philosophy

For as long as I can remember, education in the classroom has felt like a drag. Boring content that adheres to some arbitrary set of standards meant to prepare kids for factory work and provide a structured day-care for working parents. Becoming a teacher for me is a way to challenge these educational norms and redefine what school can and should be. I want to change how we think about a traditional classroom, using nature as inspiration and incorporating it into the environment in which we deliver education. I also want students to leave my classroom as critical thinkers that aren’t afraid to ask questions and challenge the status quo. Creating classroom content that is connected to the real world, maintaining a fun/safe/engaging learning environment, and promoting student equity through choice are at the core of my values for becoming a teacher. By utilizing the science of learning (Hewlett Foundation, 2013) and implementing a universal design for learning (Meyer A, 2014), I hope my students will leave with a self-directed, worldly, confident, and critical mindset. 

I used to love hanging out with my grandfather when I was a child. I consider him one of my biggest mentors and inspirationals. He taught me how to look at the world with a critical perspective and be intentional with how I interact with others. I’ll never forget when he first showed me the Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke, and after talking about the feelings the film invoked, the choices that the illustrators made for each scene, and the metaphor that it might represent in our real world. If unfamiliar, the story follows a young prince from a village deep in the forest. He is cursed by the boar spirit inhabiting the mountain, propelling him on a journey to heal his curse, inevitably leading him to the root cause behind the forest’s suffering, humans. Meanwhile, the story through human eyes is that of survival and doing what’s best for their own kin, even at the expense of the surrounding environment. I didn’t know it at the time, but this interaction and film inspired two things in me, respectively. A critical eye to inspect the intentionality of design behind all things. And a respect for all things natural, including humans. I have now realized my purpose is to share these ideas with the next generation so they can build a better future for our species AND the coexisting natural world we so deeply rely on. 

Nature is at the heart of our existence as humans and animals. Nature has been known as a healer and used for many medicines and as an inspiration for engineering, design, art, and science. We cannot know ourselves without understanding the environment from which we stem. And science is just starting to catch up with the benefits of being outside and how effective it is in our physiological regulation. Just recently we’ve found breathing in the pheromones of trees in a healthy forest can help decrease anxiety, lower our heart rate, and increase our respiratory functionality, what we call “forest bathing” (Li. Q, 2022). We are also now just starting to learn how these effects could enhance education. As someone who’s spent a lot of time in the forest, I can confidently say these benefits are broader than we might think. Nature is an arbiter of truth and wisdom. As much as I am an educator, nature is as well, and there are many beautiful lessons wrapped up in the complexities of the natural world. If only we took more time to learn from its wisdom.

Students today have an entirely new set of standards and realities to deal with challenging them to be even more adaptive and multi-faceted than ever before. Ensuring their confidence and engagement in the classroom is therefore a priority for me. The children of today will inherit the world of tomorrow, and it’s important they have the tools to gear them for success. Especially in the era of technology and quick dopamine hits, keeping the attention of children has become increasingly difficult. My strategy for this is to create an environment that is safe, and content that is fun and engaging. Safety is a culture that is built over time through intentional interactions and co-creating norms with our students. “Norms, when followed seriously, create the safe, bounded space that allows students to express themselves authentically, support one another, and feel safe enough to take risks and make mistakes.” (Berger, R 2015, Pg 30) And if students feel safe to take risks and make mistakes, content inevitably becomes more fun and engaging. In order to further increase engagement and enjoyment in my classroom I plan to either create opportunities for friendly competition or collaborative learning, by gamifying lessons that encourage deeper critical thinking. Games are a great way to tap into the UDL principle of creating multiple means of engagement and nurturing joy and play (Meyer A, 2014). Games are also a fantastic way to bring neurodivergent and special education students into the learning environment! Research has shown students who are having fun in the classroom feel safe, and a safe learning environment is where people are able to access higher order thinking and participate without fear of failure. Ultimately, creating a learning environment that is engaging, requires first to establish a safe classroom, inevitably making space for fun and joy in the learning process.

Student equity through choice is also an essential part of my core philosophy. Allowing students to make decisions and take responsibility for their actions, both good and bad, is empowering. “Giving students options is an important part of their development as independent, critical thinkers.” (Berger, R 2015, Pg 69) When a student feels each and every choice they make in the classroom carries weight, they are inclined to be more thoughtful in their decision making. Giving students a choice in their own education creates a more equitable and safe space as well. By handing over some control to our students, we let them know we care about their opinions and feelings, and give autonomy in their learning process. Making learning relevant to their lives, we can deepen their engagement and effort in the classroom.(Hammond Z, 2015, Pg 122) Collecting their input on classroom design / culture is the first step towards making students feel seen, and establishing a more equitable classroom environment.  Implementing their choice into the design is the second, and probably the most important. For example, creating classroom norms and expectations is a practice that, for me, will always include the students' thoughts in their genesis. I also plan to incorporate some sort of choice into each and every project we do. Whether it gives them a lot of freedom (choosing their research project and delivery method) or a narrower set of options (choosing the color or material used in their project), options will always be present. And choice doesn’t need to exclude rigor, by creating low floors and high ceilings, I can allow students multiple points of access and challenge, creating more equitable access to their learning process. Everyone learns differently, so it’s important we have a choice in how we digest material and learn new topics, as well as choice in delivery of that new-found knowledge. Not only is this a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) but it promotes deeper understanding of phenomena because it taps into the deeper learning competencies of self direct learning, collaboration and communication, and developing an academic mindset. (Hewlett Foundation, 2013)

Science has and always will be a big part of my life, helping shape my decisions and interactions with the world. We are all scientists because we are curious by nature and seek to understand the world on a deeper level. “To grasp the meaning of a thing, an event, or a situation is to see it in its relations to other things: to see how it operates or functions, what consequences follow from it, what causes it, what uses it can be put to. In contrast, what we have called the brute thing, the thing without meaning to us, is something whose relations are not yet grasped… the relation of means-consequences is the center and heart of all understanding” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, Pg 38). Science is an exploration of the natural world, through asking questions and taking things apart to find the truth behind reality. Learning how to decipher these truths through testing isn’t something that always needs to be done in a lab. While these skills to parse through biases and uncover truths are at the core of science, they are also entirely necessary for an independently thinking individual who is capable of challenging the status quo with a critical lens, and realizes the world is not black and white, but a complexity of colors that influence one another. The NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) reflects this complexity through the Science and Engineering Practices (SEP’s) and Cross Cutting Concepts (CCC’s). By teaching these standards with a focus on the Deeper Learning Competencies, learning can be a lot of fun. I had the privilege of creating a paper airplane lab with my CT for our 8th grade science class. In this lesson series I had them work collaboratively to build a paper airplane model that would travel the “fastest”, tapping into the SEP’s and DLC’s. In order to figure out which airplane went the fastest, they had to measure the time and distance their planes traveled, allowing them to get up and move around, giving them opportunities to self-regulate through movement. After data collection, students made graphs in order to see the full picture of their data. Thus cross cutting simultaneously into their math lesson which covered the topic of linear equations and graphing. I was very proud to hear a few students even say this was their favorite lesson during their presentations of learning, reminding me that science and learning can be fun, and is even more effective for being so. Science will continue to inform my decision making in and outside of the classroom, where I will always be searching for the best way to educate myself, and my students. UDL is the science, DLC is the goal.

Becoming a teacher I’ve found to be an incredibly tough journey. Navigating the bureaucracy, going back to school, writing documents, lesson plans, juggling the emotional and academic needs of kids. All the while moving into a new big city... Does anyone ever really get used to these synthetic and unnatural sounds? Every day is a new challenge that presents itself in the form of human behavior and social interactions. Teaching is group psychology through the lens of education. We are required to wear multiple hats each and every day while synchronizing the intentions of 30+ individuals. And I don’t think I would have chosen any other profession in the world. I’ve always felt the pressure of solving the problems of our 21st century climate disaster. Now I realize I cannot solve these problems, at least not alone. Community and education are the only ways we are going to recover this planet. I know my purpose is to inspire the next generation with hope and intention. To direct a force I cannot control towards a goal that will always be larger than myself. These kids are going to take over this Earth one day, and it’s important they have the tools and awareness to improve on our work.

EDU 510 - Deeper Learning Via Projects

Prototype & Reflection

After spending some time prototyping my project’s exhibition product it made me think a bit more about what I want students to focus on when working. I want the students to ultimately create a story of the history of everything. This would include the story of energy and the big bang, and how this energy transformed into matter creating the particle soup that now makes up our current existence. But what do I want the students to display to capture this? For me this required looking back at the standards and asking myself what should the students take away from this project and what do I want our audience to take away from the presentation? The more I thought about this the more I thought of this as a teaching moment for the students and potentially a learning experience for audience members. Having the history of everything before you can be very complex and messy, which is precisely the vibe I want the presentation to give.

For the product I also want students to have autonomy and choice in what they choose to report on and how they choose to give that information. Some of the standards we would cover are on evolution and earth’s history. These two categories could have a series of connections between ancient and modern animals, where students could display the evolutionary changes that have taken place. This connection could also be made to humans and our evolutionary history as well. My prototype is linear in fashion to keep it simple for presentation, however there is a ton of choice embedded in the final product that a web of connections will naturally unfold. 

Regardless of what students pick to report on and write/draw about in their final product it will all be tied in with the standards in some way, meanwhile curating a story of the history of everything. This experience reminded me of how specific I need to be with demands and expectations around what the presentation looks like. The story could easily feel disconnected if that isn’t the focus. Which means I want to create specific prompts around each topic to help direct the writing towards these connective pieces, ultimately linking the story together in a cohesive manner.