“The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it.”

– Paulo Freire

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

– Albert Einstein 

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”

– Marianne Williamson

Talk 2 Teacher’s Motivation

Students are born learners. From the moment they arrive on earth they are curious and active explorers; using their senses to discover what the world has to offer as natural problem solvers. However, the method students acquire knowledge is not universal. Every student has their own unique learning style and approach to attain understanding. The majority of students in public education are taught largely with standardized methods. What is meant by standardize methods centers around teaching practices that attempt to reach the widest number of students. The same approach for all students with very few opportunities for meaningful collaboration.

Some students are able to achieve notwithstanding the style of instruction. They are motivated to learn and compensate where instruction may be lacking. While others students struggle and are frustrated with some teaching approaches. These students become disaffected and don’t feel empowered to learn new concepts. What this indicates is that certain teaching practices are not effective and don’t engage or motivate students to develop their intelligence.

All students at some point experience instruction methods that don’t allow them to grasp the material or that the teacher/curriculum lacks an understanding of larger issues that inhibit their learning. The student/teacher power dynamic may also be a barrier that prevent student engagement.  The position between student and teacher in traditional education settings is often identified as “preventing listening and dialog”. The invisible barrier that exist when student and teacher interact dissuades students from taking a proactive role in their own education.

Studies suggest that students disengage because the subject matter does not pertain to them or have any relevance to their interest. For many students, disengagement comes at a serious cost. From a psychological perspective, disengagement from classroom learning is associated with feelings of incompetence, low self-determination, and/or diminished personal value in relation to others – students loose faith in themselves. There are other reasons, but without discussion these reasons are a complete mystery.

Felicia Bridges, the host of Talk 2 Teacher,  knows that student learning is constantly changing. The way students learn today, is not the same way students learned 20 years ago. Educators must be flexible enough to adapt and modify to the constant shifts in student cognition and learning styles. They need to learn the language of learning from the students they are attempting to teach. This need is evident in the dropout rate and steadily declining college entrance exam scores. Students are just not retaining information simply based on “banking knowledge” – deposit and return. They may not be paying attention long enough to process complex subjects. There are more than likely other reasons why students aren’t gaining knowledge, but educators are relaying on antiquated or ineffective methods to reach students. Whatever the case, they aren’t talking to the students.  Students are rarely at the planning table when it comes to instruction and school reform.

As the pace to accumulate new information is accelerating, the fastest way to develop curriculum and effective teaching methods is not by guess work, or adult assumptions about students, it is by talking to the students who are doing the learning. That is Talk 2 Teacher, a vehicle for students to make school better. On Talk 2 Teacher students discuss what it means to be a student and how it feels. When educators start listening, then act on their discoveries they remove the excuses and student complicity. It also places students at the center of their learning. Tune into Talk 2 Teacher every Saturday at noon to be a fly on the wall as students express what it means to have a voice.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

– James Baldwin

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside ”

– Maya Angelou

“Tell me I can’t, and I’ll show you how much I can”

– Felicia Bridges

This is My Story

My radio show Talk 2 Teacher was inspired by my own experience in school. I needed a voice.  I needed to tell my teachers, counselors and administrators what was going on with me, but I couldn’t. As a way of reconciling my adolescent school experience I was inspired to create Talk 2 Teacher.  The show is the adult me whispering back to a little girl named Felicia and telling her that it will be OK, and to keep dreaming.

I was a wide eyed kid who loved school.  I tested high in learning potential and comprehension. I had good grades until something changed.  The shift happened to me right after I left elementary.  Junior high marked the beginning of my disenfranchisement from school.  It was as if someone looked at my transcripts and glazed over my grades and decided to place me in the classes that they placed most of the black and brown kids, in low performance classes. I went from high achiever to a forlorn cause.  By my junior high graduation an “A” was more of a hallucination than an objective.  It was also during junior high that my home life became increasingly abusive.   But I need to back up a bit and give a little back story.

I was a precocious little girl, with a big imagination.  An only child, my playmates were the ones I created in my head.  I also loved books, but not to read them.  I chose to scribble in them putting my words over those of the author’s.  My two favorite books, “A Fly Went By” and Dr. Seuss’, “The Sneetches And Other Stories”; in my version the sneetches all had stars on their bellies, because I drew them there.  I have always thought differently about how the world worked and often lived in an alternate universe because the one that I lived in was lonely, frightening, and filled with monsters.  I lived in a single family home with my sad alcoholic mother, who didn’t process her anger well, and took her frustrations out on me. My only physical contact with her consisted of punches, never loving. Looking back it is believed my abuse is the reason why I think so differently.  I don’t have the best memory, and sometimes have the biggest brain delays that I swear you can hear a dial tone; I sustained some concussions.  I was left alone a lot since the age of 4, so I filled the gaps of loneliness with what I could concoct from my imagination.  But this also made me very nervous; the formal diagnosis is PTSD.

I entered high school in the midst of a downward spiral. My demeanor quiet and shy, I didn’t have many friends.  I had my share of bullies and considered goofy or an Oreo (black on the outside and white on the inside).  I was called other names, but it doesn’t change the story.  A pivotal moment occurred in my typing class taken in my sophomore year.  I sat in the front row, slightly to the left of the teacher’s desk, and right next to my best friend. She had a rapport with the teacher, after taking typing with the teacher previously.  I was new to typing and this teacher. It felt good to be in a class sitting next to my “bestie”, and what I thought was an inside track.  Maybe I was chatty…I couldn’t help sliding a comment to my BFF on occasion to get a laugh. However, the rule of the class required us to keep quiet even when we were practicing our drills and exercises. But I was sitting next to my best friend, and I couldn’t help to whisper or giggle with her.

A couple of times our teacher caught a glimpse of our silliness and told me to keep quiet. I complied using all restraint I had not to whisper anything.  I don’t remember what induced me to lose my restraint; it was obviously some morsel of information that couldn’t wait.  With the teacher standing practically in front of me I leaned over slightly and released a few tiny words just as the teacher was looking in my direction. This move sealed my fate more than I could imagine. I was banished to the back of the class with the other students who were also sentenced to purgatory, and never talked to again.

I was left back there with other alienated students to what we referred to as the black hole. We never got any attention or feedback. I was given typing test, which were my only form of instruction. I had to stand in line at the teacher’s desk to get my test returned, where she would look at me with disgust as she handed over “D” after “D” on my red mark riddled test.  I never reviewed those test to see if the marks were legitimate. I thought by that time, grades meant nothing anyway. I only marveled at the aesthetics of the “D”– a combination of a straight line and a circle, amazing. One day during this lineup of shame I was standing behind another classmate who was with me in the black hole. The teacher walked away from her desk, the classmate then turned to me and motioned his head to the teacher’s chair where there was a tack centered on the cushion. I looked, shrugged and sat down, trying not to get involved in the maliciousness.

The following day I was called to her desk, and for the first time in weeks she spoke to me asking if I knew who put the tack on her seat.  I answered honestly that I didn’t know, probably affecting indifference.  I was told to go sit down,  but at the end of class she threw a referral on my desk.  I wound up in the dean’s office.  The dean talked to me about my behavior in class.  I was perplexed. I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I had nothing to do with the tack.  My mother was called and the two talked about me like I wasn’t there.  I wasn’t asked what happened and when I was asked what I wanted to happen I said, I no longer wanted to be in the class.  That was quickly dismissed. I finished the semester still banned to the back of the room.

The second half of the year, I got new classes.  I was no longer eligible for honors English, the only class I was ever allowed to choose. My schedule now consisted of remedial math, remedial English, remedial history and remedial social studies.  I wanted to participate in extra-curricular activities, but was told I was ineligible because I received a F in typing for behavior.  I was permanently exiled to the land of the despondent.  One week into my new semester I took a stand.  I came home and informed my mother that I didn’t care if I got beat every day – and that threat was more than real – but I wasn’t returning to school.  Surprisingly, she took me seriously.

I changed schools and eventually cultivated a love for learning. I went on to earn a double major degree from UC Berkeley; then I earned a masters from the University of Manchester in England; and another masters from the Mills College School of Education and  completed a doctorate in education from the same college. My middle childhood experience certainly helped sculpted how I felt about school. What is sad is that too many students have it worse than I did – dreams snatched away without consciousness.

Talk 2 Teacher is for those students. It is a vehicle for students to gain insight into education, what it means to go to school, and learn. The show is cathartic for me. It is also my way of valuing youth viewpoints “[b]ecause students matters!” Educators make decisions everyday without consulting the students they are entrusted to teach, and students rarely know what it takes to bring education to the students, with Talk 2 Teacher everyone can finally listen and learn.

About the author

Felicia Bridges is an educator, journalist, and producer with a passion for school. She is the host and executive producer of the education radio and television show Talk 2 Teacher, which examines education from the inside out. She is a graduate of University of California at Berkeley and University of Manchester, England. She holds a Doctorate in Education at Mills College; her focus is developing a student-teacher collaboration model to improve both student learning and teacher development.  She can be reached at (510) 761-6403.