Eliza Daniels, MA, LMHC,

I understand knowledge as moving, creating, experiencing and absorbing, constantly, through the relationship of the instructor, student and information (Kenway & Modra, 1992, p. 140). As a teacher, I emphatically believe in the value of working from an engaged and situated pedagogy for social justice to best meet the needs of learners (Enns & Sinacore, 2005). Working from this perspective I embrace intersections of feminisms, critical and multicultural approaches in an effort to encourage students in their self-conscious examination and their questioning of “the conditions of our own meaning-making and to use it as the place from which to begin to work toward social change” (Lewis, 1992, p. 170). For optimal learning to occur, a teacher must acknowledge the relevance and importance of all students’ subjective and contextual experiences in relationship to course content (hooks, 1994). In this way, education can be a transformative journey, one in which we never fully arrive; it is a privilege to join on this adventure with learners where they are and support their growth and reflection.

Students will be encouraged to develop “critical reflexivity” (Bubenzer, West, Cox, McGlothlin, 2013, p.171) as a means of integrating information. Because I trust that students elect to engage in higher learning, for different reasons, and because I choose to facilitate their experiences, I expect students to engage readily with materials, course content, myself and with one another. With this in mind, I aim to provide context and specific methodology for engaged multicultural, critical and feminist perspectives to students and colleagues based on research and experience.

Specifically within the field of counselor education, it is paramount to convey to students that in either the classroom or the counseling session, affective and cognitive processes are occurring simultaneously. Within academia and our Western culture, the two have historically remained estranged (hooks, 1994). We experience, whether consciously or not, a denial or repression of one, which may inhibit full learning potential. One way I encourage union between the two is by intentional or careful self-disclosure, for I am a person too, both inside and outside of the classroom or counseling session. Another way of modeling thoughtful integration is through my style of lecturing: flexible, movement-oriented, and attentive to the students’ non-verbal behaviors. Germane to the concept of heart and head is creating space for the qualities of “caring, concern and connection” on one end, which will be hopefully integrated with “rationality and independent judgment” (Kenway & Modra, 1992, p. 153). Wisdom and knowing should be celebrated in that they are moving forces, within us all, of transformation from “a state of mere potentiality” to “actuality” (hooks, 1994, p.194).