Teachers must cultivate their own well-being before they can empower students

Evidence

Progressive, holistic education, “engaged pedagogy” is more demanding than conventional critical or feminist pedagogy. For, unlike these two teaching practices, it emphasizes well being. That means that teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students. Thich Nhat Hanh emphasized that “the practice of a healer, therapist, teacher or any helping professional should be directed toward his or herself first, because if the helper is unhappy, he or she cannot help many people.” In the United States it is rare that anyone talks about teachers in university settings as healers. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 42

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines engaged pedagogy by what distinguishes it from critical and feminist pedagogy: the emphasis on well-being and teacher self-actualization.
• XREF: Connects to the article on trees/infrastructure framing of care ethics, and to Freire’s pedagogy-of-the-oppressed lineage this later building on. — connects to: Teachers can only cultivate student selfhood through their own self-cultivation — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 655; Engaged pedagogy uniquely requires teacher self-actualization before student empowerment — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 42; Cultural humility requires openness, self-awareness, self-critique, self-reflection, and rejection of ego on the part of teachers. — Questioning Cultural Humility (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Engaged pedagogy uniquely requires teacher self-actualization before student empowerment #corroborates (0.95) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 42
• Teachers can only cultivate student selfhood through their own self-cultivation #corroborates (0.85) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 655
• Mindful self-awareness is the first step toward a teacher’s liberation from external control #expands (0.80) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 680