My Life Is a Fucking Manifesto: From Rich White Bitch, to Poor White Trash, to a Teacher in a Multiracial School

• In Event: Pushing Methodological Boundaries and Performing Dissertation Writing

Abstract

Often educators are so busy analyzing test scores, composing lesson plans, and working with students that they forget to examine themselves-and in the process neglect discovering how they are lead to teaching and motivated to continue. In this autobiographical exploration of teaching and life, using the work of curriculum theorists and great thinkers such as Pinar (1972/1994), Kozol (1992), Foccault (1977), Friere (1970/1992), and Takaki (1993) coupled with fictional texts and others, Angela Pieniaszek explores her motivations and ethical foundations for her teaching. By examining three major stages in her educational experience, Angela Pieniaszek illustrates how the work of the above mentioned thinkers reflect aspects of her personal experiences in and out of the classroom-and how these experiences have influenced her teaching career and her life. Ayers (2004) comments on autobiographical exploration, “Being aware of oneself as the instrument of one’s teaching, aware of the story that makes one’s life sensible, allows for greater change and growth as well as greater intentionality in teaching choices” (p. 105). Pieniaszek attempts to do what Pinar (1972/1994) describes, "…seek some liberation from abstraction through the recovery of immediate individual experience, or a lived-in contrast to an exclusively conceptual-sense of the self and world" (p. 103). Autobiographical exploration is essential for the teacher and the researcher in a field where one deals with children and adults-to-be affective one must know where one comes from to develop a path for where they are going. Glesne (1992/2011) describes the importance of reflexivity for researchers, “Reflexive thought assists in understanding ways in which your personal characteristics, values, and positions interact with others in the research situation to influence the methodological approach you take, the methods you use, and the interpretations you make” (p. 159). Pieniaszek will perform her autobiographical experience and demonstrate who she was and how she became who she is as a White teacher who dares to teach in a multiracial urban school in the U. S. South in an era of standardization and accountability.

Author

• Angela Pieniaszek, Georgia Southern University