https://mailchi.mp/harvard/into-practice-monikjimenez-1412968?e=b8a501ae37
Dr. Monik Jimenez, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, uses different pedagogical approaches to elevate diverse voices and styles of learning. In her Mass Incarceration & Health in the U.S. course, she balances speaking time between a traditional scholar and an impacted community member, and emphasizes to the latter (and to students) that they are an expert. Dr. Jimenez also provides a variety of ways for students to participate and ask questions that include different cultural and neurodivergent learning styles. “It’s important to think about decolonizing the classroom in a layered way,” she reflects. “What are the multiple ways in which systems of power and white supremacy have impacted what we consider to be an ‘optimal’ student through the metrics we’ve been taught?”
The benefits: “Creating a space that demonstrates everyone’s voice is valued allows students to engage with one another in ways that are far more authentic and that last.” Students open themselves to learning, engaging more deeply with the material, and practice challenging stigmas in a carefully cultivated space. Emphasizing that voices outside the traditional scholar have deep value, permits students to feel comfortable thinking of themselves as experts. Dr. Jimenez notes that her students are often more interested in what impacted community members have to say.
“We’re challenging who you can be in this space and that your presence – your whole presence, everything that brought you to this point – is valued, not just where you went to school, but all your lived experience and distance travelled.”