Paul Henning

Background

About Paul Henning

As an educator from Minnesota who wishes to understand the social tensions and epistemologies that are prevalent in our society, I decided to attend Teachers College at Columbia University in order to gain a more holistic understanding of what it means to be a social studies teacher in a democratic society. In order to solve or work with the issues of today, we need to equip students to become engaged citizens that can critically think about the society they live in. Working with some of the brightest educators in the country, my method consists of creating critical pedagogy that offers a variety of perspectives from people and philosophers around the world and throughout history. Students leave my class with the skills necessary to question the society they live in to collaborate and make decisions that better their greater communities. At the core of this pedagogy is curriculum based equity and letting students dive into their own and other’s intersectional identities and cultures. Through discussion and discourse based methods that intrinsically motivate students to read and write to promote autonomy, their discoveries are allowed to take place and be shared and critiqued in a transformative way. All of this, therefore, creates a student centered educational approach because students are producers, not just conductors, of knowledge. With these skills, they are able to learn how to navigate and be leaders in our society in a democratic way.