Critical Teaching Narrative

English 100

For most of my school career I was an average and sometimes a failing student. I was uninspired by most academic content and I did assignments and took classes just to pass and move along in a direction: what direction I wasn’t too sure. I knew I was supposed to go to college, so I could get a good job, and perhaps a better life than what my parents had, who had no college degree and worked as blue collar workers at hotels and construction sites. My parents’ American Dream of moving to the United States from the Philippines lay heavily on my shoulders and the weight of it stifled me.

It was the end of my first semester at Kapiolani Community College and I looked at my report card.

Japanese I D

History 101 D

Math 101 D

English 100 A

Not only were most of my grades bad, but I received a letter stating I was to be put on academic probation and if my grades continued as such for the following semester, KCC would no longer allow me to attend their school. I felt stupid—a knot of regret grew inside of me because I was smarter than what my grades indicated. How else would I have received an A for English 100 from Mrs. Kapur—notoriously known for being one of the hardest English teachers on campus? Whenever a classmate asked who I had for English and told them I had Mrs. Kapur, the response would always be, “She’s hard.”

Mrs. Kapur was a tall, thin, dark-skinned Indian woman sporting a cropped haircut. I rarely saw her smile in class and she always seemed to have a serious demeanor. We read, wrote, and discussed often in her class. Up until then I felt I had never been in an English class before despite the fact that I had an English class every year since I was in kindergarten. English 100 with Mrs. Kapur felt like English boot camp, and she was making up for all the other years of fake English classes I had taken.

Most of what we read with Mrs. Kapur were argumentative texts—far from my memories of Beowulf, The Crucible, or The Great Gatsby. These texts dealt with real issues of the day: Is banning text or speech ever justified, what constitutes sexual harassment, does affirmative action provide equal opportunity? Issues that I was never asked to ponder, but often talked about with my friends.

I can still remember her asking, “Are these writers’ arguments valid? What evidence do they provide? Do you agree with her? Why? Why? Why?” Her eyes were piercing as she watched us respond to her questions, weighing every word that came out of our mouths, looking for holes in our argument, and asking us to dig deeper. At first many of us were intimidated by her no nonsense attitude and many of us were afraid to speak our minds. She would often find a wall of silence for a few moments before some brave soul broke the ice. Due to the nature of the topics we read, one couldn’t help but express his or her thoughts on such seductive subjects.

I never had a teacher ask me to think about my reading and writing so much; and though it was not easy, I loved the challenges she provided. She pushed me and my peers to not just have opinions about what went on in the world, but to be more grounded and confident with our opinions by providing adequate support for them. I learned in her class that anyone can have an opinion, but are you able to have the finesse and craft to convince people that your argument is what matters?

While I was taking Mrs. Kapur’s English class, my friend Lenny Brimer introduced me to KRS-1’s album, Ghetto Music: The Blue Print of Hip-Hop. I was a big fan of hip-hop or what some people called rap or gang-banging music, but what KRS-1 provided lyrically was different because he questioned authority, he questioned society, and he questioned education. I found that hip hop was not just ghetto music, but music that could create arguments as well as change. It was uncanny how my academic and personal worlds were colliding for the first time. KRS-1 brought up the same types of questions the authors that Mrs. Kapur had us read.

The connection between academia and the world were becoming clearer and more evident the more I learned. Reading and writing were not just assignments my English teacher asked me to do, but were tools that helped me navigate and create change in the world. After this discovery I was able to find how everything I learned in class related to the world that I lived in. If only I had learned this earlier. My earlier years of education might have been more productive, more inspiring. I suppose it is better to learn late than never.

I felt empowered and smart in Mrs. Kapur’s class. After my first semester, I never got a grade lower than a B and even made the Dean’s List twice at KCC. Mrs. Kapur provided me with the tools I needed to decipher arguments, to make my writing clear and concise. I now have the power to convince and persuade anyone with the right argument, and most importantly the confidence of knowing that I can do well in anything I set my mind to. I only hope that I am able to empower my students the same way Mrs. Kapur has done for me.