Fusing the Love of Wisdom with the Dwelling Place or Home in the Classroom: A Rhizomic Journey

Over the past two decades in my role as a teacher, not once did I feel the urge to take a child home and give him/her a better existence than what s/he had. Often, when I heard colleagues make this declaration toward a student they felt was living in conditions they deemed as below their own socio/ economic/cultural norm, I used to think I lacked a maternal instinct. Why did I not feel the need to take that child home, too, and give him/her a better life? After embarking on a self-study1 researching how I can improve my teaching and learning practice, I immersed myself in the process of deconstructing a selection of lived experiences so I could arrive a deeper understanding of my penchant for teaching holistically. One of the more poignant realizations I unveiled, was that it wasnʼt that I didnʼt care about children who lived in different circumstances than my own; in fact it was quite the opposite. What I desired for children was for them to learn how to live and grow within their own socio/economic/cultural milieu and progress through their life with the knowledge that they can set their sights on a life that they can work towards