"Teaching is an incredibly powerful way of working for social justice," Assistant Professor of Education Doris Santoro Gomez said. "To be a teacher who is committed to a just society is probably the most exciting job."
Entering her second year at Bowdoin, Santoro Gomez devoted last year to combining philosophy and education in the classroom.
Before arriving at Bowdoin, Santoro Gomez worked in urban public school systems in New York City, Jersey City, and San Francisco, where she taught high school-level English and mentored new teachers. She even worked in the literacy office of Jersey City's school department and set up the bilingual framework for area schools.
Santoro Gomez has always been interested in education. During her adolescence she became increasingly aware of how social change can be affected through education.
In high school, Santoro Gomez, although capable, opted not to take courses on the advanced education track because she thought a quality education should be available to everyone. Back then, Santoro Gomez was turned off to teaching because of the low pay and the fact that it was considered a woman's job. In college, after taking education classes, Santoro Gomez realized that change could be employed in the classroom.
"[I am] incredibly sensitive to people being treated without dignity, and as a teacher I know I can create an environment of dignity, even if just for 45 minutes," she said.
After completing graduate work at Columbia University, Santoro Gomez decided to bring her passion for education to a place where teaching was highly valued. Although she was initially hesitant about moving from New York City to Maine, Santoro Gomez knew Bowdoin College would be a good fit.
"I knew [Bowdoin] was a place where the kinds of questions I asked are valued," she said.
Santoro Gomez and her husband, Lodrys Gomez, moved to Portland. Her husband, an architect originally from the Dominican Republic, loved the change of scenery. For Santoro Gomez, however, adjusting to life in Maine was shocking at first because of the shift from working in underprivileged schools to working at an elite liberal arts college.
"I will never miss the subway or being frisked every time I walked into the building. [But I] never want to get out of touch with [what I did before]," she said.
To do this, she has recently reached out to Portland's public school system.
During her time at Bowdoin, Santoro Gomez has been working to create a curriculum that marries her passions of education, philosophy, and social justice. The culmination of this work is Education 245: Education and Social Justice, a course which is being taught for the first time this semester. She is looking to bring in guest speakers from the Portland public school system, educators from other urban areas and scholars devoted to the cause of education and justice to share their thoughts with her Education 245 class.
Another way Santoro Gomez has been working to bring her passion of justice to the classroom is by requiring her Education 245 class work on a social justice project. Each student will need to identify an educational problem, research how and why it is an issue, and then propose a specific course of action for a community. Santoro Gomez hopes that many of her students will then use this assignment as the basis for an independent study, during which they will work towards applying their course of action.
Santoro Gomez is also using her time here at Bowdoin for research. Currently she is exploring ways to understand and affect good teaching.
Specifically, she would like to know what teaching means to teachers. Drawing on the philosophy of John Dewy, Hannah Arendt, and Martin Heidegger, Santoro Gomez is researching successful teachers from high-poverty schools who left after eight or more years of teaching. In an effort to understand what conditions are needed to sustain the practices of these highly effective teachers, she is going to research what made them leave.
After all, she believes teachers are the basis for social justice and equality in the classroom.