Today is reflection day in my classes. We try to coalesce what we've learned, what we can do that we couldn't before, what we see that we couldn't before.

One of my students said that they'd often struggled with entering into class discussions in previous classes 1/7

but now they enjoyed jumping into the conversation, expressing their thoughts and hearing others reacting to their thoughts.

"I wish everyone would realize they can do that," they said, "because I really think now that everyone has something important to say." 2/7

On the first day of class, I tell them philosophy is a dinner table, where everyone across time is discussing deep questions that matter.

I tell them that I used to hate philosophy because I thought I didn't belong at the table. I talk about how I'm the first woman in my 3/7

direct line of research supervision & that it was really hard to learn how to be me at the table and to speak up, to believe that a voice like mine mattered.

And so I tell them from the beginning that their voice matters just as much as Kants, 4/7

as Aristotle's, as Virginia Held's. And I tell them I will sit with them and quiet the loud voices until they can hear themselves and until others can hear them.

And I will sit with them until they leave the seat next to me 5/7

so they can go sit next to someone else whose voice is quiet, and can help them be heard too.

Today, my student stood up and walked to sit next to someone else in some other classroom 6/7

and I couldn't be more proud.

The discussion at the dinner table is so much more rich when we can hear everyone and everyone knows they belong.

#whyiteach 7/7