Gooden Blog

I am often asked why I got into education. “Is it because of the sweet perks?” Or I would hear “I bet you just wanted your summers off!” and  “Teaching is easy, no sweat.” I often laugh because while teaching does have some pretty cool perks, like having summers “off,” none of these reasons are why I got into teaching. 

For me, my journey started in a classroom in San Diego. I was six years old, and my parents had just immigrated from Mexico. I didn’t know the English language, customs, or traditions. I was pretty upset that I couldn’t buy a torta and a small, glass-bottled Coke during recess like I could back home in Mexico City. I mimicked, I tried, I did everything I could to try to blend in and not stick out. That, of course, was impossible because I couldn't communicate with my teachers or peers. That experience always stayed with me and I vowed that if I ever was in a position to be a mentor to young people, I wouldn’t let others have the same experience  because I knew how it felt to not be able to communicate or have access to all the things my peers did. That experience, that sense of wanting to mentor, led to my desire to enter the teaching profession. 

While I believe that we as educators can instill and raise cultural awareness amongst our students, I also believe that this process starts at home. That is where most of us first learn to speak and communicate and how to interact with others. Parents and guardians are their children’s first teachers, as well as providing a safe environment and meeting their children’s other needs.  Teaching them to share and wait their turn, modeling kindness and empathy are some of the skills that we, as parents and guardians, would like to instill in our children. Once those are instilled at home, it is easier to send our children off to school where those skills are then refined by teachers. So what happens when our children are suddenly immersed in a room with others who may not look, sound, or even speak like they do? That is where the bedrock skills I mentioned earlier come into play. Most children at that young age are not always capable of making sensible decisions, and as most of us already know, children are brutally honest. In those early years, a child may not understand exactly why their words may have hurt another child, but if they know the word “sorry,” or the phrase “do you think that was nice to say?,” we as teachers can help build up that foundation. 

Instinctively, humans look for differences and sameness in each other, that is why we choose our friends, cliques form, and we identify with others who share in our ideals. If we are exposed to thinking that group X only does this well, and group Y only does that well, we may be missing out on something greater. That is why here at Gooden we are choosing to incorporate cultural awareness from the very beginning, connecting with skills that have been taught at home about sharing, patience, kindness, and empathy. Gooden finds it incredibly important to showcase cultural awareness early because we feel it is imperative to teach about different cultures positively, instead of having negative connotations associated with different cultures. 

For example, at the beginning of a social studies lesson, many educational institutions would focus on enslaved persons experiences once they arrived in the destination country, rather than celebrating the rich and vibrant cultures from which they originated. Once we are able to ingrain cultural awareness in a positive way, students may be able to better understand and grasp the bigger concepts of empathy while becoming educated about experiences that differ from their own. I would like to showcase some of the things we are doing at Gooden to raise cultural awareness that you can incorporate into your home as well.

In Mrs. Dewis’s “History of Tech,” she is focusing on the contributions of women and people of color in STEM fields. This will allow the different experiences of women and people of color who have contributed to the field of STEM to have their stories shared and celebrated, some of which our students may never have learned about if only the most famous success stories were shared. 

In Mrs. Dominguez’s art class, students are reading The Color of Us in kindergarten, first, and second grade. This is a story of a young artist who discusses the different colors of the people of her neighborhood using fun color analogies. Students then discuss their own experiences and their color with their classmates. This helps bring awareness to the forefront and tackles differences of color and makes it fun to be unique.

In Mr. Williamson’s Middle School English classes, his philosophy is that “reading, writing about, and discussing literature, both classics and modern, lead to an understanding of what it means to be human.” One of those examples is a book called, The Cay, which is about a boy overcoming his prejudices and learning to love and appreciate the African-American man who saved his life. If you want to hear a great story about Mr. Williamson’s dad, who grew up in the south and exposed racism through his journalism career, make sure to ask Mr. Williamson about it.

These few examples are why raising cultural awareness is important to me. I experienced it firsthand, and those experiences led me to become the person that I am today.  It is part of my life’s mission to ensure that no child is left feeling like they are being overlooked because they may not speak a certain way, look like others, or have the opportunity to hear about the contributions of people to whom they can relate. Everyone belongs here at Gooden, and we strive to uphold the Episcopal tradition and values of embracing and nurturing all students every single day. Gooden provides an environment where access and support for every student is a core value, but we can’t do it alone. Understanding and compassion begins at home, where the first seeds of awareness are planted, and together we can make the world an even better place.

Mr. Phil Dominguez is the director of global studies and director of equity and inclusion at The Gooden School. He has been teaching for 16 years and is starting his third year at The Gooden School. He grew up in Mexico City and San Diego before settling in Los Angeles. Mr. Dominguez holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Southern California, and a master’s degree in history from Cal State University, Los Angeles. His teaching philosophy is engaging students to be active participants in the process of learning, rather than reading and answering questions from a book. He loves to spend time with his wife and two kids, cook, and create music.