2008-2009 Fellows: Courteny Gumora

courteny_gumora.jpgWe gain information and training by educating and we educate through the experience of what we learn. I believe this vocation to be a calling of the individual who is on a quest of lifelong learning. The diverse characteristics of the Bay Area, where my family and I live, is an opportunity to experience and exercise the relationship between educator and community; which I believe to be a cyclical union of appreciation, trust and nurturing.

I am currently a Special Education teacher with Oakland Unified at Skyline High School, I teach a social skills class called socio-anthropology for students with the Asperger’s syndrome. I have home-schooled my three sons for years prior to teaching with Oakland Unified and understand the depth of commitment necessary to convey simple and abstract concepts about life and learning. I trust and I believe in the ethical principals that govern the educational community. 

The teacher finds ways to identify with students to create a common language of awareness that transcends community and develops society. The world is increasingly becoming more understanding of varied levels in ability necessary to function within the cultural complex, an advancement of alternative learning and teaching paradigms are emerging. From as early as I can remember my interests have been artistic, yet rooted in my awareness of the cognitive processes.

As a youth I participated in several cultural experiences. For an example as a student at the High School of Art and Design, in New York City I simultaneously ushered Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. I have always been particularly interested in perception and world view from multiple experiences, expressed through art.

As an adult the focus of my education has been Cultural Anthropology MA as a synergetic culmination of art and academia in a cerebral approach to information processes. Studying, learning from, and now teaching persons with special needs continues to profoundly expand my opportunity to perceive perspective through richly unique individualized experiences; in very much the same way as I have participated in the art community.

Yes we are educators that counsel and consult while working with medical practitioners and other specialists. This is what we do, and in doing so, as David Brown of the California Deafblind Services says, “What we really are, are artists.”