We are so excited to welcome Kim Corbin to the Powerful Learning Practice team as our Culturally Responsive Specialist! Kim will support Powerful Learning Practice in a variety of ways, including providing workshops and resources to guide educators as they implement culturally responsive content and update curriculum. We’re looking forward to learning with her and from her!
Kim introduces herself below, please join us in the comments to welcome her!
I am a second-generation immigrant of Jamaican descent. I am only the second of my family to attend university, and I am on the verge of completing a Masters of Education in Curriculum and Pedagogy. I am an educator and a lifelong learner.
First and foremost, however, I am a Black woman. My lived experiences have shaped and solidified the professional I am today. Unbeknownst to me, my life experiences combined with my education have placed me in a position to create a transformative experience in education. The best way to describe the intersections that have influenced my educational philosophy is from the words of Chimamanda Adiche,
“Many stories matter. Many stories have been used to malign. But stories can be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.”
My Masters of Education capstone project focuses on equity and inclusion, with a specific focus on racism and discrimination that has greatly disadvantaged Indigenous and Black students. My project highlights the importance of diversity, inclusion, and human rights in the field of education.
The foundation of education is ensuring the student experience is reflected in the learning process, teaching is adapted to the experiences of the student, and students are reflected in teaching and learning. However, this is not the case for our most vulnerable students. Black and Indigenous students experience disproportionately higher rates of low educational and socioeconomic outcomes. Many reforms have been introduced with ineffective results. Comparatively lower educational outcomes for Indigenous and Black students it is not only an educational issue, but an issue surrounding race and the social constructs of race. Systemic forms of racism and discrimination are not a recent phenomenon, but an issue rooted in history.
Inequities in education pervade because inequities are perpetuated. Consequently, success for all students has not yet been achieved. I hope to encourage the necessary reform and discussions for marginalized students. This is a significant shift in paradigm and narrative not only in education, but in the wider community as well.
My education and lived experiences enable me to contribute to the discussion and reform through ideas and actions such as critical consciousness, offering new and necessary perspectives, actions for empathy, and growth mindsets that are responsive and aligned with the educational, social, and mental well-being of our students and communities.
I look forward to working with Powerful Learning Practice and all of you as we find our way forward together.
–Kim Corbin
Jennifer Bloomingdale
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