The Interview That Brought Everything Into Focus (Module 8)

The Module 8 interview with an experienced ELA teacher brought coherence to the entire course. Seven key themes surfaced: literacy as the foundation for thinking; emotional and cultural safety as prerequisites for rigor; scaffolding as a mechanism for sustaining challenge; technology as meaningful only when purposeful; learning partnerships as central to meaning-making; strong pedagogy transferring across disciplines; and education as fundamentally human development. Aligning these themes with UNESCO’s Four Pillars reinforced the holistic nature of instruction and helped me see curriculum design as both cognitive and humanizing work.