"Funds of Knowledge"

I was extremely intrigued with what Luis Moll had to say in this article. He states, "...reciprocal practices establish serious obligations based on the assumption of mutual trust...and leads to the development of long-term relationships." (Moll) I feel as if it is the role of a teacher to look beyond the school work of their students and to look at them as people with different backgrounds. I feel it is necessary for teachers to act like researchers to get the most from those doing the learning. I also feel that researchers need to look beyond the data they collect and see people for who they really are. You can only know so much about a person from data. To really know someone we have to spend quality time with them. We must strike up a conversation for the sake of getting to know the person, not simply to get answers to questions we had written up before. It is definitely possible for researchers to collect data and empower those they are researching. A combination of a teacher/mentor and a researcher is ideal. We are all mentors to someone, even if we don't know it. We all affect multiple people with our everyday actions. Being in an education class we have also become researcher. It is essential to realize the difference between the two, but to try and combine the two to really get the most from the experience. This, to me, seems like the biggest barrier (aside from nervousness) for us. The biggest thing to remember, though, is that if there's a will there's a way.