February 16, 2015 - 23:12
I just finished "A pedagogy for liberation" an enjoyed the discourse between Ira and Paulo. It occaisonally was got repetitive, but I finished it with two musings in mind. The first being, Paulo is very enamoured with the idea that there be a dialogue of learning between the teacher and the student. This entirely depends on the two parties being open to dialogue at all in the classroom. For dialogue openness to happen, there must be mutual respect. I've had a couple of teachers think I was not worth their time for x reasons, some of which were my fault and some were not. I did have a teacher tell me that he didn't expect me to understand chemistry because I'm a woman. (my mother had him fired two weeks later, woop). On the other hand, I've taken a scary amount of classes where the kids really didn't care about learning anything at all. It becomes a struggle just to not flip over the desk and walk out (teacher and student alike) because the dynamic was so combative. I think that more attention is needed on how to command authority over students who are very disrespectful and unmotivated.
In addition, it's clear that Paulo is not a fan of the traditional curriculum. I'm not entirely enamoured with it, but I'm not totally in favor of throwing it out. Teachers need to lecture and pause the dialogue to give students tools to use to interpret the subject. Students can find and master them on their own, but it's much more of a struggle, especially when self-motivation is not their strong suit.