Dear Empowering Learners,

Please use this forum to share and respond to some reflections on the readings for today.  How do the ideas, stories, and perspectives in "Hopeful Impossibility" and "Education Is Life Itself" speak to/with our course concerns? To our concerns about the connections among culture, privilege, desire-based work, empowerment?  I would apppreciate it if you would both post a comment and respond to a classmate's comment.  Enjoy!

Schools in urban American cities often have a large communication barrier between teachers and students due to their respective backgrounds. What often occurs is that students will come from low-income backgrounds with specific social behaviors that branch from their neighborhoods. On the opposite side of this spectrum is the teacher who often comes from a privileged background with a high education and sophisticated communication habits. When a teacher from a different background enters these schools it becomes difficult for the students to relate or to accept the teacher’s presence in the classroom. This results in a multitude of miscommunications because both the students and the teachers misinterpret each others’ language and behavior due to their upbringings.