Critical Pedagogy in the Urban Classroom
This article was very informational to me, especially as someone who would not be considered culturally as an "other" when the text was discussing canonical writings and how to present them to our students. I liked how the article pointed out that multicultural experiences can be pulled from almost all literature if you lead the students to read between the lines or read in the background of what the writing says.
The pedagogical practices section of the article provided some insight to me that I feel like I could use in my classroom one day. I plan to teach in a rural area, but some rural areas can be just as diverse as the urban schools that are depicted in this article. Not to mention that there is a definite divide between the rural school experience and the urban school experience. The ideas in this section could potentially be used for either and for anyone if the content is tailored to the target audience. I think the idea of pairing books with a film is an excellent idea. Young students, and really even college students or any student, love to watch film! So, if the correct film is paired with the correct book, there are a number of ways that students can be taught overlapping concepts.
I could not agree more when the article is discussing the pedagogical practice of Paulo Freire. His practice was "centered upon dialogue, inquiry, and the real exchange of ideas between teachers and students, who, he felt had a great deal to offer one another" (10). This reminds me of my own experiences in the classroom, both secondary and college, where it is not always the teacher that had given me that "light bulb" moment of the lesson. Many times I have found that the ideas of my colleagues and students have either revealed something to me I had not noticed before, or slightly changed my perspective to the same effect. We have all been told before that we are all students as well as teachers and we all never stop learning. Freire is saying just that.
Just as a last note, I could not believe the section describing how under-funded some schools are in terms of basic needs. Even something as basic as heat during the winter, the issues were going way past not having enough textbooks which is unacceptable in itself. I found it particularly disturbing that the "wealthy" school up the hill was constructing a five million dollar stadium while East Bay did not have enough textbooks.
The pedagogical practices section of the article provided some insight to me that I feel like I could use in my classroom one day. I plan to teach in a rural area, but some rural areas can be just as diverse as the urban schools that are depicted in this article. Not to mention that there is a definite divide between the rural school experience and the urban school experience. The ideas in this section could potentially be used for either and for anyone if the content is tailored to the target audience. I think the idea of pairing books with a film is an excellent idea. Young students, and really even college students or any student, love to watch film! So, if the correct film is paired with the correct book, there are a number of ways that students can be taught overlapping concepts.
I could not agree more when the article is discussing the pedagogical practice of Paulo Freire. His practice was "centered upon dialogue, inquiry, and the real exchange of ideas between teachers and students, who, he felt had a great deal to offer one another" (10). This reminds me of my own experiences in the classroom, both secondary and college, where it is not always the teacher that had given me that "light bulb" moment of the lesson. Many times I have found that the ideas of my colleagues and students have either revealed something to me I had not noticed before, or slightly changed my perspective to the same effect. We have all been told before that we are all students as well as teachers and we all never stop learning. Freire is saying just that.
Just as a last note, I could not believe the section describing how under-funded some schools are in terms of basic needs. Even something as basic as heat during the winter, the issues were going way past not having enough textbooks which is unacceptable in itself. I found it particularly disturbing that the "wealthy" school up the hill was constructing a five million dollar stadium while East Bay did not have enough textbooks.
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