A Good Teacher
A good teacher is one who values learning for the sake of learning, because it is through fostering intrinsic motivation that students are best prepared for a lifetime of achievements and challenges. I may never know down what future paths my students travel, but by instilling a sense of self determination within them, I can be confident that my students will be able to face challenges with a critical eye, and contribute to society in meaningful ways. If I am to affect positive change in our culture, I must do so by liberating the moral citizen and critical thinker within each and every student.
Original T2P Week 4
If a student is to be prepared to affect change in their life and in their community, then a teacher must cultivate an atmosphere of mutual respect in which the student’s voice is heard, because it is within this framework that a student is empowered. Further, such a learning environment will be advantageous to both student and teacher, as an open exploration of the student's past experiences will allow for each to act as both learner and teacher. Paulo Freire suggests that students will learn values that they can utilize outside the classroom when the teacher is a transformative intellectual, one who applies a pedagogy in which students are treated as critical agents. In this way, a teacher can help a student gain the confidence, esteem, and disposition to critically assess their world and work for change in the face of convention or injustice.
Update to T2P Week 4
If I am to have a lifelong impact on my students' abilities to navigate their world as ethically- minded citizens, then I have an obligation to develop their sense of empowerment. As Paulo Freire suggests, I must pass on to my students values of confidence and self-esteem so that they may critically assess their world and work for change in the face of convention or injustice. Without these tools, my students will be prepared only to settle for decisions that are made for them. In teaching my students to learn for themselves, they will think for themselves and will develop their own critically conscious voice. To be most effective, I must also be aware that I act as an ethical agent and role model to my students at all times.
Are you imaging that Ss are equally oppressed/repressed?
ReplyDelete"liberating the moral citizen and critical thinker within each and every student."
Are we liberators? Is that possible? I actually see believing that as a power-play. Not an evil one, but an assumption that one individual possesses the power to liberate others.
hmmm.
This post was done in class, so is probably a bit reflective of my own inability to quickly put my thoughts into an eloquent summary. I don't think I meant to characterize teachers as liberators in the sense that we are saviors, or anything like that. My belief is that every student already possesses, within themselves, the ability to think critically, and thus be agents of change in their community. The role of teachers then, in my mind, is to make sure that students are given the opportunities to exercise and practice that critical thinking. And the tool with which to do it is empowerment.
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