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Teachers and the Paradox of Education

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For the longest time, ever since I can remember really, I’ve been very curious about society and the world and have shown a lack of complacency. I would get in trouble sometimes with parents, teachers and other people with authority over my many, sometimes difficult to answer, questions. I would often wonder if there was something wrong with me, having so many questions and criticisms about the world and society, it wasn’t until a professor later reassured me that it wasn’t bad to ask questions, to push back. While reading A Talk to to Teachers by James Baldwin, those moments in my life came back to me. In the reading Baldwin explains the paradox that teachers face wen educating students. Parents have an obligation to ensure that their children are educated and society has the desire to see schools produce subservient citizens who agree and believe in whatever society tells them. The entire purpose of education, according to Baldwin, is to help create a person who can make their own de...
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the Paradox of Education; a Tool for Reform and a Weapon of Indoctrination

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  In his essay, a Talk to Teachers Baldwin optimistically reflects on the transformative power of educators and the educated and engaged citizen. Baldwin begins his essay by acknowledging that “we are living through a very dangerous time”(Baldwin 17) and there is a universal uneasiness about the state of our world. He states that those who identify themself as a responsible citizen of their country, especially educators, should be prepared to “go for broke”(Baldwin, 17). He extrapolates this idea by asserting that education is curated along a framework that “perpetuates the aims of society”; to create a subservient citizen that obeys the law. Within this social structure, Baldwin contends that it is the obligation and responsibility of educators and the educated, engaged citizen to examine and challenge the harm exhibited by an authoritarian society. In this struggle, those who confront social institutions will be met with “...the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most deter...
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Teaching Civic Engagement and Resistance Expression

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The readings for this week provided a platform for how we, as future educators, can promote civic engagement within the classroom. In one of the first articles we read, James Baldwin's "A Talk for Teachers," Baldwin states that the purpose of educations is to "create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black and this is white" (Baldwin, 18). As educators, we should not strive to indoctrinate our own beliefs in the curriculum we are teaching, but instead, promote several perspectives to show that there is a diversity of opinion on every issue. As we are aware, not everyone agrees on everything. Although we might have an opinion on a particular issue, it is not our job to emphasize that opinion in the classroom. Instead, we should be trying to assist our students in developing their own critical conscious that affords them the ability to think for themselves without being influenced by othe...
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Collaboration in the Classroom

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 As future educators, we are going to be responsible for teaching our students valuable skills they will be able use in their professional lives.  Fundamental skills that will be important in any line of work a student chooses to go in. Collaboration is one of those skills. Growing up I often resented collaborating with other students in school. It felt unnatural to me and I am realizing that might have been due to a lack of fundamental collaboration skills I was taught. In the reading from Wolsey and Lapp, we are introduced to a variety of different skills and techniques to get students engaged in meaningful discussions in class. One I found particularly valuable was Language Frames. As someone who went to school with many students whose first language was not English, I understand how frustrating it could be to try to contribute to a conversation when you don't know how to communicate in the language, let alone the language of the discipline. By using language frames, the st...
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Discussion as a form of instruction

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Discussion as a form of instruction I am someone who naturally tends to think of education in terms of instruction and assessment. I find myself filtering activities that I am reading about or learning into one of these two distinct categories. But I also realize that this distinction is nominal and can be deleterious to complex learning. In reading the chapter by Wolsey and Lapp this became especially clear to me.  This chapter outlines the ways that small-group as well as class-wide discussion can play the role of effective instruction. How did your view of discussion in the classroom change after reading this chapter? In this chapter we learn that class-wide discussions on course content can be faulty if they aren't structured properly. The authors provide a few examples of common activities that make class-wide discussions more effective. Among these methods were the Socratic Seminar (or Socratic debate), the Chips method (in which each student is provided 3 chips to donate to ...
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Text choice in classroom and how it promotes agency

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  In the ever-evolving landscape of education, the role of a teacher extends beyond the dissemination of knowledge; it encompasses fostering critical thinking, advocacy, and agency among students. Katherine E. Batchelor's article, "Using Linked Text Sets to Promote Advocacy and Agency Through a Critical Lens," offers valuable insights into how educators can employ linked text sets as a powerful tool to achieve these goals. Batchelor underscores the significance of employing a critical lens in education, enabling students to analyze, question, and engage with diverse perspectives. As future educators, it is imperative to recognize the potential of linked text sets in promoting critical thinking and nurturing students' capacity for advocacy. Linked text sets provide a curated collection of resources interconnected by a common theme or topic. By leveraging these sets, educators can create dynamic learning experiences that encourage students to explore multifaceted issues...
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Mediating Academic Knowledge Gaps

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     As I was reflecting on the readings and podcast from this week, it seemed to me that the most prominent and potent question at hand is: How do we, as mediators of academic knowledge, authentically connect student's lived experiences with texts that also embolden them with the skills and standards that are necessary for their success?      What the podcast  Still Processing  does well is breaking down nuanced and abstract ideas latent (or not latent) in the media we are exposed to. Like the hosts of  Still Processing,  we as educators have to be meticulous about the texts that we bring into the classroom, for as I alluded to above, we must select texts that are familiar enough to students that they do not seem daunting but sophisticated enough to push the boundaries in the minds of our students.      In chapter three of the Buehl reading, he discusses the importance of prior knowledge when approaching a text. He accura...
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