Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
socio political issues in education
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: socio political issues in education
When I first encountered Paulo Freire’s work, I was struck with the hypocrisy of my own teaching. I had deluded myself into thinking, to a certain extent, that I was creating a democratic and equal space that was free from the influence of. It was a stark reminder last year when I encountered Richard Shaull’s introduction to Peter Freire’s The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He writes, “There is no such things as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the ‘practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (Freire 16). Then, over the summer, as I delved into Lisa Delpit and Sonia Nieto’s work, I came face to face with the socio-economic reality of our education system, and how in some ways, I was not nearly as enlightened as I thought myself to be. According to Delpit, “Many liberal educators hold that the primary goal for education is for children to become autonomous, to develop fully who they are in the classroom setting without having arbitrary, outside standards forced upon them. This is a very reasonable goal for people whose children are already participants in the culture of power and who have already internalized its codes” (Delpit 28). I think that I fall into the category that Delpit discusses here. So many of my original assumptions about what I attempt to do in the classroom have been blown out of the proverbial water, and I am left with the question of what exactly am I doing in the classroom? I am specifically concerne...
... middle of paper ...
... way in which I view grading my students’ essays. Despite the fact that I have found no clarity, perhaps it is the fact that I am still grappling with these issues, facing them on a daily level that keeps me an actively engaged teacher in the realm of teaching writing.
Works Cited
hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994.
Delpit, Lisa. Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. The New Press, 1995.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum Press, 1970.
Bartholomae, David. “Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow.” Cross-Talk in CompTheory. National Council of Teachers of English, 1997.
Elbow, Peter. “Being a Writer vs. Being and Academic: A Conflict in Goals.” Cross-Talk In CompTheory. National Council of Teachers of English, 1997.
In Donald M. Murrays’s essay “What is Practical Education” he explains his reasoning behind why he allowed his students to write badly. He shares his own experience with police-like teachers who drove him to hate writing. In hopes of helping his students find their voice he allows his students to write the words down as they come, no matter how awkward they sound. Often times they find out that they have more to say then they thought. Rhetorical devices are used to help the readers relate to his point of view on writing.
Freire, P. (2007). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.
In Downs and Wardle’s article, they argue and identify the flaws in teaching writing in college. Demonstrating the misconceptions that academic writing is universal, but rather specialized in each case. Citing studies and opinions from esteemed professionals, Downs & Wardle state their points and illuminate the problem in today’s many colleges.
In Patricia Limerick’s article “Dancing with Professors”, she argues the problems that college students must face in the present regarding writing. Essays are daunting to most college students, and given the typical lengths of college papers, students are not motivated to write the assigned essays. One of the major arguments in Limerick’s article is how “It is, in truth, difficult to persuade students to write well when they find so few good examples in their assigned reading.” To college students, this argument is true with most of their ...
In “Writing to Learn: Writing across the Disciplines,” Anne J. Herrington finds different sources stating that writing is to be taken serious. Janet Emig says, "writing represents a unique mode of learning-not merely valuable, not merely special, but unique” (1) meaning that writing is far more essential than we ought to make it seem. Anne Herrington wants educators teaching in economics, history, chemistry or any other subject to guide their students into understanding why progressing their writing skills will be more helpful to them. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the educator; whether he/she wants their students to use writing as a way for students to adapt to different disciplines.
The first text, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” highlights the importance of liberatory education for students from marginalized backgrounds. Freire points out that oppression dehumanizes both the oppressors and the oppressed, and that liberatory education serves to humanize both. Liberation must come directly from the efforts of the oppressed, as they are the only people that truly understand the nature of their oppression. Education
Knoblauch, C. and Brannon, L. Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing. Monteclair: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1984.
As stated in this essay, critical pedagogy in urban education is a useful way to create change in our educational system. Dewy and Friere may have had different thoughts on education as a democracy verses liberated, but both believed in the role of the teacher and an open society. In conclusion, in order to create a democratic education where power is shared freely and equally, one must examine the social forces that are impacting urban schools and strive to create solutions to these issues.
When reading "Teaching Thinking by Teaching Writing" by Peter Elbow, I discovered many of the ideas he favors is how I start off my writing for most writing assignments. I tend to free-write when getting out of my thoughts without being interrupted by any outsider looking in or sources to result to. Then once I 'm done, if the assignment requires sources or I just feel I need another opinion and feel I 've been looking for extra help such as needing sources to include within my writing. I feel my best writing comes from me when I free writing first. I realized what I have been practicing for many writing projects is called first order thinking, then I later apply a second order thinking for the correctness.
Rose, Mike. “Entering the Conversation.” Composing Knowledge; Readings for College Writers. Ed. Rolf Norgaard. Boston:Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2007. 96-108. Print.
Everyone should have the right to a good quality education. They should be taught to give their opinion of different ideas and express their feeling instead they are taught to follow the society rule. In the article “The pedagogy of the oppressed”, Paulo Freire talks about the relationship between the student and the teacher and how each of them play a different role in the educational system. The teacher 's role is to educate the students by making them copy what is on the board and memorizing, sometimes without understanding what it means because that’s what they are paid to do. On the other hand, the students have to listen to what the teachers say, copy what they write and memorize it without saying a word or asking any questions because the teachers are the only ones responsible for that. Writer and Activist James Baldwin says that “The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions… To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society.” Education should be fun for the people to learn more and encouraged to do better but it is not. They are forced to learn what society wants them to instead of letting them create new ideas and letting them do what they want to
Humanization, dehumanization, oppression and oppressors are all main concepts in the opening chapters of pedagogy of the oppressed by Paulo Freire. Freire entertains the idea that school system oppresses students through dehumanization tactics and curriculum. Terry Wotherspoon in The Sociology of Education in Canada explains that teachers and students are the agents in schooling, and subsequently affect each other. The teacher-student relationship has been examined closely and both Wotherspoon and Freire have important ideas on what it entails. Without the understanding and analysis of how teachers and students relate, it is impossible for us to make any positive, and progressive changes to education.
Hooks, Bell. Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Vol. 4. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
This book, Dare The School Build a New Social Order by George Counts, is an examination of teachers, the Progressive Education Movement, democracy and his idea on how to reform the American economy. The book is divided into 5 different sections. The first section is all about the Progressive Education Movement. Through this, George Counts points out many downsides and weaknesses of this ideal. He also talks about how he wants teachers to lead society instead of following it. In the second section, he examines 10 widespread fallacies. These fallacies were that man is born free, that children are born free, they live in a separate world of their own, education remains unchanged, education should have no bias, the object of education is to produce professors, school is an all-powerful educational agency, ignorance rather than knowledge is the way of wisdom, and education is made to prepare an individual for social change.
In the article, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire disagrees with the way education is being conducted because students are not given the opportunity to think for themselves. Teachers do all the thinking, and students are expected to store all the information. Freire describes the education system as the banking system, an act of depositing. Freire says the banking system is the wrong method because it hinders intellectual growth. He then proposes a new method of “problem posing” education which he believes is more effective and fair. With this method, students are responsible for understanding the materials they are being taught instead of adapting the teacher’s style.