Let's Learn Together!!!!

“Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students."                                                                                                                                                                                                                    - Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire’s pedagogical philosophy is a reaction to the “contradiction” that existed between teachers and students in the typical educational classroom. He is strongly opposed to the practice of teachers simply providing their students with information and students willingly accepting the knowledge as fact, memorizing it, and recalling it (as if the students were empty vessels to be filled with whatever knowledge the teacher chose to kindly provide them with).

In order to transform the teacher-student relationship and end this “contradiction”, according to Freire, it is of utmost importance to create a new way of sharing the educational experience in the classroom:

teachers must think of themselves as teachers-students and students must think of themselves as students-teachers. 

The two parties must work to diminish or lessen the position stratification or “the poles of contradiction” that separate their educational experience and work to solve problems together: a strategy Freire labels “problem-posing”. Freire’s “problem-posing” system is a “constant unveiling of reality,” which requires the democratic classroom in which both teacher and student work together to create new knowledge (p.84).

  Previous research has shown that "when the teacher makes the class into 

something that involves the students this will involve not only an increase in immediacy, but there will also be the shared experience that is essential to cognitive learning to occur," (Averbeck et al., 2006). In order to facilitate a democratic learning environment, there are certain verbal and nonverbal behaviors that a teacher can use to increase the likelihood of student participation:

1. Use inclusive pronouns such as “we” or “us” rather than “you” and “I”. 
2. Address students by their first names.
3. Encourage students to ask questions.
4. Smile and nod at students. 
5. Use appropriate humor in the classroom.
6. Verbally encourage students to share information (i.e. "tell me more...", "Please continue...")

By pairing the implementation of Freire's "problem-posing" technique and just the right amount of teacher immediacy behaviors, you should be able to create an interdependent, warm, and friendly learning environment for both you and your students. 

                                                                                 

#ImmediacyAndLearning

Resources: 

Averbeck, J., Morthland, R., & Mufteyeve, A. (2006). Teacher immediacy in "live" and online classrooms. Texas Speech Communication Journal Online. Retrieved from: http://www.etsca.com/tscjonline/1206-immediacy/

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Bloomsbury.