Wrap it up? (Sounds dirty)...
What happens if I don't?...
Things will get messy?
Well, I learned that messy is not necessarily what we want rather, what we as educators need. What if we reject the notion of a perfect classroom? Why are we not sold on making a difference? Why is it hard to distinguish why our work matters? Why can't we be human? Why can't our students be human? Why does pedagogy have to be messy and complicated?
Because making a difference takes the collaborative work of approximately 323 million people. for one, i.e. an educator to make a difference, is asking for the work of millions. Making difference is not as simple as we thought. And boring our students isn't exactly helping. But if we mixed things up? reject the notion of the ideal classroom? We throw students off their bored game and challenge their thoughts of hegemonic ideology. We ask them to critically think for a second. All of the sudden the critical thinkers combine ideas and thoughts in one space, students challenge each other and the educator, and all of the sudden the space changes due to dialogue. Yeah, people are all different, so expect everyone's ideas and thoughts to collide with one another, not necessarily destroying one another, but rather transcending other avenues of thoughts and knowledge.
Again, there will be a person who completely disagrees, however we should not question our own teaching practices or approaches. Sometimes it takes other teachers, or students to discourage our approaches and philosophy just because they are not sold on the approach or concepts you introduce. Understand that as an educator, that it is okay. It's okay to be vulnerable and in the moment, understand that it is hard to articulate why your work matters but do not let this reason alone stray you away from the reality and feelings on why your work matters. Never forget that bodies that occupy classrooms are human bodies let alone homonarrans(story tellers and story livers). It is also productive to express to your students that you are also human.
Why is it so hard? Because we are asking humans to accomplish a goal that might be to abstract, but one complicates it and names it process it becomes tangible, concrete. Education is what it is because it is complex and can be manipulated or taught. Do not run from the process because it is too hard to articulate. Meet it, challenge it, critically, and whole with your educational community.
#Thosewhocan
Kevin, I think that your argument about making a difference is really important and persuasive. I know that, for me, I have had students who do not ideologically agree with me. When me and my classes have had ideologically founded discussions, I found that I can make difference here. For instance, I can approach the discussion by saying "lets be open minded" or "I am not here to change your political views, and this is not a political conversations; it is a human rights conversations".
ReplyDeleteI think that we need to remember that our students are humans, too. This ties back to Freire's argument about oppression. We need to, first, acknowledge that our students have different opinions than ourselves. This also means that we need approach conversations differently, and get our students to engage.