Week 12

Brown chapter 26 and Kumar chapter 11 & 12 discuss the importance of being socially, politically, culturally aware of their classroom and the students in their classes. Not only are we responsible to know what is going on with our students, we are held accountable in teaching students about social, political, and cultural awareness as well. As pre-service teachers, we need to engage in critical pedagogy ("teaching that is motivated by our beliefs about education and its place in society" (Brown 513)). Although Kumar and Brown tell us that it is important to teach in this fashion, I think a lot of teachers avoid teaching this way. I think a lot of teachers are afraid to teach with social, political, and cultural awareness. This can be a real problem, because we don't have any discussions about what is going in our lives. Yes, we teach content, but as teachers, we need to generate discussions surrounding the lives we live. If we don't talk about the presidential elections, or global affairs, or things of that nature, how can we expect our students to really grow and become mature, responsible, and aware human beings? We really can't if we shy away from these "hot topics". I believe that our students are more than capable of handling controversial topics. We just need to trust that they can offer something that we have never thought about. I remember in high school, one girl had just recently immigrated from the Middle East with her family to escape the violence and chaos. Because she looked Caucasian, the teacher (and the students) never realized that she came from the Middle East. She was educated in English, so her English was just perfect. Sometimes the teacher made snide comments about people in the Middle East, not realizing the new student was from the Middle East. We all later found out when she finally made a complaint to the administration about the teacher. I think these kinds of situations can be avoided by simply teaching responsibly (meaning, us being socially, politically, and culturally aware, as well as our students). We can have students who have a broadened point of view instead of students who are ignorant. Not only that, being aware means that we aren't making snide comments or sneaky little gestures that students really take in. Surprising as it may seem to teachers, our students are very good at picking up the teacher's attitudes and stance on certain topics based on how the teacher teaches and what they say (and how they say it).