Not all students follow the rules of traditional education, and many of them resist conformity in forms of misconduct, disrespect, and frustration towards the teacher. Learning then becomes based on good behavior rather than understanding the material. In "Tracking: Why School Need to Take Another Route" by Jeannie Oakes, low performing classrooms are centered around discipline rather than learning and fall behind from the high performing groups. Lectures and authoritarian classes are perceived to be dull and cause students to feel less intrigued or motivated in learning. Low motivation is often misjudged to be low achievement and the students who refused to conform are considered remedial. Teachers should be embracing critical thinkers and teaching our students to question the existing norms. Teachers could empower students easily just by having high expectations for them and allowing them to participate in the curriculum designed to educate them.
Ms. Gruwell from the movie "Freedom Writers", is the ideal example of an empowering teacher. I am sure that if every teacher in the US watched this movie at least once, our education should be able to move on from traditional pedagogy and establish an empowering education where all students could participate in their learning experience, just like her students.
In my high school, following the curriculum was a daily battle for many of my teachers. Either they couldn't keep up with the curriculum or they didn't want to teach the books enforced by the curriculum. However, they were required by contract to comply with the curriculum written by the school board. As future teachers, how can you establish participatory classrooms for your students without compromising the school's curriculum? Do you think breaking away from the curriculum would benefit the students? Should you break away from the curriculum?
A few weeks ago, many of us attended the Promising Practices conference where Dr. Emdin was the keynote speaker and gave a motivational speech about hip-hop education. This is a video of a Ted Talk Dr. Emdin gave and he speaks about empowering students in urban education