As
Educators nothing can be taken for granted. The common core has made it clear
that goals must be set for our classes, but what is not clear is how to connect
those goals to the culture and status of our students. It is taken for granted
that many of our students cannot connect our lessons to the culture. “The
Critical Pedagogy Reader” discusses at length how to ensure our goals are both
micro and macro. Micro objectives ensure the class is connected to the content,
while macro objectives are the way to tie our class content into the larger
picture.
Classes
without fail present knowledge to students, but what is the social function of
this knowledge? Today in my AP language class we discussed Thoreau. Thoreau
writes that facts are “paltry” unless they can be used to affect the day. His
philosophy involves making sure consciousness involves more than knowledge and
a depth of thought beyond facts. My class loved this notion since students
commonly enjoy criticizing normal education. They wondered aloud how often the
things they learn in class affect or change their day or their year. It was
ironic to me to watch the ideas of Thoreau change their thought processes while
they were saying that knowledge from class does not affect them.
I found this to be a prime example of
“emancipatory knowledge.” This means the knowledge helped us understand the
power structure of the classroom and understand the privilege of knowledge.
Though we did not discuss how this knowledge could transcend culture, it would
be an easy objective in the future to ask the students to analyze Thoreau’s
work from the perspective of another culture to see if it is still applicable.
It is important that all lessons be considered in this broader sense and that
every class be connected to the world and the power structure around them.
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