I had an argument with a friend this past week, when she informed me that studying education was silly. First of all, I wondered why would she say that to me, knowing full well what I'm in school for, and second, we had to back up for a minute. And we had a conversation/I forced her to listen to my side, wherein I presented irrefutable (to me) evidence that yes, we should, in fact, educate teachers. The teaching profession is not made up of individuals who have some special affinity for imparting knowledge to others; in fact, what we should really be asking here is what this knowledge is and who that knowledge is supporting. Needless to say, the articles for this week all did an outstanding job of giving me the most important point of my argument. What's missing from this view of education as a "knowledge of good classroom strategies" is the ultimate goal of education--changing society!
If the solution to oppression is, as Paul Freire says, "not to 'integrate' them [students] into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become 'beings for themselves,'" (p. 74), then yes, teachers have a lot to learn. We can't only learn best practices, but we must also learn why that is and who the practices are serving. It's tough to do this kind of critical thinking and exploring as an individual apart from a supportive group of learners. Not only that, but we are also doing our students and our students' futures a disservice if we think that good teaching merely consists of content knowledge. As Bomer & Bomer point out, "much of our teaching focuses on the individual (to the exclusion of collective social knowledge and action) and ends up reproducing the same old dominant culture and social divisions" (2001, p. 1). And if Bomer & Bomer can say that about their teaching, then what about the rest of us pleebs?
Now that we realize that teacher education is essential (again, not just in the sense of having a bag of good strategies on hand), and we know that effecting social justice through our students is our essential goal, how do we go about including this in the curriculum? Wolk points out several young adult titles that bring up issues of social justice. Long proposes using photographs of historical events or struggles as a starting point for critical literacy and activism. Pescatore presents the use of current events in the English classroom as a way to teaching critical thinking and writing skills. I think all of these writers presented compelling arguments for the practical implementation of critical literacy in the classroom; now, it's up to us to put forth the time and effort involved in carefully using these structures to promote social awareness and justice. And that's really what it all comes down to--using your time to prepare to engage with students in a thoughtful manner. That thoughtful manner isn't just a frame of mind that you're born into if you're a "good teacher." Good teachers must have good teachers as well. In any case, studying education won't seem too silly when our students are becoming the ones who are charged with running this increasingly globally connected society.
