Blog #9

"Critical literacy is a response to injustice and the production of illiteracy in which students and teachers work together to develop a fundamental state of learning."

This week's reading was my favorite in which it was on Paulo Freire's article "Pedagogy of the oppressed." This amazing article talks about how students are basically seen as robots and the teacher just delivers the information or "knowledge" and expect the students to have learned it by seeing how well that student does on a test. The concept Freire is referring to is the banking model in which teachers deposit knowledge to the student and expect the student to understand. This model for teaching is completely useless because teachers are not forced to make sure the student has learned the information given. Teachers who are teaching for the standardized tests usually use this model because teachers feel that is the only way the students will pass the examine. Students are not learning but are memorizing everything given so therefore they are not learning anything. We need to understand that “knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” In order to make sure our students are learning, we need to make sure they are using this knowledge for their future endeavors.

I feel that in many cases during my education career, I was a victim of being oppressed by a teacher's pedagogy. There were many times in which the banking method was implemented in many subject areas. I knew myself and every time a teacher based the class grade on test scores, I automatically knew I was not going to do well. I feel that there are various forms of what you can test your student's knowledge and exams are not a great tool to measure that. I feel that teachers who do base their class grades solely on tests, are teachers who do not care whether that student has learned anything in class. One example that is related to this is that I graduated high school with an overall 71 percent average. Extremely low and miraculously got accepted to a four year university. Another person in my class, graduated with an 90 average but yet she was not able to pass her first semester while I've continued. Goes to show that it's not about how high your test scores may be, its what you know and how you are going to overcome.


Powerful video for you to see. The power of youtube :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRq8ZSuXuJ4