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Using the Master’s Tools

Posted on Nov 01, 2009 - 06:47 PM by Ammerah Saidi in The Learning Curve

My first week into teaching after my year in graduate school, I was filled with grand ideas and ideals as to what I would do in my classroom to help my students liberate themselves from the intellectual shackles of US public education. I entered my classroom and my school with the belief that my students and I would revolutionize the educational experience in Detroit forever--no hyperbole intended. This is how deeply I believed in my students and their potential to be positive change agents in a world which deemed them failures or equally insulting, average at best.

Critical pedagogy was my tool of choice: an educational philosophy accredited to the late Paolo Freire, which...

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A Glimpse of Compassion in Room 114

Posted on Apr 14, 2010 - 08:27 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse

In my Waldorf grade school, compassion and inspiration were the norm, which was a beautiful thing. However, in my current public high school it is much harder to come by, which is something I dearly miss about my old schooling. Words like "stupid" and "retarded" are thrown around like they mean nothing and like they aren't hurtful. However, every once in a while you can truly see the heart of the student body, and that is precisely what inspires me to write about this.

I never intended to take a band class, but I had heard the teacher was awesome and well loved. So I decided to do it. I play percussion, so I don't always have much to do, but it's great fun just to sit and watch the teacher...

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