Bud’s podcast post inspired me to write this evening. I’ve noticed a few things over the last few weeks that I’m going to pull together here. I hope I don’t get bogged down in too much detail, but I think that there may be a relevant point that is being touched on in various forms, but not explicitly identified. I hope I can make a constructive contribution to this discussion.

From David Warlick’s, response to Marco Polo’s post about the contradictions he sees in both being and mistrusting authority figures, I was reminded of some reading I did about the tension between freedom and authority that many teachers who aspire to a democratic practice face each day. Bud’s audio post concerned his decision to give his students a choice of books and the opportunity to visit a bookstore where they could select them. His experience in this was altogether positive and he used this as an occasion to talk about the merits of students having choice and voice in educational decision-making. Bud was commenting on Miguel Guhlin’s recommendation that schools “set up our own blogosphere–severing the connections to the ‘real’ blogosphere.” I enjoy reading Bud’s blog, and I am fairly awed by his willingness to think aloud (in a first draft, as he called it) and publish it as a podcast. The key thing that Bud said, I think, is that

as a teacher it’s a really hard balance for me to figure out where the line is between being a responsible adult and denying students opportunities or access.

The unifying thread to what I see here is the contradiction between freedom and authority that progressive educators face in educational decision making. Ira Shor, a critical theorist, in an article called What is Critical Literacy. says

The risk and difficulty of democratizing education should be apparent to those who read these lines or to those who have attempted critical literacy, perhaps encountering the awkward position of distributing authority to students who often do not want it or know how to use it….Dewey saw cooperative relations as central to democratizing education and society. To him, any social situation where people could not consult, collaborate, or negotiate was an activity of slaves rather than of a free people. Freedom and liberty are high-profile ‘god-words’ in American life, but, traditionally, teachers are trained and rewarded as unilateral authorities who transmit expert skills and official information, who not only take charge but stay in charge. At the same time, students are trained to be authority-dependent, waiting to be told what things mean and what to do, a position that encourages passive-aggressive submission and sabotage.

Here we can see that this is not a new problem. Dewey wrote “Experience and Education” in 1938. What we have now are a new set of tools that seem well suited to subvert the system and short-circuit the power dynamic that has frustrated progressive educators for decades.

Marco Polo wrote that “probably due to their incarceration in high school, my students have developed bad study habits and self-sabotaging behaviour.” Bud Hunt said that “when you don’t get the opportunity to learn how to make a good choice you don’t learn about how to do that and we release adults into the population that aren’t ready to be there.” It’s an interesting choice of words by both of these teachers, who used language that associates schools with prisons. I don’t want to read too much into this, but I’d say that we are dealing with some fairly serious power dynamics, and everyone recognizes it, either consciously or unconsciously. I don’t mean to criticize their choice of words, either, because I think many of us see the truth in what they say. Whether we see ourselves as jailers or liberators, though, we should recognize that we are involved in a political struggle. It doesn’t matter whether we filter or not, whether we give students choices or not, we are imposing our values and ethics regardless. It’s unavoidable. There is no such thing as a politically neutral classroom.

We have to engage students in discussions about things that matter to them and act as guides and interpreters to the world they are living in. Choices, yes absolutely. It’s how students learn. Authority, yes as well. It’s our duty. Kids need all manner of guidance, and they look to us for leadership. They also trust us to keep them safe. We owe them the benefit of our experience and our knowledge of the world. The balance between responsibility and the need students have to take a risk is real, but it’s not a static limit. It shifts and moves with each individual. None of the institutional barriers restricting access to information will matter if we are truly engaged in honest dialog with our students. I don’t believe there is a choice for us to make between one extreme or another. I think we have to be both ally and authoritarian, depending on the circumstance. Dialog is key. When we speak from our hearts to theirs they know we care. Our challenge is to help students imagine a better future than the one that will be handed to them by default. How we do that is a creative process that nobody - to my knowledge - has mastered.