But I will shout out again that reading here, and the places this has flowed to, has done more to restore my sensibilities as a teacher than any ’session” I’ve been a part of , or been sent to see.

( Just as a side note I kept reading all of you regarding Smart Boards and other tech issues such as blogging of course completely “disallowed ” in my district-and to my delight in my husband’s district at Mesa he’s envisioning and full steam on putting this into the classes.(he’s the super.) I like to think I had a small part of that by listening and reading here…..)

I come to learn, not really to convert another. And following this set of thoughts-caused me to once again start at square one and consider my relationship to what i’m doing each day….with these kids I so at this point just treasure working with and figuring out how to teach.

Somehow in ALL my reading here , I missed this. It’s great. One of the hardest things to “own”.

Just this week my husband commented I was one of the “free-est teachers” he ever met,” That made the children sit like robotic zombies while reading my Thoreau books. ” Adding of course, “Write that.” I suppose one day I will be forced to reconcile and write to a few of the basic contradictions in my classroom. I want to allow for freedom and make sure we are all entirely involved. Hypervigilance is my methodology much of the time.

I really enjoyed this, again I always find your site continually renewing, challenging, a credit to teaching and insightful. Sarah

The problem you’ve identified exposes a tension that teachers confront between our obligation to lead without indoctrinating. The conventional view of our role is as neutral agent in the “delivery” of a “neutral” curriculum. Recognizing that there can be no such thing, what are we to do? If we preach a set of values and “convert” students to a different, more “correct” point of view through some means of persuasion, have we succeeded in teaching them to think critically? You might be interested in this article about conflicting logics in education.

Thank you for your comment. It was a good one. It got me thinking about the limits of our commitments, and what freedom might really look like.

I followed the link from your signature, but there was a problem with the URL, which I’ve tried to fix. RadicalTeaching looks like an interesting site. I’ll spend some time looking around there.

But this political struggle is not the simple one of populist fantasy – poor innocents locked up and indoctrinated by the bad schools – freedom loving souls convicted only of youth sentenced to 13 years of irrelevant and boring classes when they could be having wonderful experiences in the greater society, working on sailboats or something (eg Gatto).

No, the political struggle of a radical teacher is often directed at the students. Students’ addiction to pop culture, disrespect for clear thinking, inability to do research, utilitarian/capitalist orientation, etc. contradict the vision of a democratic learning community far more powerfully (in my current school) than the Bush administration, the high stakes tests, or the power elite. The students are not captive masses yearning to breathe free! They are captive masses much more interested in comparing evaluations of new Nike sneakers, the latest video game systems, and the merits of relative hip hop artists (overwhelmingly, but not (thankfully) in all cases).

We analyze how schools and culture deform the students, but we don’t want to admit that we consider our students deformed.

This political struggle with students (not together with them against the administration, military recruiters – but against the mainstream students themselves) does not and can not take the form of “discussion” between two equal participants. If we are really trying to work towards awakened intellectuals in our classrooms, liberatory “spectactors” in the world, then we will not give equal time in our curriculum to playing Playstation (student choice) and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (teacher focus). Though we can (and should) link the two, our focus will be on helping the students perceive that they are deluded and pacified and dumbed down. This brings to mind the story from Idras Shah about a man breaking into a very old prison to help the people escape. The people asked, “What do you mean escape – what is a prisoner?”

By the way, “The Matrix” is a very important tool in this political struggle against the current subject-positions of the students.

“Discussion” and “honest dialog” sounds pretty innocuous. Planning curriculum to convince students to change their orientation to the world starts to sound a little uncomfortable, doesn’t it?

We start to think of Clavell’s “Children’s Story”.

But this is the game we’re playing – trying to awaken people (including the ability to think critically, choose, decide for themselves) that are living in zombie land.

I agree that there is a constant shifting between “freeing” and “leading” in this game.

In my classroom, 12th grade Humanities at a small school, I propose an agenda everyday, and the students clarify, modify, and vote on it. One time (only) they voted to scrap the learning and just “hang out”. If that happened several more times I would quickly abandon the formal democracy so as to maintain the possibility of awakening.

At the local “Free School” there was a controversy over the use of video games. The school finally voted to allow them – what about porn and pot? Jon Kozol wrote eloquently about this in “Free Schools” and “The Night Is Dark And I’m Far From Home” in his younger days. We have ethical obligations to make sure that our students are aware of a variety of viewpoints – don’t we also have ethical obligations to keep kids from sniffing glue (literally and metaphorically)?