Firey Freire

Before I even getting into the meat of Paulo Freire's theologies about the pedagogy of oppressed people and how teachers are cultural workers, I was blown away by and drawn to the introduction by Joe L. Kincheloe. He writes about the affect Freire's words had on his life. He is from the Appalachia mountain area in Tennessee. Before this fall break, I was not too sure what all that entailed, but now am aware of the systemic poverty in that area that has a greater affect on its people than anyone other than these oppressed people can imagine. I met a few of these families when working with the Appalachia Service Project (ASP) for a week and saw first hand how lack of education and job opportunities impacts people. I have been on mission trips to Mexico and some of the poorest villages in Guatemala where I expected to see tragedy, shattered integrity, and extreme poverty, but I have also thought of the United States of America as the land of opportunity where everyone has the chance to be successful and live a happy, fulfilling life. I saw first hand that with the current political, economical, and educational system, this is not the case. The rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. As Freire suggests, it is our job as teachers to be aware of this issue and its oppression on people and alter our teaching theologies, pedagogies, and practices in order to help end the terrible cycle.

Evaluate, Evaluate, Evaluate

In Chapter 13, Kuma wraps up his book about teaching methods and material by stressing how important it is for teachers be self-reflective of everything they do and constantly evaluate not only their students, but themselves as well. This is the only way to improve and learn from past mistakes or failed attempts. If you don't even recognize your faults or weaknesses through self-reflection, there is no way to fix the issue. Evaluation are extremely important for this process as well. Teachers should not only evaluate themselves, but also have their students and whoever has been in the classroom evaluate them so they become aware of other points of view. I personally do not remember filling out an evaluation forms for any of my high school teachers, but since starting college over three years ago, I have evaluated every instructor that I have had. To be honest, up until this year I have not put any thought into those evaluation forms. I simply fill in the bubbles as quickly as I could so that I could leave class earlier. Sometimes I would skip the short answer questions on the back completely. However, this year, after taking reading Kuma's book and learning more about teaching methods, theories, and practices as well as the importance and value of evaluation and constructive criticism, I actually put thought into filling out those annoying forms because I do not find them quite as annoying as I used to...