Critical Pedagogy in an Urban High School English Classroom

This was one of those articles that the moment I received it, wished I could give it back. Luckily, despite the girth of the packet, the content within was worth the time it took to read it. I feel like the content that Duncan-Andrade and Morell chose to teach to their students was exactly the sort of things that every new teacher hopes to employ in their classrooms.

We all know the narrative. Teacher finds him/herself in a low income school that is struggling to give students the essentials to succeed. Crafty and well-to-do as said teacher is, they make due with what they are given and promote a classroom culture that encourages activism and super practical applications. In the end, students not only learn what they needed to in order to move on into college and 'real life' but they made a difference along the way.

I wish it was that easy. What is frustrating for me is that if this is truly a reality for some teachers, why aren't we all given this sort of curriculum to begin with? Why are only a select few students receiving this kind of learning atmosphere? More importantly, why are we not given any curriculum to thumb through at all, good or bad?

As a new teacher that's just burning to get into a classroom of my own, I day-dream of having this sort of success in the classroom every time I am forced to sit through another direct instruction style lecture from yet another professor over the age of 70.

I love how relevant and engaging the units they described seem. The students were not only invested in what their peers were saying, but they actively worked together to discuss issues, rallied together to work towards a common goal and exemplified the sort of young adults we hope are making their way from high school into the community. These students seemed to have one commonality in their classroom culture that I think most teachers fail to cultivate: relevance. For today's modern high school student, they couldn't care less about the things teachers have to say, unless they can directly relate it to the way they see the world works.

Overall, I believe Duncan-Andrade and Morell are really sitting on a concept that has more value to the education system than they could have imagined. If all teachers could foster this type of relevancy in their classrooms, I believe that we would most definitely be graduating students that have a passion for life and tools for real success, rather than young adults that learned how to 'be in school and pass'. As a teacher, I would have a much easier time sleeping at night knowing that this was what I was getting up to facilitate the next day, rather than putting my students to sleep talking their faces off about why they should know how to write a 5-paragraph essay.