My name is oop and I am a Humanities Major on a Childhood Education track
with an English concentration. I am currently in an
English 220 class taught by Dr. Cooper. I
came to the course as a requirement for my interest
but, I stayed in the course because I enjoy
tutoring, writing, and the class discussions. My
pedagogy of education is student centered and
collaborative due to their ability to create agents
of positive change which is much needed in
every era but particularly our day and age with
words such as gentrification and ninety-nine
percent at home in our vocabulary. Although student
centered and collaborative strategies may
seem as opposing concepts they are not. It has been
my experience that students need an
exploration of the self to progress into an
understanding of their fellow human beings so they
may eventually consider what can be done about the
situations they find themselves in. I suppose
this is why I enjoyed James Moffett’s Active Voice
(1981) so much. He allows for freedom of
expression to improve writing as shown through his
student’s example “Funny Feelings” (192).
This book is chock full of ways to have students
collaborate while The social activist in me has
always enjoyed Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (1976) for his appreciation of the state
of the forgotten children his writing that the
injustice is here, it is real, and it needs to change. In
that same vein Jonathon Kozol’s Savage Inequalities
(1992) highlights the extreme state of
oppression that a disproportionate number of our
children endure as a part of their daily reality.
Tutoring writing is
liberating. It creates opportunity for people that do not have the means
to develop a skill as essential to expression as
writing. Tutoring offers a chance not just to better
our pieces but to better our understanding of others
and their experiences in the hope of
unraveling the conundrum of life’s challenges. It is
through the sharing of our lives that bridges
and alliances are formed and tutoring writing behaves
as a vehicle to this end. The empowering
significance of being able to express oneself
clearly, with discipline and focus, allows us to
become agents of positive change within ourselves
and our communities. Freire understood that
to deny proper education to children (meaning
education rich in critical thinking and freedom) is
the worst form of oppression. He writes “The banking
approach to education for example will
never propose to students that they critically
consider reality” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed 74).
Once we comprehend disparities in our realities we
are moved to change them. I mentioned
earlier that my philosophy is entwined both in
student centered principles and collaboration. My
reasoning for the first is the value I place on an
individual’s ideas. Those ideas are what make us
human and to stifle them is to “dehumanize” as
Freire states (Pedagogy of the Oppressed 75).
The latter portion of my pedagogy, collaboration, is
vital to connecting the agents of change so
they may find fulfillment in their pursuit of
equality.
Collaboration can be a
powerful propellant toward understanding another perspective.
During the tutoring session we had with Professor
H’s English 99 students I had an opportunity
to tutor two students who had opposing views on
gentrification. Student A was a lifelong
resident of a neighborhood undergoing the change
from out group space to hipster central.
Student B felt that gentrification was only natural
because it “reduces crime and brings in trendy
stores”. This may be very nerdy of me but I find
this exciting! Here sat two people who would
otherwise not interact sharing conversation on their
opposing views and isn’t that the beginning
of everything? A conversation leaves remnants of one
an others opinions almost like an
intentional de ja vu experience where they are
absorbing “eye contact” and “body language”
cue’s that drive meaning from mere words (Tutoring
Writing). Just as the broken banking system
of education Freire mentions “deposits” facts
deprived of critiques the combination of
collaboration and student centered writing deposits
a counter opinion in another wise one sided
mind. My
spliced philosophy honors the individual and the societal. Getting back to
students A
and B, if you recall A is against while B is for
gentrification. While A is discussing the years
spent in struggle to get the neighborhood in better
shape she is emotional. It comes out in her
raised eyebrow and tone as she speaks of a “loss of
culture” and “friendships” as people are
pushed out of affordable apartments. Student B is
left with little defense and when she attempts
to defend it comes up weak with the “trendy store
defense” because the crime portion was
already noted by student A to have been under
control prior to gentrification. Although I don’t
expect every collaborative effort to end so smoothly
it does make me warm and fuzzy when they
do.
If we agree that the purpose of writing
is to better understand each other and life then we
Might be able to find some value in this two tiered
approach to tutoring writing. The first tier
speaks to the self. The second tier speaks to
community. Combining the two builds sparks of
understanding. What more can we ask for?
