Case Study

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?