Education is Politics
By: Ira Shor
In this article Education is Politics by Ira Shor, there were three quotes that really stuck out to me and I believe summarize the article well. "To socialize students, education tries to teach them the shape of
knowledge and current society, the meaning of past events, the possibilities
for the future, and their place in the world they live in," (Shor 14). I thought that this was very important because it talks about how education basically shapes them as a person. In the same paragraph it asks a bunch of questions about how people decide what we learn, how we learn it, and in who's view point we learn it from. I thought that this was a very interesting idea, thinking back to high school when we learned different events in history, we were learning it from the view point of the United States. I took a class in my senior year that was a film class, and it showed other countries views on the many big events that occurred in our history and surprisingly it was very different from the way we learned things. I thought that this was important to know with the idea that the government and politics basically control what we learn and shape our futures with that knowledge.
Another quote I thought was important stated, "Participation is the most important place to begin because student involvement is low in
traditional classrooms and because action is essential to gain knowledge
and develop intelligence.," (Shor 17). I believe that this is so important in the classroom. Participation gives students the knowledge and ability to grow as a person in life skills. Only active learning could students develop scientific method and democratic habits rather than becoming passive
pupils waiting to be told what things mean and what to do... Politically for Dewey, participation is democratic when students construct
purposes and meanings. This is essential behavior for citizens in a
free society," (Shor 18). This goes along with the second quote. Participation gives students the ability to feel important and want to participate in the society as well when they grow up.
The third quote states, "The teacher plays a key role in the critical classroom. Student participation
and positive emotion are influenced by the teacher's commitment to both," (Shor 26). think that this concept is very important. Without a teacher who is fully committed to the students and to the subject in which they are teaching. The students get bored and realize that the teacher could care less. Teachers need to understand that in order to get good positive participation from students they need to give good and well thought class discussions.
This link has a great video of how to improve participation with specific strategies! I find it very interesting and everyone should try to watch it if they can.
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