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July 2019

Best Practices vs Enacted Values

Posted on 20 July 2019 by Kevin Smith

"...rather than empowering teachers when we claim to offer them "best practices" for the 21st century classroom, we are, in fact, disempowering them. First, it makes them "objects" of other specialists' research and reduces them to mere consumers of pre-packaged products that someone else in the edutocracy created and will profit from. This perpetuates a cycle of consumerist desire, a constant and regenerating market for education consumption. Second, it also fails to equip teachers to live fully into their calling and, especially, to do the very things we so often say we value, namely to improve the lives of the young people in our charge."

Aphorisms & Axioms: Finding Purpose in Teaching.

Aphorisms & Axioms: Finding Purpose in Teaching.

Posted on 8 July 2019 by Kevin Smith

What do we mean when we say we want to help young people "achieve their full potential?" Often it seems this phrase is used when we as educators can't articulate our purposes, aims and priorities. To empower our pedagogy, perhaps we should focus less on achieving "potential" and more on specific, achievable aims for us and our learners.

A Pedagogy of Place

A Pedagogy of Place

Posted on 5 July 2019 by Kevin Smith

Curricular and pupils' perceptions of place can often be incompatible. However, "pedagogies of place" can empower young people to better understand their understanding of and relationship to their "place."