Philosophy of Education-Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Well, if I understood this philosophical (I’ve never been very philosophical) piece correctly, relationship building between teacher and student allows for a more beneficial experience in an educational setting.  Am I right?  I think this goes without saying.  In my experience, the classrooms I have gained the most from, were the classrooms of teachers that genuinely cared about the students.  Unfortunately, some teachers believe in absolute power and treat their students as if they are peons with zero life experience.  The author here describes the students who have encountered such teachers as “oppressed”.  Even though the use of the word is a little exaggerated, maybe misplaced, I get it.  The idea here is that students who are able to develop a relationship with their teacher are better able to gain skills in the content of that classroom.  In fact, this piece encourages free thinking in the classroom as a method for students to grasp, not only the ideas being taught, but to develop their own thinking skills.  While I don’t think the section of the assigned pages to read was necessary (students do need guidance), I think what the author was trying to get at was, if the student wants to read ahead, let them.  I don’t know about you, but I have never met a teacher, especially an English teacher, who has begged students to stick ONLY to the pages assigned.  Maybe I’ve been lucky?  Maybe the idea of free thinking and not being held in a box has contributed to my choice to become an English teacher.  Honestly, I haven’t been able to pin that down yet.  But, if the author is preaching about building teacher-student relationships to create a harmonious classroom and how it obviously benefits everyone, I’m all for that.  I don’t believe the teacher is all knowing (I know I’m not) and I don’t believe students are know-nothings, either.  We can’t go into a modern education system thinking we know it all.  The truth is, we learn as we go, and I think that’s fair to say about any of us.  We will learn more from our students then we think we will, and hopefully we can pass along some of our passion to them.  Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the student to learn, but it is the responsibility of the teacher to make it learn-able through relevancy and relationships.