“Empowering Education: Education in Politics” by Ira Shor- Reflection

In this week’s reading we were to read “Empowering Education: Education in Politics” by Ira Shor.  

In this reading Shor focuses on the idea of empowering education within the classrooms.  He argues the idea that students in today’s society and classrooms are being taught a different way to just simply memorize the knowledge they are be presented at hand.  Shor discusses how “people are naturally curious. They are born learners. Education can either develop or stifle their inclination to ask why and to learn. (pg 12).   In this statement I couldn’t help but agree with it. No matter what stage in life a person is always bound to be curious, especially when it comes to learning new things.  Shor continues to argue that with the classrooms being too focused on pushing a child to memorize and are not being able to speak their minds throughout the classrooms.  The idea of empowering education is to create educated students who are able to become great things in our society.  Critical thinking also plays a huge role in this as well.

Throughout my educational career I feel that I have faced both teachers who have pushed memorizing education and also teachers who not only used memoization but were supportive of each and every student’s thoughts and concerns.  When attending elementary school, along with middle school I feel that I was not able to completely state how I felt about certain subjects.  Growing up as a child I always struggled in both math and science.  With the way the curriculum was setup by the teachers I felt that because I struggled I was an outcast.  The teachers were so adamant about having each student memorize their history so they were able to move onto the next level of school.  When I entered high school I experienced both teachers who were more open to students speaking their minds about how they felt about a certain topic or what they felt was most difficult for them personally.  In college I have had the chance to have a few professors who have completely opened my eyes to the world of both education and teaching.  As a student I feel that having a teacher who is willing to cater to not just the class as a whole but as individuals creates a better outcome for the classroom responses in both lectures and testing.

This article really opened my eyes to the type of youth worker that I want to be and how I want to encourage students that they can have an open mind to their education.  We, as students, have all had our fair share of teachers or professors who have made us feel as if we were so small when it comes to learning.  Over the years I have tried my best to make the professor know how I feel when it comes to not understanding the way they are portraying their lesson.  This article also reminded me of all the ideas from the readings we had this semester as well.