"Empowering Education" Argument

“Empowering Education”

Ira Shor

Argument

Throughout this article, Shor is arguing that when you have a student always memorizing things that it is not an effective way of learning.  With that being said, if you have them memorizing everything all of the time, what will they do when they are in the real world and never memorized a certain part of what they are doing in their job, because they didn’t learn it in school?  Shor also believes that the three R’s of learning are not good or effective methods of teaching, especially for the teachers students.  He is stating that they should be able to ask questions about what they are learning and why they should be learning that.  Teachers are given a set curriculum that they HAVE to teach from and they have really no say in what they will be teaching their students. 

Shor is also saying in this article that students need to be involved and that they need to participate more in their classes because by doing this, they will excel more and they will end up doing better in all of their classes.  He argues that in order for students to develop adequate social skills, they will not get that by being stuck inside of a classroom all day being lectured.  Shouldn’t the students have a right in what they are going to do during the course of their school day?  By doing this, it could also eliminate the distractions that come about when they do become bored. 

I like how Dr. Bogad broke it down to us the other day in class.  There are two methods of teaching that are being spoken of in this article; Problem Posing and The Banking Model.  Problem Posing is a two way street.  It is the dialogue that is being spoken to the students and what they are supposed to learn.  While the Banking Model is when the students are examples of empty bank accounts and the teachers are depositing the information into their heads.