![]() ![]() Ideas of empowerment cut through my teaching career, linking the teaching philosophy I drafted in graduate school right through to my most recent lesson. I was surprised and heartened to learn that E would stand for empower. My school adopted a new mission statement this year, a thoughtful acronym of guiding principles fit to the letters P-R-I-D-E. ![]() I’m sure they know I want them to be themselves, that they can make art about whatever they want, but do they know what freedom really means, in a more essential context? Do they know how to access it and engage it through their art? Do I even know? I started to wonder what could happen if I set my high schoolers free. ![]() Lately, I’ve been wondering if my classroom is a space where students feel free. Perhaps none of us have any clear idea what freedom really is because we’ve never truly experienced it. ![]() Freedom from what, and for whom? Free to what extent, and by what means? Not many self-proclaim as “anti-freedom,” yet as a society, we rarely agree on what freedoms are worth protecting and which seem to be more closely linked to oppression than liberation. Paolo Freire writes, “Love must generate other acts of freedom, otherwise it is not love.” If we love our students, which is a great place to start, it is essential that we talk to them about freedom.įreedom has always been a loaded word. A real pedagogy of love, as proposed elsewhere, must go beyond simply caring about your students. ![]()
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