📑 ‘Reality Pedagogy’ Is Teaching as a Form of Protest

Bookmarked 'Reality Pedagogy' Is Teaching as a Form of Protest by Christopher Emdin (The Atlantic)

The best teachers don’t just keep teaching. Instead, they use their pedagogy as protest: They disrupt teaching norms that harm vulnerable students. In my years in the classroom since 2001, I’ve learned something about how to do this. I call it reality pedagogy, because it’s about reaching students where they really are, making sure that their lives and backgrounds are reflected in the curriculum and in classroom conversations.

Christopher Emdin discusses the importance of pedagogy as a response to the world around us. In particular, he reflects on the idea of ‘reality pedagogy‘:

Reality pedagogy involves connecting academic content to events happening in the world that affect students. The curriculum can weave in specific references to the neighborhoods where young people are from, inequities that they and their families are hurt by, and protests in the community.

This has me thinking about how this differs from inquiry learning or if that is a form of ‘reality pedagogy’? I kind of wonder if this was the hope and intent associated with Modern Learners Canvas in that the focus is not the named practice or pedagogy, but actually unpacking what that pedagogy actually is.

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