Empowering teacher authority rests on profound trust in people’s creative power

Evidence

As teachers, we must work to have meaningful conversations about topics that are impacting students’ lives. And within that frame, we are responsible for creating a structure in which the dialogical exchange can be productive and liberating. In this context, teacher authority can be seen as empowering for both student and teacher, which works to diminish the distance between what we say and what we do, creating a synergy of respect between teacher and student. This synergetic energy assumes there is a “profound trust in people and their creative power” (Freire, 2000, p. 75). — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 746

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Freire’s pedagogy of dialogical trust, clearly in the same Freirean tradition. — connects to: Freire located revolutionary practice in teachers interrogating their own authority — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 723; Teacher vulnerability is the precondition for mutual classroom empowerment — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 58; Dominant powers benefit from engineering their subjects’ inability to trust (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Teacher vulnerability is the precondition for mutual classroom empowerment #expands (0.75) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 58
• Dominant powers benefit from engineering their subjects’ inability to trust #complicates (0.75)