Being a Liberationist Teacher

 I love love love the Liberationist Approach!! I believe that to be a Liberationist teacher means that the teacher has to be open to different and new experiences. I also believe that the teacher should be well versed in what they are trying to teach. Also, if they don't know the answer they should feel comfortable about telling their students that they don't know. I also believe that they should encourage their students to "expand their horizons".

Benefits in being a Liberationist? Well...for starters I feel as though a Liberationist approach is the closest thing to learning outside of the classroom. For example, your car breaks down. How could you fix it? You decided to check out a few car manuals at the public library, watch a few Youtube videos on what you think the problem is, and perhaps do a Google search on easy car fixes. This is a Liberationist approach, no two people will take the same route or learn the same things by using this process. 

I also feel like the Liberationist approach fosters creative and individual problem solving skills and encourages people to become life-long learners. It is an exploratory approach which thrives on engagement and interest. Not only that but everybody has some kind of interest and it is only a matter of tapping into what students are interested in.

Difficulties? A standards based era really tampers down the the range and scope of a Liberationist approach. A standardized test only pieces and parts of information and it forces teachers to teach "facts" as truth. I feel as though standardization really gives a shallow educational experience.

The extreme end of the Liberationist approach is called "Emancipatory teaching", I am not comfortable with this approach due to its mostly political focus. I do feel like we should encourage responsible democratic citizens but I don't feel as though this approach is appropriate for an elementary classroom. However, it could work very well in a high-school setting as that is when students are trying to develop their identity and determine what their opinions are.

 All in all, I still feel as though the Liberationist approach is the best approach for me. I strongly believe that this is what we should be doing to prepare our students for their future.