# data[].attributes.body
I believe that there are two important things to educate a child, one is to teach the child about ethics so that he/she can be a individual in society with proper characters, and the other one is not to overly pursue material gains, such as building his/her success in social status or achievements requires acknowledge from others. It is important for teachers and parents to be aware to foster learning curiosity as well as creativity so that a child can better realize his/her living purpose. “Contents detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance.”(Freire, 72).

Students are not able to connect to the subjects they are learning since they are being filled with knowledge rather than perceiving/understanding it in an active way. Moreover, learning becomes more like an one sided action, because if teacher is doing the most of the work while students are doing mechanical actions that rarely requires intellectual powers. In my opinion, it is sad that our education is becoming more like a banking system nowadays, I sincerely hope that we can all acknowledge the fact all the hard work and effort ought be considered as a process in life rather than the end of life. If we consider education and learning is all about filling, children will be trapped in the learning process without joy.

# data[].attributes.body
According to Paulo, the Banking concept of education minimizes the students' creative power which serves the interests of the oppressors, who dominated the social resources and do not want to see the world's transformation. Students who received the kind of "filling" education shown in this video are adapted to the situation where they are constantly oppressed will become people who are easily dominated by the existing power in the society. He also argues that with the banking education, educator's role is to regulate the way the world enters into the students; in contrast, he supports the dialogue education which promotes student-teacher equal dialogue. Students will be able to really learn for themselves and enter into the process of humanization rather than being dehumanized in a oppressive way.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
令人咋舌反思的填鸭式教育 !

# data[].attributes.body
Something I was thinking about while reading was that this idea hasn't gone away. Many teachers still teach and function with a "banking" mindset. Like others have said, we like to think we are progressive even though it really isn't the case. The idea that students "fill up" on knowledge provided and filtered by teachers is embedded into our school systems. Freire describes banking as knowledge being a gift to be given to "empty" students by those who consider themselves knowledgable. There are teachers, probably unknowingly, teaching this way every day. During my student teaching experience, my cooperating teacher was introducing "Whole Brain Teaching" to her second graders. This website for WBT shows that "banking" ideologies are still used today under a progressive disguise.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
WBT Basics provides a simple starting point for teachers new to Whole Brain Teaching. Beginning with Class-Yes, the Attention Getter, each of the steps around the instructional circle are described in the sections below.

Deliver a lesson by cycling through our teaching pattern, over and over.

Start with the Attention Getter (Class-Yes). You can't teach if you don't have your students' attention.

Weave Manners into everything you do with the Thank You/You're Welcome gesture.

Activate the Brain Engager (Mirror Words). Choose how you will deliver content: big gestures, tiny gestures, fast gestures, slow motion, etc. The variations are endless!

Speak using gestures for about one minute of Direct Instruction, talking only about one new point. Breaking your lesson into Lesson Chunks means you only present one new point at a time. When combined with the next step in the cycle, you ensure students understand this one new point before moving on to the next.

Employ Collaborative Learning (Teach Ok) as students teach their neighbor your lesson using gestures. You will move through the classroom during this, assessing if your pupils are ready for a new lesson chunk or need to review.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
WBT Basics provides a simple starting point for teachers new to Whole Brain Teaching. Beginning with Class-Yes, the Attention Getter, each of the steps around the instructional circle are described in the sections below. Deliver a lesson by cycling through our teaching pattern, over and over. Start with the Attention Getter (Class-Yes).

# data[].attributes.body
In my culture, test is the only way to judge students' learning achievements and is regarded as the fairest way. The schooling in China is typical banking education. Teachers are the oppressors who decides what the knowledge is and how to deliver it to students. Students have no opportunities or right to challenge the process in learning. Schools provide compulsory curriculum which include Chinese, mathematics, social studies, physics and etc. infusing the political and moral content into the teaching of basic skills. Meanwhile, one of the biggest goals of K-12 education in China is to being admitted by colleges, which leads the education supposed to be designed for self-improving. However, in reality, it mainly focuses on receiving knowledge passively rather than helping develop students' capacity of how to perceive or transform the reality. Education in our schooling is mainly about passing knowledge, skills and even thoughts to students and leaves not much room for students really participate in.  To adapt to the system, students are filled with books by teachers without resisting but suffering.

# data[].attributes.body
In light of the announcement this week from the Biden White House, stating that states must continue their standardized testing as planned, in the midst of the pandemic, it's apt that we discuss the banking model of education that Freire discusses, as well as the value and disconnect between standardized testing and learning.
Within the rigid framework of curriculum, students aren't afforded the opportunity to truly explore their interests in a formalized school setting. While I realize the practical and logistical reasons for this pitfalls, these ways of assessing students on their knowledge are rooted in elitism and rote memorization. Rather than allowing Ss to work through problems on their own and discuss these issues both in and out of the classroom among their peers, they are taught to problem solve solely in the name of standardized testing and funding. These dialogues are necessary for the student-teaching relationship to flourish, leading to a more sincere attempt to educate students that pertains to their own interests and lives.
I've included the Ravitch interview below. Though much of the video discusses her own personal views on American education, her statements on standardized education resonate immensely with these same techniques that I have critiqued above.

# data[].attributes.body
The image below shows how the banking view of education shapes the consciousness of children. It asks the students to accept status quo as reality. It does not inspire them to bring change, it does not inspire them to transform the way things are. While they go through this process, children lose their ability to recognize the reality other than what the teacher has told them which works in the oppressor’s’ favor. Freire describes this in chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in “changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them” for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated.” Personally, I cannot help but put it in the context of nation-states which use curriculum to nurture a certain brand of nationalism which favors the elite. In capitalist-democratic states, it is the loyalty to free markets. In monarchies, it is the loyalty to the royal family. In dictatorships, it is loyalty to the military. In communist state, it is loyalty to the party and so on. The banking mode of education serves oppressors, which is why it exists around the world presenting a lot of resistance to other modes of education. “The oppressors use their “humanitarianism” to preserve a profitable situation. Thus they react almost instinctively against any experiment in education which stimulates the critical faculties and is not content with a partial view of reality but always seeks out the ties which link one point to another and one problem to another.”

# data[].attributes.headline
"I could never study in that room! I would go insane!"

# data[].attributes.subject
"I could never study in that room! I would go insane!"

# data[].attributes.body
I think the content described in the video is a typical banking education. The video is part of a documentary that records the real situation of a class in a well-known high school in China before the college entrance examination. The sentence I wrote in the title comes from a comment on this video by a person from another country below the video. But he/she may not have imagined that almost every Chinese has had a similar experience. In the documentary, students memorize the contents of the book mechanically, repeating a word or a concept aloud over and over again. In the classroom, they usually don't have the opportunity to ask questions or think, they don't need to know why, they just need to memorize and recite, and practice what the teacher said repeatedly. The reason for the phenomenon of bank-style education in the video is the imbalance of education development. In China, the huge basic education system has trained a large number of students, and the limited number of higher education institutions has created great competitive pressure. Also, university admission is only determined by the score of an exam, and this exam is only once a year. From this, I think that although the education sector and students do not recognize banking education, it is difficult to change this phenomenon in a country, because it is often a problem caused by an entire system.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Special Edition 01/24/2016 The College Entrance Exam Part 1

# data[].attributes.body
I think banking education is still playing a significant role in many countries and that actually has a lot to do with cultural, political and economical contexts. Like in China, there are more than 2 billion k-12 students, so there are typically more than 50 students within a classroom in traditional schools. In some way, that situation makes banking education the most efficient way to equip students with what we think they need in the future. What impressed me most is that Freire mentioned "Problem-posing education is revolutionary futurity." The idea of problem-posing education is indeed a movement of inquiry and it helps connect people with the real world we live in through authentic dialogues. Problem-posing education really points out a direction we could move to. For me I think the starting point would be how to make some changes in conventional school settings. How to creatively engaging students? How could teachers go beyond the conventional curriculum to build a more relevant and engaging experience that connects to the lives of young people?

# data[].attributes.body
This cartoon is representing how students are limited in their freedom and intelligence by what can be measured to a certain standard. This cartoon is showing how a student is unable to fit into one of the shapes which makes them a failure. This is exactly the oppression that is the banking model of teaching where anything outside of how students perform on exams by what teachers feed into them is seen as a failure. Freire states that the banking concept of education “attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power” (Freire, pg 78).

# data[].attributes.body
I felt very inspired reading what you posted, Aleysha! Thanks for sharing your experience of trying something different and how you discovered a new perspective in the process. I respect how you allowed yourself to be vulnerable in this process-  I’m sure your students look up to you for that and are learning from it themselves :) Your sharing brought me back to this statement in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: “Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.”

Thank you for sharing :)

# data[].attributes.body
Jennifer, I have to agree with you. I had the same question on my mind.When I think of education in preschool, there is much time and space given to  infants and toddlers to construct their own knowledge, to engage in their litany of “why’s” and we embrace this process with the little ones. Why then, is it not the same when we teach children or students of older age groups? One thing I wonder about is: “Teachers teach the way they were taught.” Just as we hear the saying, “Parents parent the way they were parented”, this can be applicable to education as well. We attend years of teacher education and are given tools to place in our toolbox, but we don’t get enough opportunity to know which tools to use when. In the end, we revert to the way we were taught in grade school because it’s the most convenient thing to do. So as much as we hope to structure universities to be more problem-posing, I wonder how many of our existing educators and systems are ready for this. I’m living this reality as a teacher educator myself and sometimes, the frustrations I have with having to teach a something a certain way is only met with my inner voice telling me, “This too shall pass”- As much as we advocate for education to evolve, we also need people to be ready for and open to this.

# data[].attributes.body
This cartoon demonstrates the idea of banking education as the students are receiving information from the teacher that is focused on subjects that coordinate with standardized testing. The students at their desks are also wearing blinders that shield them from the world outside their classroom window. This is showing how the teacher's ideals around education dominate the students' learning experience and supersede their interests, need for discourse, creativity, and connection to their world. What is also being shown here is the teacher's concern for the child at the window, that she will be "left behind" if she does not step away to focus on the test/standardized subject areas that are held at a higher importance. In contrast to the banking model, Freire (2000) expresses that "education as the practice of freedom–as opposed to education as the practice of domination–denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent, and unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from people." (p. 81)

# data[].attributes.body
This video features the recipient of Singapore’s outstanding preschool two years ago. Awards are given out to outstanding schools and educators in Singapore annually in the preschool and grade school sectors and in institutes of higher education. https://youtu.be/diIgNxrMnyI

Freire’s writing struck a chord with me in how I was taught as a child. Education in Singapore some 25-30 years ago adopted the banking concept. My teachers had to ensure ‘content was covered’. Some of my lessons were fun, while some were not- learning through play was a foreign concept back then. Fast forward to current times, the preschool sector looks very different. The preschool education landscape is constantly evolving to ensure children co-construct their knowledge in and out of the classroom. Learning is constructed not just by mindlessly taking in information and memorizing it (as discussed in pedagogy of the oppressed), but is constructed through interacting with peers, educators, the environment and the larger community. What is featured in this video is the current lived reality of our preschoolers in Singapore. Having been in the sector for over 10 years, I know it wasn’t an easy feat to shift the paradigms of educators, leaders and parents to get to where we are. The people who needed the most convincing were parents; not being in the education sector, it was challenging for them to see how dialogue and inquiry could lead to their children meeting the learning goals for the year and being prepared for grade school. Through research conducted by Singapore’s child study centres (preschools that conduct research), advocacy through media and veterans of the field, the learning that I dreamed of is now the reality for our little ones. With that said, I also feel that some aspect of ‘banking’ is still necessary and present depending on what we are trying to teach our children/ students - not everything can be learnt through dialogue and inquiry. As contradictory as this sounds to Freire’s stand and beliefs,  I truly believe that education is not a one size fits all approach. The practice of children learning from behind their desks is far from interactive, but for some of our learners, it is actually appreciated. I feel that as educators, our role is not to dismiss what our predecessors did, but to engage in dialogue ourselves to understand where these practices stemmed from, what can be banked on in banking concepts, and what needs to be lost in order to achieve new gains for our children.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ECDA Awards 2019 – Outstanding Centre for Teaching & Learning- E-Bridge Pre-School Bukit Panjang

# data[].attributes.body
Sadguru, the speaker in the video seems to be a radical who believes in complete social change. He is also against the banking model of education which focuses on filling the minds of students and testing their memory.

In lines with Freire's problem-posing education Sadguru also mentions the relevance of education to the child's life and believes in unlocking the child's potential to the fullest extent rather than preparing them to serve the needs of society.

Sadguru also holds a similar belief that Freire held that education is the powerful tool to challenge social structures so that lives are not slaved to serve social structures.

The Indian Context...
Education system in India during the British rule was based on the ideals of banking education. The goal of this education was to feed Indian people to administrative and clerical roles.

The ideals of banking education continued to play a significant role in our system for quite a while. However, with the announcement of the new education policy, I am happy see that it is based on the ideals of the problem - posing education.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Fundamental Problem with Today's Education Systems | Sadhguru

# data[].attributes.headline
"The teacher is no longer merely the one who teaches, but one who is himself in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach."

# data[].attributes.subject
"The teacher is no longer merely the one who teaches, but one who is himself in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach."

# data[].attributes.body
Banking education, in the words of Friere, is where the teacher is a narrator and their task is to deposit knowledge into their students. As much as I like to believe that our education system is progressive, it is truly not. "The revolutionary society which practices banking education is either misguided or mistrusting of people" (p.78), in my school, prior to the pandemic, my school would spend at least 4 weeks in a marking period conducting pre and post-exams for data purposes. That left us as a department, consistently teaching to a test because we know our tenure and our efficacy as teachers were defined by this growth in data. The focus on data and standardization either perpetuates banking education or vice versa (who knows when this cycle started). The pandemic and remote learning have without a doubt flipped education on its head and I believe it is for the better (at least for myself and my students). With the remote learning came the elimination of post-tests, the stress of that was immediately relieved. For the first time in teaching, I had the opportunity to essentially share authority (or erase it) and practice what Friere shares about problem-posing education where "the teacher is no longer merely the one who teaches, but one who is himself in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach (p.80). I truly hope that my school gained something valuable from this entire experience and places more trust in teachers to continue problem-posing education in our classrooms.

# data[].attributes.headline
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled" (Jennifer Romaro)

# data[].attributes.subject
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled" (Jennifer Romaro)

# data[].attributes.body
Freire's description of the Banking Education is that teachers are to "pour" knowledge into students as if they're are containers. I have to say I feel as a child growing up in the early 90's, the idea that school was a place to learn what the teachers knew and then get a job one day. I never felt we had large opportunity to explore subjects of my interests, or even ask to learn about about something that interest me. I vividly remember in 6th grade where our "Back to school night" project was to write about what we want to learn about. My  mom saved that piece of paper where I said I wanted to learn more about cancer since the experience I was having at home was my mother was dying from cancer. But it was an empty promise. I never once had the chance or time to learn about the things I wanted to learn. It was more of, now we are doing this, next we are doing this, no you can't do that because I said so. I believe I seek to be a teacher of Problem-Posing, especially in mathematics and science. I do my best with the freedom I have to allow students to explore, to teach, share, and be more than just a container, but a fire that we are maintaining and keeping it burning for more knowledge they will then one day be able to create and innovate.

But I have to question, as an elementary teacher looking to encourage innovators and independent thinkers, why does many universities structure the learning in a Banking education way? I fear all of my college courses I have ever taken have been lecture, listening to the professor, read the specific pages assigned and be prepared to discuss. I rarely did anything that really pushed me to think for myself. I rarely did anything to create unless it was required for the teacher's program. I wonder if we structure universities and colleges to be more problem-posing if it would attract more students to want to pursue a degree?

# data[].attributes.body
This political cartoon relates to the banking concept of teaching, by showing that students are learning only the deposits of information that teachers are providing. Students leave school these days not with skills they can apply to real-life math, science, and/or reading comprehension problems, but with answers for a test. Freire writes that the banking concept "projects ignorance on students, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression" (Freire, 2000).  As students are forced to attend test-oriented schools, their creativity is diminished and and in-depth learning is rejected. As society has come to accept this way of schooling, oppression has become an acceptable norm.

# data[].attributes.body
"The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are." (Freire, p. 106). I think Freire's notion and the image are connected to the idea of 'banking concept of education'. The teacher who is filling 'gases' to the students' mind is what Freire's mean when instructional activities are conducted only in one way and knowledge belongs to the teachers to be readily imparted to students. Also, students are only seen as knowledge receivers, they come to class to only sit and receive what their teachers teach.

# data[].attributes.headline
how to would Freire define the in-between education students received in this video -Biqing Lin

# data[].attributes.subject
how to would Freire define the in-between education students received in this video -Biqing Lin

# data[].attributes.body
Zhongyin's sharing the example of the typical banking in the Chinese context connects me to another style of Education in China, which arise my curiosity about how Freier would perceive education, which is not completely banking education and problem-posing education. In face of high stakes of testing, the pedagogy used in this clip is interactive and communicative, which is opposite of rote memorization and rigid mechanism that characterized by banking education. On the other hand, it is not critically posing questions or requesting students' criticality on social equity and social justice issues that stressed in problem-posing education while it does incorporate voices from students and proffer them free space to develop independent thinking, which can be considered a manifestation of progressive form in instruction. Therefore, I am very curious about how would Freire define this form of in-between education in the context of Chinese education system?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Our Exams——A documentary made by a Chinese student

# data[].attributes.body
Aleysha Taveras

As a history teacher, I work hard to include counternarratives in our study of Global History. About two months ago, I created a controversy in our department because I wanted to skip over the Renaissance unit in an effort to provide students more time to conduct research on the indigenous communities of the Western Hemisphere. We study the early modern period and I worry that we spend most of our time vacillating between Euro and Sinocentric narratives. My colleague asked me if I had considered looking into a new exhibit at the Uffizi Gallery called On Being Present: Recovering Blackness in the Renaissance. It led me on a path of interrogation that allowed me to question my bias toward the Renaissance. It forced me to reflect on how my AP Euro teacher back in sophomore year of high school prepared us for the AP exam by having us remember 4 paintings by High Renaissance artists. Because of this banking approach, I had developed an essentialist opinion that the Renaissance was about white men painting. I had not even considered the role of white women during this time as well. Nevertheless, my colleague's suggestion allowed me to interrogate that bias and I chose to adopt a new approach and share that with my students. I presented my misconception to my students as a question and  provided them with sources to help them investigate unpack this bias on their own before we came back together to discuss with guided questions. I found myself responding to the students in real time helping them to decode the larger theme of Eurocentrism and emphasizing the importance of historiography. I realized it was the first time I was so vulnerable with my students. I presented them with a problem based in my own bias and then was put on the spot to answer their questions when they came up in class. So hear I am being vulnerable with you by including this anecdote and sharing a lesson artifact in an effort to raise our critical consciousness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Highlighting Black Figures & Blackness in Renaissance Art

# data[].attributes.headline
Critical Race Womanist Pedagogy and the Feminist Classroom -Stacey Sukoff

# data[].attributes.subject
Critical Race Womanist Pedagogy and the Feminist Classroom -Stacey Sukoff

# data[].attributes.body
"CRWP (Critical Race Womanist Pedagogy) characterizes their [Black womanist teachers] daily classroom practices in four ways: (1) teacher reflexivity and student- centered curriculum, (2) authentic and reality-based curriculum, (3) culturally and politically relevant pedagogy, and (4) self-actualization and capacity oriented approaches." -Wanda Watson and Cathryn Devereaux from "Keeping It Relevant: Student-Centered Reflections, Choices, and Actions of Critical Race Womanist Pedagogues"

As soon as I read about Freire's idea of Problem-Posing Education, I immediately thought about the pedagogies I have been introduced to through my Black, Latinx, and Transnational Feminism Class. As you can see from the quote above, CRWP aligns strongly with Friere's pedagogical imports. Both emphasize pedagogy rooted in student reality, critical consciousness, the use of narratives, and an authoritative egalitarian relationship between teachers and students. Freire was focused on helping marginalized groups in the same way as these modern womanists.

# data[].attributes.body
The scene in this movie is a very typical banking education. At the beginning of the clip, the students record，memorize, and repeat the concepts in the textbook mechanically as usual. Then in the class, the teacher plays the role of a narrator: She explained the meaning of an ancient Chinese poem mechanically, "fill" the students with the contents of her narration(Friere). In such a class, students do not need to interact with the teacher to discuss and explore the meaning of this ancient poem together, but silently write down the answer from the teacher, understand and memorize it, just as depositories receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.

# data[].attributes.headline
Problem-Posing and co-construction of knowledge - Nguyen

# data[].attributes.subject
Problem-Posing and co-construction of knowledge - Nguyen

# data[].attributes.body
I find Freire's discussion of problem-posing empowering because it promotes the idea that knowledge is socially-constructed. Problem-posing empowers the individual to be an active participant in their world rather than be a passive bystander. The picture I used demonstrate that reality is socially created and problem-posing empowers people to legitimize and honor their reality in oppressive systems (that are left unchallenged).

There are many implications to this bedrock viewpoint: it highlights power dynamics, problematic practices, oppressive assumptions, etc. It allows individuals to see that vertical power structures do not have to be the norm and that horizontal power structures allow co-construction of knowledge aka reality. Everyone's differences are seen as a strength and site of exploration rather than deficit. Teachers and students transgress the dichotomy of banking method and become both learner/teachers themselves.

# data[].attributes.headline
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Melissa Triedman)

# data[].attributes.subject
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Melissa Triedman)

# data[].attributes.body
Reading about banking education in Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I immediately thought about Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (a 1982 comedy).  In the scene below, you will see how Mr. Hand uses his authority as the teacher to exercise domination over his students.  He asks questions of his students (i.e., "Can you attend my class?) but he does not wait for or expect an answer.  Instead he answers for and exerts power over them:  "If you can't make it, I can make you."  He spouts forth a series of commands and rules.  When Mr. Spicoli enters into the class (late), he engages with Mr. Hand, which goes against the unwritten rules of banking education.

This classroom, while exaggerated for the purposes of the comedy, is not far off from many classrooms in the 1980's.  Students sat in rows of desks and were lectured by teachers who did not expect or want engagement from their students.  I never really thought about the political implications of this form of teaching.  However, when all the students smell the photocopied pages ("dittos") in unison (a very frequent practice then), I was reminded of Friere's discussion of how domination leads to oppression and blind acceptance of the status quo. It's as if the students have no agency and automatically smell the dittos without thought. I had never thought about the scene in this movie that way and the subtle political implications.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (2/10) Movie CLIP - Spicoli Meets Mr. Hand (1982) HD

# data[].attributes.headline
Reality Pedagogy & Problem-Posing Education

# data[].attributes.subject
Reality Pedagogy & Problem-Posing Education

# data[].attributes.body
When I was reading Chapter 2 in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I began thinking about how problem-posing education connected with Christopher Emdin's Reality Pedagogy. Freire says that in problem-posing education "the teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-considers her earlier considerations as the students express their own" (2014, p. 81). He also states, "the teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach." (Freire, 2014, p. 80). The idea of breaking down the power structure between students and teachers is one of Emdin's main goals with Reality Pedagogy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the most popular terms in contemporary education is academic rigor. School leaders from across the United States use the phrase to signal that they're holding all teachers and students accountable to unwavering standards or expectations around academic achievement. The chief goal of an academically rigorous curriculum is to challenge students to reach expectations outside their comfort zones.

Rigor also becomes the way schools justify very rigid and hyper-structured approaches to teaching and learning. If a particular approach helps a significant number of students in one school or district meet an academically rigorous standard, we often assume that it can help all students across a wide array of schools. School leaders may fail to see that the results we get from students in some schools are often more reflective of the relationships those students have with their schools and teachers than of the effectiveness of a particular approach to teaching.

Good relationships between teachers and students are more likely to arise in schools in which teachers and students share a similar culture. The teaching approach that results simply reflects what works for both parties. In schools in which teachers and students don't share similar cultures, those relationships may arise less frequently because the teaching approach is often culturally incongruous with students' core identities. Take, for example, schools in which teachers are predominantly white and students are racially and ethnically diverse. Schools with this type of demographics are widespread in urban districts. For teachers who may be unfamiliar with the everyday realities of youth who don't look, talk, dress, or act like the teacher, a natural relationship to students is hampered by the teachers' unfamiliarity with their culture. In schools like these, students may often be only superficially engaged in the content or may get good grades, but they may not function on an academic level that maximizes their potential. Most times, they are underperforming, and the school cannot target the reason why. I argue that the absence of a relationship that is rooted in shared culture impedes many students from reaching higher levels of academic rigor.

Whatever the environment, school leaders play an important role in developing the kinds of relationships that foster academic rigor. One model that I developed- reality pedagogy -supports this work. It recognizes that academically rigorous teaching and learning are deeply personal; it begins with the understanding that a school's approach to teaching is unlikely to meet student needs unless students' cultures, backgrounds, and experiences are reflected in the curriculum. When students see themselves in the curriculum, they develop stronger relationships with both their teachers and peers-and with the content as well.

So how can we build strong relationships with students who have diverse learning skills, styles, and backgrounds? Seven strategies, which I call the seven Cs, can help.

Co-generative dialogues-or cogens -are structured exchanges in which students and their teacher co-develop strategies for instruction that focus on the students' socioemotional and academic needs. The dialogues enable open communication concerning both the teacher's and students' perspectives on schooling.

Ideally, cogens should take place outside of traditional classroom lessons, such as before school or during lunch. The teacher invites four students who are otherwise not connected to one another to join the group; they may be from different racial or ethnic groups, or they may perform at different academic levels. The point is, they will have different relationships both to the content being taught and to the teacher.

In the classic example of a cogen, a teacher asks four students to meet after school-a student who has high exam grades, another who has failed a few exams, a student who is highly verbal in class, and another who rarely says anything. The teacher thanks the students for coming and tells them that they are part of an advisory group to help the teacher be more effective. The teacher assures the students that their perspectives are valuable and sets down three simple rules: no voice is more important than another, everyone will have equal turns to talk, and all students will create a plan of action together for improving their next class.

Initially, students respond with apprehension about working with unfamiliar students. However, as the teacher encourages them to participate, these students start making suggestions. Before long, they develop strategies for improving the class on the basis of their unique needs and experiences. For example, they may co-create a plan for the teacher to move around the class more often and to spend more time talking with all students rather than a select few.

These discussions foster positive relationships among students and between students and their teacher. Strong relationships foster positive emotions, which create a more powerful connection to the content. Students will likely take more pleasure in working with the content because they're emotionally connected to it. They will also connect more strongly to the person teaching the content, and to the space where it's taught. By consistently having these discussions, teachers connect with their students in ways that allow for more powerful teaching to happen in the classroom. Further, teachers learn to mold instruction to the needs of all their students.

The role of the administrator is to introduce cogens to teachers, and then model this practice. For instance, a principal can invite teachers to a cogen to discuss how to improve the school's leadership. It is imperative that administrators support teachers as they enact cogens, such as by providing a snack or meal for the teacher and students and by commending students for their participation. By doing so, school administrators create a context that fosters powerful relationships and sets the stage for students to engage with content in an academically rigorous way.

To develop positive relationships around academic achievement, students have to believe that the school and its representatives see value in what they bring to classrooms. This includes not only recognizing the talents, skills, or cultural practices that students possess, but also positioning these gifts as valuable enough to teach, learn, and practice in the classroom. Co-teaching allows students to demonstrate their gifts, such as those of an athlete, beatboxer, or dancer. It requires the teacher to be creative enough to make connections between those gifts and the content. For instance, a teacher make incorporate the physics of basketball, the biology of the beatbox, and the history of dance into lessons. When students can teach what they love and see it valued academically, we create new connections to academically rigorous content.

School administrators who want to foster academic rigor must create an environment that consistently celebrates students' gifts. They must ensure that the school features events that honor nonacademic, as well as academic, learning. For example, I have witnessed schoolwide rap competitions about rigorous science content, art exhibitions that feature student work, and even student-led video game nights. Once youth are celebrated for being themselves, we set the context for classroom co-teaching.

By co-teaching, I mean that students are charged with preparing lesson plans, designing assignments, and teaching a class in a way that reflects who they are. Students may choose to hold a class during which their fellow students don't take many notes or one that has music playing in the background. The teacher observes each student's teaching, noting any effective strategies the student is using in view of enacting them later on. The goal here is for the teacher to recognize how youth share information and to incorporate elements of the students' teaching into the teacher's strategies.

In successful relationships outside the classroom, the people in the relationship typically see equal value in one another. In traditional classrooms, however, teachers have most of the power because of their role as teacher. This power imbalance silences certain students. By distributing some of their power to students by allowing them to teach, teachers can build strong and respectful relationships with students. This increases student engagement with content and builds a path toward academic rigor.

Allowing students to feel as though they're not just guests in the school but active participants in how these spaces operate is a powerful step in connecting them to academic content. As students take on certain operational aspects of the school and classroom, they develop relationships with one another around making the school or classroom work.

In what I call a cosmopolitan school, all stakeholders-including students and parents-design strategies and take on roles to help the school operate properly. Students adopt these roles while concurrently learning content. For example, in a science class, students might organize a laboratory, design an experiment, assist with grading, prepare study notes for the class, or send e-mail reminders of assignments to peers. Students receive academic class credit for their work. Taking on such roles directly affects how deeply students engage with the content.

Educators need to embed themselves to some extent in the communities their students live in and then incorporate elements of that community into the classroom. This goes well beyond talking with students about where they're from; it moves toward a cultural immersion in the community. It also pushes back against traditional approaches to school-community relations that focus on inviting the community to the school without going to the community. That approach sends a message to the community (and to the students who are part of that community) that the school holds all the value and power in the relationship.

In the pedagogy I envision, the school and its representatives are responsible for connecting to the community. Educators are called on to study and learn from the community context, just as students are called on to learn content. In this process, the school leader organizes staff visits to places in the community that students value. Educators may determine which places to visit by polling students about the best restaurants, clothing stores, and supermarkets.

This study is informal and occurs simply by being present in the community over the course of the academic year. For example, a teacher might discover how important a local basketball tournament is by hearing about it from community members. The teacher doesn't explicitly tell students that their community and culture have value. Instead, the teacher conveys that message by attending the tournament and referencing it in class. This practice draws students to the content and builds strong teacher-student relationships.

A focus on content means that teachers use every opportunity to model for students what it looks like to grapple with a subject-not as an expert, but as a learner along with their students. Students who struggle at solving problems with their teachers connect more strongly with those teachers; they also work harder at understanding the content.

Rather than deliver the content as experts, teachers purposefully express vulnerability. Rather than give answers, they ask questions and encourage students to do the same. For example, if a teacher presents a mathematics equation; instead of having students solve it or solving it perfectly for them, the teacher can suggest that he or she is having some trouble with the equation and suggest that the class solve it together.

This process makes learning less passive and more active. Students who may not easily grasp content come to understand that the classroom values effort and being inquisitive-not just correct answers. As students and teacher struggle and pose questions together, they form bonds and open the way to academically rigorous exchanges.

Some of the most powerful moments in both learning content and building relationships happen when students compete with one another. Competition can build positive emotions, foster intense collaboration, and make content relevant.

The current education climate privileges a brand of competition that emphasizes individual success. Competition in the kind of pedagogy I'm suggesting involves classroom activities in which students work in groups to express their knowledge of a topic through such nontraditional means as art, speeches, dance, or music. Groups can compete against one another as they showcase what they've created. For example, science classes can compete to see which class produces the best project, but teachers should declare the winner on the basis of creativity, art integration, or mathematics integration. This process enables students to express different skills and talents, and the content becomes the theme of the class, not the driving force. Students who aren't successful in traditional subjects like reading or writing become important to their respective groups for the gifts they possess-ones that typically aren't honored in the classroom.

This process supports academic rigor-particularly if high standards for content remain the same for all types of competition. As the school competes in music, art, dance, and plays, competition becomes a tool for sharpening academic skills rather than for making some students feel unsuccessful.

Curating means collecting, annotating, and preserving information. Teachers can engage in each of these actions by watching videos of themselves teaching. They study the videos to identify practices that might negatively affect their connections with students. In my work, this practice has shown that teachers favor certain students, raise their voices too often, or spend too much time facing the board and not the students.

For school administrators, bringing curation into the school involves creating spaces in which teachers and students feel comfortable recording and studying their interactions. For teachers, it requires creating classroom norms that allow a student to videotape the classroom at an agreed upon time. Co-generative dialogues complement the process, as students and teachers discuss what they see and suggest improvements.

Teachers and students learn more about one another as they watch the videos-and students learn more about the content. Students who don't engage in school typically study the video more intently than their peers do, and this reinforces the content. When teachers and students observe how they behave in the classroom and work on bettering their relationships, the space opens up for powerful academic exchanges.

We cannot test-prep our way to academic rigor. But we can get there by focusing on relationships. The approach I'm suggesting connects content with the positive emotions that come from strong relationships based on acceptance and belonging. This is the true path to academically rigorous classrooms.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Building strong relationships with students can pave the way to academic rigor. These seven strategies from Reality Pedagogy can help.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Waiting for Superman | Film Trailer | Participant Media