It is very important for teachers to integrate topics dealing with issues of social class, race, culture, and gender inequalities into classroom discussions. Many times, however, these issues go unaddressed. Paolo Friere suggests that teachers should "live part of their dreams within their educational space." What does this mean?-- class rooms can be places where children are taught that making a difference is okay and that they can change the future of the society they live in. Curriculum should be inclusive of ideas that teach students to dream of a world they could help create and live in one day. Teaching in this way would let students know that they do not have to settle for an unjust or imperfect world. Classroom practices that could help this happen are:

• Respect children and their curiosity for learning. Relating information to the lives of students helps them to understand and grasp it.
• Students must learn to "talk back to the world." They can do this by asking questions such as, "Who benefits and who suffers?, Who makes decissions and who is left out?, What alternatives can we imagine?, What is required to create change? etc."
• Integrate books and pictures of a culturally diverse population (ie. not just nuclear, white, American families)
• Allow students to experience information in an interactive way. Let them "question, challenge, make real decissions and collectively solve problems."

I think that this way of constructing a classroom teaches students to be individual thinkers and productive members of a group (ie. society). If more classrooms were run in this manner, less racism would exist because students would be exposed to diversity from a young age. Learning to make active decissions and ask questions of what is right vs. what is wrong is important. I really like the idea of getting students active and involved in the curriculum because I think that it would peak their interest to know that their opinions matter and they have some sort of decission making power.

Where I found my information...