So often society and schools in particular, do not teach or want our students to think for themselves. I know this sounds radical, and many will argue the statement, but in most classrooms, the teacher's thinking sets the agenda. The teacher solely decides what gets taught and what students should think about what gets taught. When students question the content or the purpose for learning the content, many teachers feel the student is being recalcitrant and oppositional. And if a student challenges a teacher's pedagogy - well, forget it. To the principal's office they go.
For me, so much of teaching voice revolves around the whole concept of students as
independent
, critical thinkers - ones who question and sometimes challenge what they hear, see and read. Often this may mean that they are challenging what I'm teaching them or having them read. I welcome this, of course while teaching them how to voice their questions and challenges in an intellectual and respectful way. Thinking is an essential part of being a productive, literate member of society, one who can "accurately and effectively weigh words and articulate ideas with skill and clarity" (Schmoker 53). Believe me, this can be uncomfortable and scary for many teachers, occasionally for me too. Bell Hooks, in her book
Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black,
calls the kind of class environment I'm talking about, in her chapter entitled "Toward a Revolutionary Feminist Pedagogy," a "pedagogy of liberation." The students are liberated to think - to think differently, to agree, to question, to wonder.
In fact, the
students'
thinking
largely sets the agenda. What I mean by this is that when teaching a story or a novel, for instance, I may have one or two concepts or skills I want to be sure to discuss, but other than that I have very little preconceived notions of what will come out of discussions. I don't "teach books"; I teach skills and concepts. The students pre-record their thoughts in their response journals, sometimes based on my own prompts, sometimes not. Class time is largely spent in seminars where students discuss their ideas and analyses while I facilitate. Other times, I may present a mini-lesson, but again students are the ones constructing meaning and "figuring things out." In sum, while I teach them the skills and often provide the material, the sense students are making out of what they read, hear, and view sets the agenda. Their
voice
is the focus of the class, not mine. This is not to say that I do not ever put my two cents in, but when I do it is often as a colleague and not as an authority. My students are aware that I do not know everything, and I am ok with that fact.
To help students find their voice, we have to give them the freedom to think for themselves and not impose our perspectives on them. So much of our voice stems from our experiences and our truth about the world. Students don't always know their truth, their perspective so we must ask them, require them, to pay attention to their voice, their thoughts. They then can then practice expressing that voice in class. As uncomfortable as this is for teachers, it is far more disconcerting for students. Largely, students come to me having no idea what they think let alone why they think what they think. It is imperative, if we are to have a democratic and smart society, to teach our students to know why think what they do, and to be able to arrive at their own thoughts - not an easy task, but doable for even the lowest-level student. In English class, it is not my job to teach students every plot point in a book, but rather to teach students to
think
about what they read, to use the book to help them make sense of their worlds, to "look at ourselves, at the world around us, critically - analytically" (Hooks, 1989).
