Why Relavent Pedagogy?

According to our readings, our educational structure in the current climate is set up to create winners and losers. The winners become economically successful with sometimes fulfilling jobs and live in economically prosperous neighborhoods with well-funded schools. The losers end up with typically labor intensive jobs in economically deprived neighborhoods with under-funded schools. Our public school structures promote these social and economic inequities through generalized standards across the board independent of the opportunity students have to be successful in this system. It's set up to create winners and losers and Duncan points out that the system does exactly what it is designed to do.

Relevant pedagogy escapes the suffocating nature of an educational system based on standards and tests. It redesigns curriculum to shift the focus towards issues relevant to students lives and communities. Duncan states that factoring communities and students lives into education can prevent the student from having to choose between their community and an education. When there is that pull between choosing home or education I believe that diminishes the experience of learning. Education is good and I believe education can be freeing for everyone because it helps you learn how to expand on your beliefs, thoughts and interests. When there is a separation between what is relevant to you and an expectation of what should be important(curriculum) there is a loss of self which is unfortunate because it hurts the reality of the experience. Shifting the focus from standardized curriculum and making it relevant creates opportunities for learning that are otherwise lost. I believe creating opportunities to involve students in praxis is a good way to achieve real education.