The Dilemma: An Open Or Closed Pedagogy Essay -- Education Teaching Es

The Dilemma: An Open Or Closed Pedagogy With lifelong effects, teachers impact the quantity, quality, and overall enjoyment of the educational experience. Their effect dilutes itself the classroom, into present life, and even the future. In the classroom, they mold and guide youth in their lifelong quest to search for the truth and their own voice in the world. Yet their influence does not stop at the classroom door. In fact, teachers have a profound impact on morals, creativity, and even politics. "Teachers always have the power in the class," Christian Zawodniak discusses in , "I'll Have To Help More Of You Than I Want To." They hold the grades and students usually perceive them as holding the knowledge too (Zawodniak 124). But how should a teacher exercise this bestowed power? Is a forced learning environment more beneficial or is a cooperative pedagogy more productive? With diverse students and unique learning needs, it is difficult to identify one or the other as more advantageous. However, I will attempt to explore the benefits and disadvantages of both, as well as how they can be combined or compromised in a delicate balance. Although I will strive to stay neutral and merely present the options, I may also occasionally include my own personal experiences. Hopefully in a purely unbiased fashion. Donald Lazere, "Ground Rules For Polemicists," contends that all Teaching is political and that no human can do anything nonpolitical because we would have to get totally outside ourselves and divorce ourselves of all our interests (Lazere 663). If this statement is true, then teachers are hardly immune and a truly unbiased classroom cannot exist because personal beliefs or opinions are bound to surface soone... ... others. As well, where their own voice came from and how to develop it more intensely. Further, an ideal pedagogy provides alternative definitions of the truth, not merely the one students have been absorbed by all of their lives. I contend this combination or compromise as the ideal learning environment for the student. Works Cited Cheney, Lynne V. "PC: Alive and Entrenched." Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz, The Presence Of Others: Voices That Call For A Response. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. (112-123). Lazere, Donald. "Ground Work For Polemicists: The Case Of Lynne Cheney's Truths." College English 59 (1997): 661-685. Zawodniak, Christian. "Teacher Power, Student Pedagogy." Andrea A.Lunsford and John J.Ruszkiewicz, The Presence Of Others: Voices That Call For A Response. New York: St Martin's Press, 1997. (124-132).