Teaching to the Fourth

Teaching to the Fourth Power offers intriguing insight on how to make teaching matter. This personalization of teaching is both on the part of the teacher and of the student. Teachers need to realize that they are not puppets or actors reciting a script. There needs to be creativity and challenges by the teacher for the students. Teachers are always students at hearts. We are constantly learning new things in order to improve on our tool kit. The bigger, more creative, and well researched the tool kit the better the teacher. We are empowered to think critically and that skill needs to be passed down onto our students. We need to be aware of culture, according to the article. That the local culture often clashes with the dominant culture the learning environment. As part of our tool kit, teachers must force this clash of the cultures in the classrooms. Especially in history, the clashing of cultures shapes destinies and made us who are we today. It is important that we teacher students to look at historical events, primary source documents, and popular culture in a critical light. In my own classroom, I know I neglect certain cultures in favor of the dominant. But the textbook and the state tests do not reflect these cultures, only the main, dominant ones. It is a dilemma I am not sure how to approach.
Teaching to the Fourth Power also discusses the students’ involvement in learning. A student must become actively involved in the content; class must be a personal experience in order to impact the lives of students. Students need to posses the tools of critical analysis. They must realize and accept that sometimes their culture or personality is ignored in the mainstream of education. There is where it is important for teachers to teach their students to understand dominant culture and set out to change it. Connecting life outside the classroom to the life inside the classroom is vital. America is still a country of immigrants, a melting pot. Students can make a difference in changing how America views its past and perhaps even its present. The article mentions Paulo Freire’s work on social action in the community. In a history class, there is a lot of room for social change and activism. Teachers must remember that they are shaping the future. We should instill in them they change we want to see in the world.
There are many things that teachers can do to influence and educate their students on things outside the classroom. It is our responsibility to teacher students to honor who they are and where they come from. Critical analysis is an excellent way to do this. By understanding the main, dominant culture pervasive in schools; these students may have the chance to change that. They could change how history is written. An intriguing thought: history not written by the victor but the forgotten.