Voices we want to hear and voices we don't

Abstract

TUDENTS, WRITES IRA SCHOR (1986), will resist any process that disempowers them .... Familiar school routines produce this alienation: teachertalk, passive instruction in pre-set materials . . . mechanical drills ... the denial of subjects important to them, the exclusion of student co-participation in curriculum design and governance, and the outlawing of popular idioms in favor of correct usage (p. 183). Taken literally, this vision, which is common enough, implies that most students yearn to have a voice in their own schooling, to be free and to construct their own vibrant lives in school.