Who are teachers and what is their role

 

Who are teachers?

Who determines what can be taught?

Why do we allow Western thought to answer these questions?

Must students be the intended audience of instruction?

What should be conveyed to student?

And who determines what should be shared with students?

Can ordinary people disseminate knowledge and philosophy?

Can the person sharing personal knowledge and wisdom teach?

Can their words decolonize our thought and practice?

Rather than propagating dominant structures, deconstruct them

Can they draw attention to the horrors caused by colonialism?

Rather than preparing future subjects to participate in dominant systems

We observe dominant structures that have generated extreme wealth for some

At the expense of poverty for the many

We are programmed through schools to be good workers to serve the system

Can representatives of the Global South create epistemological skepticism?

Emancipation will not happen overnight but through generations

Can they generate new ways of knowing and understanding?

Let us hear their voices

My ears search for their stories, poems, and testimonials

Learn from their past and present

Their stories can free us and our people

They can enlighten how we are held captive

Captive by our society and structures

Teachers and normalistas-teachers can illuminate our captivity

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