I understand your frustration. While the student body cannot be homogenized, as it is also diverse in itself, I do understand that some students are less willing to be challenged and learn with an open mind than others and it is a daily challenge for instructors, like you and I. I believe that it is important to let the students engage in a conversation with each other, in the light of readings from other sources rather than the professor solely. It is best to let them be exposed to different opinions and make their own mind and interpretations. While we (as instructors) can challenge our students, this goal cannot be achieved if students are not willing to listen or be challenged.

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I totally agree that teaching shouldn’t be a one street. I think the teachers should reduce the time for teaching the students. Instead, they should let the students to discuss, raise questions, and new ideas.

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I was left thinking whether “if we are to free students from this oppression with respect to critical pedagogy,” points to an accumulated debt due to paying tuition for education. There is an economic system in place and money is the currency. I would argue that supporting public schools creates opportunities for the students and fosters an economic “oppression” to belong in the current system and bear responsibilities planned by those in power. It is not one or the other. For an analogy: a person starts working in the kitchen of a restaurant preparing ingredients. They (he or she) observe and learn how to cook. When they have learned enough they might choose to start their own business, or they might remain at the same restaurant and climb up to being a chef. The systemic conditions of our socioeconomic systems will be present to both choices, but the opportunity to start a new business was given by the same system that “oppresses” our person. Space “oppress” us down to earth, but we want to go to Mars!:) – http://www.mars-one.com/

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While ‘“their way of speaking is as beautiful as our way of speaking”,’ Paulo Freire also pointed out [first reference] that there is a commonly accepted way of language that is more or less required to be used to enable us to communicate with a whole society. I also believe that to ‘“be a tolerant teacher”’ points out very well that educators need be critically tolerant so as to find ways of influencing the learning process, but also hold students accountable when needed. Different situations may require different levels of tolerance.

Thanks for the detailed description of how things have been for you. It allows to imagine a perspective about your particular experience. In the USA colleges are in business of getting money from students (thus as you described remedial courses may cost more; you have to take them in order to proceed…). You wrote: “At the time, I did not actually know what engineering was or that I should want to study it.” And then argue that had you have been allowed to get a college summer class you would have been exposed to engineering earlier. Since engineering has been a critical factor in your life, it seems that it would have been very important for you to get that summer class. We can’t really know what your experience would have been though. Overall, I wonder how much of an difference is to plan on going to study a certain discipline in college since middle-school as opposed to high-school.