Essay On Reality Pedagogy

Originated by Emdin (2011), reality pedagogy is an outgrowth of his research in urban classrooms and focuses primarily on understanding urban students and their culture within a particular social space, such as the science classroom. Reality pedagogy involves the development of teachers’ ability to understand the realities of student lives so that the cultural referents used in instruction are reflective of students’ realities and not teachers’ perspectives of them. It provides opportunities for teachers to immerse themselves in the students’ local culture, and then work with students to accurately use the information from these realities in their instruction. Through this process, the political underpinnings to teaching and learning get revealed to the teacher experientially (Emdin, 2010, 2012). Thus, through the provision of opportunities provided by reality pedagogy for the teacher to be a part of student activities, practices, and rituals, a more accurate reflection of student culture in the classroom is delivered. Cobern (1996) argues that these realities, experiences, and artifacts that students have are what make them feel, think, and act in particular ways. When educators and researcher try to understand the connections between students’ realities and the ways in which they feel, think, and

The five pedagogic tools are: cogenerative dialogue (cogens), coteaching, cosmopolitanism, context and content (Emdin, 2011). To execute reality pedagogy, together students and teachers engage in the five steps of reality pedagogy. These steps can be enacted in any particular order and according to Emdin (2011) these approaches if implemented consistently have the potential to positively transform the education of marginalized