Exercising Teacher Power Responsibly

Comments on Chapter 18 of Stephen D Brookfield's The Skillful Teacher (2015) - Week Four Assignment

Brookfield fantasizes about the egalitarian classroom, in which the teacher and students enjoy an impossible 'Powertopian' experience. The author explains the myriad sources and directions of power that surround and inhabit classrooms, provides insight into how students view the ways that teachers use, handle and react to power and the trade-offs between student-centered learning principles and teacher authority.

Brookfield describes a tangled web of power within and around the classroom. Teachers obviously have the power to assign grades, choose curriculum and learning activities, evaluation criteria and to manage the classroom in general. Teacher power stems from their position, qualifications and personality. Students have the power to participate in class discussions or not, ask and answer questions, or to initiate a 'performance strike', in which they refuse to contribute to the lesson, essentially robbing the teacher of the potential synergistic magic that is created when students and teachers inspire each other. Teachers are often under pressure from institutional administration and professional organizations and we all experience power imbalances that can make their way into our classrooms, despite our best efforts.

Referring to 25 years of CIQ evidence, Brookfield presents the three lenses through which students judge teachers and their use of their power in the classroom: transparency, responsiveness and consistent fairness. Teachers are seen to be transparent when they share how students will be graded - clear rubrics and concise feedback satisfies students that, even if they are not happy with their grades, they have detailed guidelines on how their work was marked. Responsiveness requires the teacher to explain to students how and why they are adjusting their methods in order to address student concerns. Consistency in applying stated rules and policies is important to students - if teachers make exceptions to their own rules, students may see this as abuse of power. Students are constantly watching their teachers and judging their actions; teachers must be vigilant and aware of how they are perceived to wield their power over students.

Another area that teachers need to be aware of, according to Brookfield, is 'Power vs Pedagogy'. The struggle, in this case, pits the priorities of the teacher's agenda against the wants and needs of the students. The teacher, for example, may believe that students must learn collaboration skills, while students may oppose group projects. In cases such as these, teachers must decide whether to use their power to move their agenda forward while facing opposition from students. Brookfield asserts that teachers should trust their instincts and remain true to their experience in these situations, as "Being authentic involves staying true to one's agenda, being open and honest about it, and sometimes placing one's power behind it" (p. 247).

In the last section of this chapter, the author discusses moral and ethical uses of power in the classroom. The author examines Baptiste's (2000, 2001) notion of manipulation and control, which demands that teachers sometimes hide their true agenda from students - this idea goes against the principle of transparency. Another example that would have teachers exerting their power in the classroom stems from Marcuse (1965), who asserts that students should be forced to study viewpoints that are at odds with their current worldview, and should discouraged from choosing topics that are comfortable and familiar to them. Finally, the ideas of bell hooks (1989) and Barnett (2010) argue that transformational, engaging classrooms, rather then being safe and nurturing, ought to be challenging and 'dangerous'.

This chapter illuminates some of the areas that teachers must take into consideration to ensure that power in the classroom is used to create a level playing field for all students so that everyone has equal opportunity to learn, grow and succeed in a transparent and responsive environment that is fair to all.