One element from chapter one that I found interesting was the idea that not only do the oppressed have to realize on their own that they are oppressed, but also, once they have come to that realization, they must work even harder not to become the oppressor in return. In the process of trying to regain their own humanity, it is important that they work to restore the humanity of the oppressor. This is the only way that the cycle will not become continued. However, this is a huge burden to place on the shoulders of individuals who already have a large burden to bare. It does not seem fair to ask this of them. The idea of getting revenge on those that wronged them is often more tempted than turning the other check, forgiving, and taking the high road. In his book, however, Freire, insists it is the job of the oppressed to not only liberate themselves, but their oppressors as well. He points out that it is the job of the oppressed to do so, because despite all the power the oppressor might have, they lack the power to free themselves or the oppressed. According to Freire “only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both” (pg. 44).

I just finished my second week of teaching this semester. It went pretty well, and I have been reflecting on the experience. The first class I taught was a regular section of EN102. The students had to find both peer-reviewed and popular sources in order to complete a research essay. In the first section, I focused more on Scout than on any other database. For evaluating sources, I had them get in groups and discuss articles that I found. They had to find out everything they could about pre-selected materials. This session went really well, and the students were engaged. In this session, I did a mostly anonymous Kahoot quiz to see what the students knew before I explained how to do source evaluation. It was interesting to be able to compare how they responded on the quiz to how they responded at the end of class while evaluating sources for the final time. I will definitely be utilizing Kahoot in the future. I felt like this activity was particularly successful because of the conversations we had in class about who is an authority when writing an article. Many of the students were confused about exactly what made someone an authority, and I hope I clarified that for them in this session. We talked about how Ted Talks don’t necessarily make someone an authority. We also talked about the fact that just because someone does write for a popular news source does not mean all of their writing is reliable (ie someone who writes for Forbes, but has their own personal blog for political ramblings).