Does the use of a "self-advocacy" style teaching better benefit and prepare a student for future endeavors, or does it simply cause students to withdraw for fear of speaking/acting for themselves?
Lately, I have had the opportunity to work with students at the ANSER Charter School and observe how they react to certain situations in a learning environment. ANSER places a huge emphasis on student's ability to self-advocate, which, in other terms, means to push more towards speaking up for themselves when help is needed to better understand subject material, or simply help themselves. I had never before encountered and environment that placed self-advocation to such a high standard. Personally, I have always been a self-advocating type of person, and never had a teacher that pushed his/her students toward this type of learning. In the past I have observed how students withdraw into their own places for fear of being judged based on misunderstanding of a subject. At ANSER, I have noticed that such a fear doesn't exist for most of the students; my belief is that this is based on ANSER's "we are all a crew" motto. I am curious as to the fact that students may withdraw more when told to self-advocate versus stepping up and using self-advocation as a better way to learn.
Garrett: I think looking at how self-advocacy affects children could potentially be extremely interesting. I'm a little concerned, however, that you propose your question as an either/or proposition. There's more than two sides to your issue, so you'll want to address that in your work.
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