These revelations made me see how deeply ingrained is the student perception that professors can be and should be dictators. To some extent, they saw me as “dictating” that they engage in liberatory practice, so they complied. Hence when another teacher entered the classroom and was more authoritarian they simply fell into line. But the triumph of liberatory pedagogy was that we had the space to interrogate their actions. They could look at themselves and say, “Why didn’t we stand up for what we believe? Why didn’t we maintain the value of our class? Do we see ourselves simply acting in
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