Beneath the Canopy
Cultivating Empowerment in the Classroom
Unraveling the Roots: Understanding Our Own Positionality
Before we can empower students, we must first confront the soil we’re planted in. Positionality isn’t just about identity — it is about the ways we’ve been shaped by the institutions, histories, and systems of power. It requires us to ask:
Who has shaped my understandings of knowledge and authority?
What power do I unconsciously wield in my classroom?
How do my decisions reinforce or disrupt systemic inequities?
This self-inquiry is not about guilt or paralysis — it is about clarity. The more we understand our own positioning, the more we can intentionally redistribute power, shifting from gatekeepers of knowledge to facilitators of inquiry and possibility.
When we step into a classroom, we don’t enter as neutral figures. Our presence — our identities, experiences, and the authority we hold (or presume to hold) — shapes the learning environment before a single word is spoken. Too often, discussions about positionality stay at the surface level, reduced to acknowledging privileges or “checking biases.” But understanding power in education requires a deeper interrogation:
How does our role as educators shape what is possible in our classrooms?
Are we truly redistributing power, or are we merely granting permission for students to speak within the structures we still control?
What would it mean to shift from a power model to an empowerment experience?
Understanding Yourself First: Beyond Identity Checklists
Positionality isn’t just about who we are — it’s about how we function within systems. A white teacher and a racialized teacher do not experience authority in the same way. A teacher with a disability and a teacher who is able-bodied navigate different expectations and barriers in professional spaces. Our gender, language, accent, class background, and even the way we dress or present ourselves all shift how we are perceived and how we perceive our students, their families, and our colleagues.
But positionality is also dynamic. A teacher may experience marginalization in one context and privilege in another. The key is not just to name our identities but to ask: How do students experience my assumption of authority? Who feels seen and valued in my classroom? Whose knowledge gets validated, and whose gets questioned?
This means we must go beyond well-intentioned “representation” efforts and ask how our pedagogical choices reinforce or challenge dominant power structures. Are we selecting texts that centre diverse voices and experiences, but still analyzing them through an ableist, classist, heteronormative, Eurocentric lens? Are we calling for student voice, but only within limits we set? Are we encouraging “critical thinking” but shutting down critique that makes us uncomfortable instead of treating every discomfort as an invitation to engage?
I think of adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy principles and one in particular, an idea first articulated by Taj James in the co-facilitation of environmental justice redistribution initiative Building Equity and Alignment’s inaugural meeting in 2013:
“There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.”
We can only find that conversation or help others to find it, whether they be colleagues or students, if we are more aware of how power is operating in ourselves, outside of ourselves, between others, and within a system. We can only find that conversation if we relinquish power for something greater: a repertoire of possibility.
The Role of Educator as Facilitator, Not Gatekeeper
Traditional models of teaching position educators as the gatekeepers of knowledge. We decide what is worth learning, how it should be taught, and which ways of knowing are valid. Even when we invite student input, it often comes with an unspoken condition: They must fit their experiences into the frameworks we’ve already built.
A true shift requires us to embrace the role of facilitator — one who co-creates learning experiences rather than dictates them. Being a facilitator does not mean abandoning structure; instead, it means designing learning experiences where power is not only shared, but transformed into empowerment for all, where nothing is concentrated in your hands except the space to hold the learning, safety, and experience taking form in the environment you are fostering with your students. This means:
Decentring yourself as the sole authority: Creating space for students to construct knowledge together, rather than merely consuming it.
Interrogating how power operates in the classroom: Whose voices carry weight? Who gets interrupted? Who do we view as “disruptive” versus “engaged”?
Allowing for knowledge that exists outside of textbooks: Oral traditions, lived experiences, and community histories are just as valid as academic sources.
To redistribute power, we must shift from “controlling” students to co-creating with them. Think about it: when I ask you to provide me an example of what safety would look like, feel like, or sound like to you, what would come to mind? I know for me it’s my mother’s cooking, or the waves of Lake Superior on a hot and beautiful summer day, or watching a movie with my family at sunset. I would not say “prisons” or “police” or “guns” or “checkpoints” — because those are not about safety but control. That is not to say that there needs to be some element of control for some people to feel safe — chaos can create fear for some and excitement for others — it is about, as Dr. Cornel West says, being the “thermostat and not the thermometer: you got to control the temperature of the room, not react to the heat.”
Empowering these spaces and redistributing power means:
Making room for student-led discussions, inquiry-based learning, and collaborative decision making.
For example, when I was in the classroom, I would begin each day with the headlines from Democracy Now! I would pre-watch the headlines to ensure that I could give students a disclaimer depending on the subject matter that day and what was reflected in the headlines, and give the students an opportunity to discuss what they learned after. Furthermore, when I would create rubrics for assessment, I would co-create these with students. First, I would bring in a rubric with multiple progressions based on the official template and then have a conversation with the students as to what this rubric would look like to be equitable and reflect rigorous effort, while also honouring the differing choices students would make in how they would interpret their knowledge in projects. For the standardized written assignments and testing, I was limited. However, in those moments where we could collaborate on the assessment and project expectations together in dialogue, the projects I received from the students were deeply meaningful and insightful, their learning profound, and their engagement extraordinary. They retained knowledge so much more and their desire for learning was never extinguished. Transparency with students is key — it shows that you respect them enough to be honest with them, with care and not insincerity.
Recognizing that authority is not about domination but about responsibility and accountability — responsibility to nurture, guide, and learn alongside students and be accountable to them every single day.
Do not be afraid to walk down the painful path with your students. As one of my student said, “How can my teachers say they love me when they don’t truly know me? When they don’t know who I come from, where I come from, and who I am?” Those moments where a student needs us most are never an imposition but an invitation to remind a student how important they are, that they will not be disposed or neglected or forgotten, that their learning and their being is so valuable that it must be supported, protected, and cherished. Do we show this by ensuring our students eat? Do we show this by recognizing a student in crisis may not be in the best state to do that test on that specific day? Do we sit with students and honour their outbursts, their challenges, their confrontations and receive them with the respect and dignity we wish for them to embody? I am reminded of a student who, after a series of difficult experiences, began screaming at me with no provocation. I let her continue and then, when she caught her breath, gently said how grateful I was that she released that and that I would not allow it to change my opinion of her. If anything, it reminded me that I had done some good as it told me she felt safe enough with me to scream like that. She burst into tears and threw her arms around me. There was no place in her life outside of that classroom for her anger to land safely, but I knew I could hold it for her.
Using our influence to amplify student voices rather than dictate them.
Creating the space and giving students the language to articulate their experiences is such a powerful moment. When speaking with racialized students who have begun internalizing systemic racism as a personal failure, it is so important to use the language of anti-racism in those conversations. It shows the student that what is happening to them is a failure of the system and is so common, sadly, that there is a word and a definition officially for what they believed they were experiencing alone. This is not to dismiss the realities of systemic oppression; instead, it is to remind the student that they are not worthless, that this is not their fault, and we will figure this out together. It is an opportunity to be vulnerable and share with the student your own experiences and how you navigated them. To remind them that they are not wrong. And to create the spaces for the student to explore and express themselves without judgment. I would host a group of students looking for learning of culture, history, and the realities of racism and how to subvert and abolish systemic oppression in my classroom after school. We would spend hours together discussing and sharing in circle while watching videos of Muhammad Ali and James Baldwin expressing the realities the students were directly living in ways that were magnanimous instead of defeatist. As Malcolm X said, “James Baldwin never went to university, but all those universities went through him!” Students could locate their experiences in the language and then express themselves even more fully. No longer withheld or unsure, they knew the score. We studied these interviews not solely for their content, but the manner in which Muhammad Ali would pivot, charm, and navigate difficult conversations with as much ease as in the boxing ring. The students needed the space to be free to express all their stories along with all of their selves, surrounded by resources that restored the depths of their dignity and selfhood.
Decolonizing the Classroom: Power, Knowledge, and Liberation
A colonized classroom sees students as empty vessels, knowledge as a commodity, teaching as a transaction, and power as something to be hoarded, wielded, and weaponized. A decolonized classroom reimagines these relationships entirely.
In a decolonized classroom, knowledge is co-created and students don’t passively receive knowledge; they shape it. Their lived experiences, languages, and histories are treated with great care, compassion, and respect. The students are the experts and they support the depth of where the classroom community can reach and explore together. Power is relational not hierarchical in a decolonized classroom and authority is no longer about control, but about care, trust, and shared responsibility. We all have the authority to ruin someone’s day or make their day, this shows how important we are for worse or better. There is no reason to take power and use power over others to feel more powerful ourselves — our power is non-negotiable, we are interconnected. I would explain to my students that in a relational ecosystem such as our classroom, everyone is so important and there is no need to play these power games; after all, even if you’re a success in the rat race, you’re still a rat.
Learning must always be rooted in liberation and when students see themselves reflected in the classroom, the curriculum, and the conversation, when their voices shape the classroom dynamic, they don’t just learn — they transform.
To decolonize a classroom is to challenge and cede the deep-seated belief that certain ways of knowing are superior to others. It is to recognize that traditional Eurocentric frameworks are not neutral; they are products of power. To truly empower students, we must break free from these constraints and create spaces where knowledge is fluid, multiple, and alive.
From Allyship to Action: Material Shifts in Power
Empowerment isn’t a metaphor — it’s tangible. If we claim to value equity, we must enact it in real ways:
Who gets to choose what is read, discussed, and explored?
How do we distribute leadership opportunities in the classroom?
Are we scaffolding real agency, or just giving the illusion of choice?
True empowerment requires more than intention; it demands structural change. It is in the small, everyday decisions — whose knowledge we validate, whose voices we amplify, and whose autonomy we nurture — that the work of justice takes root. As adrienne maree brown says, “The large is made up of the smallest things, patterns repeat at scale. Help people see, celebrate, and build on the small shifts they are making” (Holding Change, p. 15):
“Small is good, small is all, the large is the reflection of the small.”
It is not enough to encourage student voice — we have to make meaningful shifts in authority. Some questions to consider:
Who controls the learning process? Can students co-create rubrics, select materials, or design their own projects?
How is discipline handled? Are students part of shaping community agreements, or are rules simply imposed?
Are we teaching students to navigate power, or just to comply? A culturally responsive classroom does not just prepare students to succeed within existing systems — it equips them to question and transform those systems.
This work is not just for racialized or marginalized students. All students benefit from learning in classrooms where power is consciously examined. When all students experience education as something co-constructed — rather than dictated — they develop critical thinking, empathy, and a deeper understanding of justice. They learn that power is not something to hoard but something that can be used collectively to create positive change with all in mind, heart, and spirit.
Positionality is not a box to check; it’s an ongoing practice. It requires discomfort, accountability, and a willingness to let go of control in order to build something greater. True equity in education isn’t about giving students a seat at the table — it is about dismantling the table itself and rebuilding it together. Or not. Maybe it’s better for us to, as my students say, "sit in a circle on the grass, unless that isn’t comfortable for everybody!”
Yours in resistance and renewal,
Ms. K
