The Pedagogy of Confidence Leadership Action Guide

The Pedagogy of Confidence Leadership Action Guide  is based on many years of research and collaborations with Reuven Feuerstein, with National Urban Alliance (NUA), with many other organizations and colleagues focusing on equity consciousness in the spirit of belief and belonging for all students and educators. The Pedagogy of Confidence is focused on recognizing and amplifying the strengths underserved students. 

The goal of this action guide is to cultivate and sustain equity consciousness through The Pedagogy of Confidence.  The Pedagogy of Confidence engenders robust communities of belonging in which students are gifted with High Operational Practices to inspire students’ engagement and elicit their innate potential for high intellectual performances, self-determination, and personal contribution.

“Courage is not the absence of fear—it’s inspiring others to move beyond it.”
—One of Nelson Mandela’s “8 Lessons of Leadership” (as reported by Richard Stengel)

The Pedagogy of Confidence Leadership Action Guide focuses on moving equity talk into equity walk with equity consciousness for student engagement — for all students. This begins with the teachers and school leadership: believing in the innate potential of each and every student for high intellectual performances and contribution; recognizing and eliminating practices that are barriers to students’ potential thriving and flourishing; and committing to providing the pedagogy to elicit and cultivate that potential.

The High Operational Practices (HOPs) are about belief in students and providing the educators the tools, methods and understanding to create robust communities of belonging in which students thrive and flourish. This online guide and modules provide support to in person professional development. The guide will also be available in print format with direct links to The Pedagogy of Confidence website.

Pedagogy and equity cannot be isolated from each other. When we are truly committed to equity, we design pedagogy that achieves it’s original purpose: ‘to lead a child’ for self-actualization and self- transcendence: self-actualization that enables students to thrive in society and self-transcendence that motivates them to contribute to that society (Chen, 2014; Freire, 2012; Gladwell, 2008; Jackson, 2011). Equity consciousness is a way of educating that is informed by and situated in the belief that all students are innately wired for engagement, high intellectual performances, self-actualization and personal contribution.

“We claim what we feel we deserve.”
—David Whyte

“In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.”
—Audre Lorde

The Pedagogy of Confidence is about a movement for equity consciousness.
Amplifying Teacher Voices.

The Pedagogy of Confidence is about a movement for equity consciousness.
Amplifying Student Voices.