What is Educational Empowerment?

While the ELP Program invites all participants to define and redefine educational empowerment for themselves, empowerment through education may be understood as the discovery and enactment of authoritative voice and purpose through one's unique experience. Working to learn and change (themselves and their worlds) in the context of relationships and inquiry, empowering learners may act and reflect critically, in diaglogue with diverse, sometimes competing, perspectives. In a learning environment so focused, individuals' desire to learn may transcend the original focus of learning and translate into other areas. Empowerment can begin with two people or a group and often engages individuals' complex group memberships and histories. Empowerment thrives on curiosity, courage, patience, communication, and caring.

In the future, check this page for further updates as students in the "Empowering Learners" course continue to explore this concept and redefine what the term "educational empowerment" means to them.