Constructing Visibility

Tatum concludes Ch. 5 by saying that effective strategies help students to "construct their visibility". This assumes two things:

1. They have been made to feel visible by someone already, so they know what that feels like.

2. They have the tools to construct their own visibility when no one makes them feel that way.

What tools do you provide your students with to move them to the place where they can construct this visibility for themselves in a positive way?

I have seen students who construct their own visibility in negative ways that are very effective in making them visible. What does the retraining of this process look like? Can you describe it in a concrete way?

Functional or Empowering

One of Tatum's subtitles in Ch. 5 is: Should curriculum be functional or empowering? I would venture to say that we would all answer, BOTH. Discuss this from the perspective of the subject that you teach and how you can make it both functional and empowering for the students you work with.