Teaching isn’t about managing behavior

I don't disagree with your implication that the teaching process the author describe might short-change learning the core skills/knowledge being taught in a course. But I would think that depends on the application of the technique and doesn't stem from the nature of the technique itself.

Also lets' not forget that anecdotal knowledge is a legitimate source of knowledge, it is just a different kind than scientifically produced knowledge. They both have their strengths, weaknesses, and limitations, and each should be critically assessed using different criteria (quality of the scientific paper, reputation of the scientists/journal behind it, and for anecdotal knowledge, reputation of the writer, logic of their argument, how it corresponds to our lived experience, etc).

Also I'd like to rephrase what you wrote to read "emotional objective for the student", and "social objective for the student". As the author is arguing these practices help the student's emotional and social development.

I think it does define what the author considers successful teaching.

A definition by providing a counterexample of unsuccessful teaching:

"I taught through violence against Muslim students and used the permission I tacitly received from the school to justify my inaction. I ignored the chaos of the world beyond the classroom because I believed that it was my job to just keep on teaching. Looking back now, I realize I was not actually teaching at all."

What the author believes the goals (outcomes) of teaching should and should not be:

"In 2001, I thought that good teaching meant delivering content knowledge to students who were behaving “appropriately.” In 2020, I know that is not enough. I’ve learned to see my classroom as a platform for empowering students and transforming society, and to use my pedagogy as a form of protest against norms that silence students. Far from sacrificing content knowledge, engaged students, whose voices are heard, are better able to learn it."

A positive definition, which describes the behavior of a successful teacher, and that the desired outcome for the students is creating a certain kind of learning process for them to participate in:

"Reality pedagogy interrupts the notion that teaching is about managing students and their behavior. Instead, I’ve learned to see them as co-teachers, and I create space for dialogue—in small groups outside of class—about how they experience the classroom and the world beyond it. It’s a space for connection, but also for any critiques they have of my teaching. These conversations are generative for everyone involved. Teachers need feedback from their students, who can see what teachers have been trained to ignore in their blind pursuit of a calm, quiet classroom. And students need a sense of agency, which they are often denied.

Co-teaching requires that teachers be humble enough to become students of their students—especially the students who have been most harmed, and will benefit most from a teacher listening to their experiences. In my first years of teaching, I never asked to hear my students’ thoughts about having to sit and learn while the world around them was going crazy. I didn’t make space for my Muslim students to heal from being targeted. But if I had started that dialogue, I would have learned a lot from them about how I could have been a better teacher.

When students have this kind of agency, a classroom can start to function like a family—or even a small society. I give all of my students a classroom responsibility that counts toward their grades and involves taking care of the physical classroom and each other. And I institute democratic decision making for all actions taken in the classroom: Students help to decide what assignments we work on, how long we spend on activities, and what to discuss. The classroom can serve as an example of what the world should look like—all students with equal power, regardless of their culture or background—rather than a replication of what it is.

Reality pedagogy involves connecting academic content to events happening in the world that affect students. The curriculum can weave in specific references to the neighborhoods where young people are from, inequities that they and their families are hurt by, and protests in the community. But that doesn’t mean these lessons are always serious. Students can compete to show their knowledge through art, games, and music. I have created projects like the Science Genius competition, where young people write raps about science content and events happening in their lives and compete to be the best scientist, rapper, and storyteller. The classroom—especially for Black youth—should not feel like a place where they are policed or silenced. Black joy can be a part of daily learning."

This pattern of people leveraging their professional position as a platform for activism is questionable, but debatable, in general. But being entrusted to teach children requires exactly that, trust. If school systems lose the trust of parents, and eventually their larger communities, they're done.

If schools can be reasonably viewed as attempting to indoctrinate children, there will be a massive backlash. People will put up with a lot, but their children are generally off limits.