INTRODUCTION http://www.freireproject.org/content/critical-pedagogy-tv “Critical pedagogy is basically the study of oppression in education, the study of how issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, colonialism will shape the nature of what goes on in education, shape the purpose of education” (Joe Kincheloe) “Critical pedagogy is the teachers asking ‘why’, and the students being allowed to freely ask the same question ‘why am I learning this’” (Christopher Stonebanks)

Definitions

"Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse." (Ira Shor Empowering Education, 129 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy) )

Henry Giroux • [Critical] pedagogy . . . signals how questions of audience, voice, power, and evaluation actively work to construct particular relations between teachers and students, institutions and society, and classrooms and communities. . . . Pedagogy in the critical sense illuminates the relationship among knowledge, authority, and power.

(http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/Critical_Pedagogy.htm

)) (Giroux, 1994: 30

Peter McLeran “ Critical pedagogy resonates with the sensibility of the Hebrew symbol of tikkun, which means ‘to heal, repair, and transform the world, all the rest is commentary.’ It provides historical, cultural, political, and ethical direction for those in education who still dare to hope. Irrevocably committed to the side of the oppressed, critical pedagogy is as revolutionary as the earlier view of the authors of the Declaration of Independence: is history is fundamentally open to change, liberation is an authentic goal, and a radically different world can be brought into being.” (Life in Schools 1989, p. 160)

Some terms

• • • • •

Humanising education/pedagogy Transformative education/pedagogy Emancipatory pedagogy Radical pedagogy Critical theory

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History

Influences of the Frankfurt School of critical theory.

Dewey, Gramsci and others.

Paulo Freire “the inaugural philosopher of critical pedagogy” (McLaren, 1999, p. 49 in Stinson, Bidwell and Powell, International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, Vol 4 (1) (2012) pp 76-94) On being asked when critical pedagogy began, Henry Giroux “.....Paulo’s work is really the first to mark that moment. The archives should begin there”. (http://www.freireproject.org/content/critical-pedagogy-tv)

• Paulo Freire (1921-1997) “Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970)” • Traditional education is oppressive. The banking method dehumanises the learner and creates people who agree to the unjust order of their society, and therefore are passive in striving for change.

• “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

Key principles of Critical Pedagogy

 “Education and society are intrinsically interrelated and the fundamental purpose of education is to improve social justice”. (McArthur, 2010, p. 493)  Breaking down the barriers of all types of discrimination including; race, class, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, and ability, critical pedagogy ‘s strives for emancipation for all in the society.

 It is a pedagogy of critically questioning everything that goes on, rather than accepting the status quo.

 They key to a democratic society is democratic education in which learners are empowered to be active/reflective participants of their own learning, not passive consumers.

 Is opposed to market-based models of education which is geared to serve the interests of the dominant .

 Education is through a dialogic approach. Therefore, the teacher and learner continually swap roles in the process.  Through education, critical pedagogy’s ultimate goal is to eradicate all types of oppression and human suffering. It is a humanising pedagogy.

Some of the Main Contributors

– – – – – – – – – Henry Giroux Joe Kincheloe Michael Apple Jonathan Kozol Peter McLaren Ira Shor Antonio Darder Howard Zinn bell hooks

The importance of theory

• When considering the major concepts of critical theory the school is considered as a social space that promotes and aims to empower students in a range of areas such as social justice.

• For every question, there are many sides and each side is often linked to various aspects of society such as class, sex, and race.

• In the classroom, critical theory hopes to allow students to draw connections between what they learn in school with greater social functions of particular kinds of knowledge.

Critical Pedagogy and the Social Construction of Knowledge

•

“What are the social functions of knowledge?”

• Critical theory suggests that knowledge is socially constructed; “it is the agreement or consent between individuals who live out particular social relations.”

Forms of Knowledge

• Technical Knowledge: Knowledge that can be measured and quantified. • Practical Knowledge: usually gained through describing and analysing, this type of knowledge can then be applied to the outside world and other social situations. • Emancipatory Knowledge: This type of knowledge allows individuals to be aware of how social relationships are changed or influenced by a higher power and brings the understanding that oppression can be overcome through collective action.

Why Critical Pedagogy is Important?

• Why do we teach what we teach, and the way in which we teach it?

• The school and what happens in the classroom is the beginning of the creation of a foundation that will later influence each young person in their social relationships and in the world.

• For a student critical pedagogy means understanding why they learn what they learn, and what it means. Why is the information we provide them important, as well as how the information is presented.

Challenges of Critical Pedagogy

It’s not always easy to differentiate between critical pedagogy, active learning, and the learner- or learning-centered approaches. Each is predicated on the notion of student engagement and proposes involvement via such strategies as collaborative and cooperative learning and problem based learning. All recommend a move away from lecturing.

- Critical pedagogy is the most extreme of the three and has some unique characteristics. It can be described as the eradication of the teacher student contradiction “whereby the teacher teaches and the students are taught; the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; the teacher talks and the students listen; and the teacher is the subject and the students are mere objects.” Critical pedagogy also has a political agenda; it views education as a means to achieve social justice and change.

Challenges of Critical Pedagogy

- Whether or not a teacher is philosophically comfortable with the principles of critical pedagogy, implementing it in the classroom presents teachers with the same dilemmas that emerge when using active learning or learner-centered approaches.

- One problem that becomes clear early on is the discomfort students feel when teachers solicit their opinions and acknowledge the relevance of previous experiences. More students prefer traditional approaches —those that have them record and then regurgitate information. They aren’t used to having their voices recognized and respected.

Benefits and challenges of using a critical pedagogy approach

A critical pedagogy approach offers students a way to bring texts into their lives in an immediate way: They learn how their thoughts and their actions connect. Critical pedagogy also encourages students to explore how they can make effective arguments. Also, by finding ways to critique and change practices in their own communities, students realise that they are ultimately responsible for their communities.

- Assignments may consist of papers or presentations that combine literary analysis with historical research or proposals for change. Teachers may also ask students to design their own assignments, responding in a way they see fit to the issues raised in class.

How can we use critical pedagogy in our classroom?

Incorporating critical pedagogy in the classroom

- In the classroom, teachers can introduce critical thinking by comparing texts that reflect in different ways on a single political question. A teacher might ask students to compare different kinds of texts that refer to the same issue (for example, two memoirs, one Chinese and one African American, both of which focus on the politics of beauty).

- By comparing cultural practices from a variety of perspectives, students learn to read critically. In addition, critical pedagogy often forces students to lay aside prejudices about cultures unfamiliar to them. Cultural practices that at first may seem unusually barbaric such as foot-binding or neck extensions but after critical thinking and further consideration it becomes less horrific and can be compared to "acceptable" practices in their own culture such as dieting or cosmetic surgery.

Incorporating critical pedagogy in the classroom

• Teachers will also want to focus on texts with strong political content, such as memoirs that describe the experiences of people of colour, for example, or novels that explore the social and cultural practices of a given community. These texts can help students to locate similar practices in their own communities, so that they can become active participants in their worlds.

Critical Pedagogy for the Third World Some examples

The role of dominant school:

Schools perform important functions in society, such as training ans socialising the youth, fostering social cohesion, transforming culture, and sorting students , ostensibly by talent,

for further training

and employment .

How they do it: Schools put poor students into low-ability classes and more affluent students into high ability classes.

Eventually this results in students occupying positions in the occupational structure similar to those occupied by their parents. Indigenous Australian students suffer more from this process.

“Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history".

“A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally only if ... they return to the upward paths of their own culture, which is nourished by the living reality of its environment, and which negates both harmful influences and any kind of subjection to foreign culture. Thus, it may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture.” --Amilcar Cabral, “National Liberation and Culture”

Nicaraguan Revolution and Literacy campaign

ACTIVITY: in small groups discuss

• • •

“What is really important is not to read alienated and alienating histories, but rather to make history and to be made by history”

a) What is the idea of education and the role of the educator in that statement? b) Alienated and alienating knowledge is what Freire calls “pre-packed knowledge”. What would that concept mean to you?

CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY FAQ’s

• • • What right do critical pedagogues have to speak for the oppressed and marginalized, particularly when "speaking" comes out of a middle class university or other teaching position.

Critical pedagogy is theoretically visionary but lacks the practical tools to accompany it Uses very complex language / can be very abstract

Misunderstanding of key concepts:

• • • • • • Schooling Vs Education, Control Vs Democracy, Authority Vs Authoritarianism (de)Skilling Vs Re-Skilling Individualism vs Individuality, Traditional Literacy vs Critical Literacy —Kanpol, Barry (1998)

CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

• •

Micro level: classroom environment

Resistance of some students and teachers Development of appropriate assessment methods •

Macro level: Political agenda

Ideological context: current liberalisation and marketisation of education

Current debates in the Australian Context

• • • Current debate: Gonski review OECD statement on Education (May 2012): “making sure students from all backgrounds and origins can fulfill their potential.” AEU debate on education recognised that addressing inequality should be a priority