Critical Pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach inspired by Marxist critical theory and other radical philosophies, which attempts to help students question and challenge posited “domination,” and to undermine the beliefs and practices that are alleged to dominate.
the dominant, conservative philosophy of education in which the structure of our schools is established: how schools are organized, the arrangement of the typical classroom, the state mandated curriculum and textbooks, the standardized assessment of teachers’ teaching abilities, the concept of the teacher as the authoritarian giver of knowledge and the student as the passive receiver. These aspects of education will be addressed, analyzed and evaluated in relation to freedom, oppression, and democracy.
The basic tenet of Critical Pedagogy is that there is an unequal social stratification in our society based upon class, race and gender. McLaren states that 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.”
Those of high power and status are at the top of society and control the rest of society.
By doing so, the unequal conditions can be maintained; in other words, the status quo remains. Those who wish to maintain this status quo do so because of the economic and social benefits they derive from this stratification, hence, not wishing to lose these benefits they fight to keep them by oppressing others.
You can find that in many other companies , clinic, departments in all types of work.
Although Dewey does not use the term “hegemony”, he too, describes this process. “Etymologically, the word education means just a process of leading or bringing up . . . we speak of education as a shaping, forming, molding activity – that is, a shaping into the standard form of social activity . . . The required beliefs cannot be hammered in; the needed attitudes cannot be plastered on.
But the particular medium in which an individual exists leads him to see and feel one thing rather than another; . . . Thus it gradually produces in him a certain system of behavior, a certain disposition of action.” So, what schools do is help to create and re-create the existing culture, beliefs and practices, which is the hegemony.
Many renowned educators and theorists works contribute to or support this theory; they include Peter McLaren, Douglas Kellner, Ira Shor, Henry Levin, John Goodlad, Theodore Sizer, Jonothan Kozol, the Holmes Group, Michel Foucault, the Critical Theory of Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School, Pierre Bourdieu, Stanley Aronowitz, and Antonio Gramsci.
Critical Pedagogy studies the role which schools play in maintaining the social stratification of society, and the possibilities for social change through the schools. “Critical pedagogy is both a way of thinking about and negotiating through praxis the relationship among classroom teaching, the production of knowledge, the larger institutional structures of the school, and the social and material relations of the wider community, society, and nation state.” Peter McLaren explains that Critical Pedagogy is an approach adopted by progressive teachers attempting to eliminate inequalities on the basis of social class, and that it has also sparked a wide array of anti-sexist, anti-racist, and anti-homophobic classroom-based curricula and policy initiatives.
Common questions for the critical educator include: What knowledge is of most worth? Whose knowledge is most important? What knowledge should be taught, and just as important, what knowledge is not to be taught? How does the structure of the school contribute to the social stratification of our society? What is the relationship between knowledge and power? What does this imply for our children? What is the purpose of schooling? Is it to ensure democracy or to maintain the status quo and support big business? How can teachers enable students to become critical thinkers who will promote true democracy and freedom?
Ira Shor identifies principal goals of Critical Pedagogy: “when pedagogy and curricular policy reflect egalitarian goals, they do what education can do:
- Oppose socialization with desocialization
- Choose critical consciousness over commercial consciousness
III. Transformation of society over reproduction of inequality
- Promote democracy by practicing it and by studying authoritarianism
- Challenge student withdrawal through participatory courses
- Illuminate the myths supporting the elite hierarchy of society
VII. Interfere with the scholastic disabling of students through a critical literacy program
VIII. Raise awareness about the thought and language expressed in daily life
- Distribute research skills and censored information useful for investigating power and policy in society
- Invite students to reflect socially on their conditions, to consider overcoming limits. . . .
Shor says we must pose the question of critical pedagogy (desocialization) when we discuss teacher education programs or curriculum at any level of schooling. Once we accept education’s role as challenging inequality and dominant myths rather than as socializing students into the status quo, we have a foundation needed to invent practical methods.”
Critical Pedagogy, then, is defined by what it does – as a pedagogy which embraces a raising of the consciousness, a critique of society, as valuing students’ voices, as honoring students’ needs, values, and individuality, as a hopeful, active pedagogy which enables students to become truly participatory members of a society who not only belong to the society but who can and do create and re-create that society, continually increasing freedom. Marcuse states that liberation “presupposes a knowledge and sensibility which the established order, through its class system of education, blocks for the majority of the people.”
“The first need is to become aware of the world in which we live; to survey its forces; to see the opposition in forces that are contending for mastery; to make up one’s mind which of these forces come from a past that the world in its potential powers has outlived and which are indicative of a better and happier future.” In 1958 John Dewey described the contradictions and problems with which our society was dealing; those issues remain today, and the relevance of Dewey’s recommendations are as true for us today as they were in 1958. He states that it is the task of teachers to help put things right, whether or not teachers feel it is their duty; whether teachers choose to do so or not, they are still choosing, since the very act of intentionally doing nothing is still doing something. One cannot not choose. “Drifting is merely a cowardly mode of choice” His point is that teachers should become aware themselves of our present situation and after conducting intelligent study they should make a choice and base whatever actions they choose on that informed decision. He felt that it was important for teachers, parents and other educators to understand the social forces and movements of the times and the role of the schools, which could not be accomplished unless teachers were aware of a social goal. Dewey knew that teachers, in general, do not feel that they have time for general theories, yet he states that the first prerequisite of intelligent decision and action is understanding of the forces at work.
“The most specific thing that teachers can first do is something general.” For this reason, it is imperative that teachers as well as those in teacher education programs take the time to study the constructs and power structures within our society, to determine how these impact educational policies, curriculum, testing, accountability, teaching methods and materials. Teachers need to reflect upon what they are doing and why they are doing it.
When offering suggestions for the elements of an educational platform, Henry Giroux discusses Critical Pedagogy . . . Rejecting the traditional view of instruction and learning as a neutral process antiseptically removed from the contexts of history, power, and ideology, critical educational theory begins with the assumption that schools are essential sites for organizing knowledge, power and desire in the service of extending individual capacities and social possibilities