Defining Critical Pedagogy

This blog post is an attempt to synthesize the readings on Critical Pedagogy, a concept that was largely pioneered by Paulo Freire. In his experiences, he noticed a large number of issues surrounding standard teaching practices. Some of these are:

• Students are expected to just absorb the information provided to them– not to question it or really think critically about what it means
• Students are often de-personalized, making the material difficult for them to relate to in a meaningful or lasting way
• Standard teaching reinforces current norms and standards, which in turn means that inequality, oppression, and exclusion are reinforced. This process is cyclical and self-reinforcing as those who learn under such structure eventually become the teacher themselves and conform to the methodologies that they learned under
• Traditional teachers ignore or neglect the inherently political position that they hold
• Students likely don’t realize they many ways in which they are being conditioned for compliance and sameness
• Subject matters change over time, yet this fluidity is rarely reflected in practice; course materials often take a long time to change, if at all, making it out of touch with reality
• Over time, students who cannot comply with the expectations of the standard classroom are at least disengaged and demotivated, if not completely left behind. (Most students fall into this category simply because of the diversity that exists in humans.) This occurs in spite of the fact that every student was once a naturally curious and inquisitive child; this curiosity, inquisitiveness, and the associated creativity has been neglected and discouraged for so long that they no longer have the same desire to pursue or express these drives
• Teachers don’t realize the role that they can play in helping students become self-realized, fulfilled members of society

To combat these issues, Critical Pedagogy calls for a very different classroom in which the student is at the focal point of the material. Their experiences and individuality are highlighted, and the society in which they live is exposed for all that it is– good and bad. Specifically, Critical Pedagogy indicates that teachers have a moral and political imperative to:

• Emphasize students’ personal growth and, in particular, critical thinking about societal norms and standards and how they interact with them
• Relate material to real-world examples, highlighting how it may be useful for students later (rather than just the immediate, course-related benefits like grades)
• Incite critical questioning, creativity, and understanding such that students are able to seek out answers individually; have deep, meaningful, and constructive conversations; and better understand all sides of an argument
• Relate to students on an individual level, recognizing each student as a whole, unique individual who comes to the classroom with a different background and level of understanding from other students
• Meet students where they are in their current understanding to help them rise to the “goal” understanding of the course
• Understand that teaching will help drive research and that research can better inform teaching by keeping the material relevant and up-to-date for students
• Accept that teachers will learn as they teach and that their students will teach as they learn
• Adopt a cooperative teaching strategy in which students (in conjunction with the teacher) are in control of the classroom

In reflecting on these aspects of Critical Pedagogy, I noticed many overlapping ideas with Inclusive Pedagogy and Mindful Learning. That is, Critical Pedagogy reflects these teaching ideals as well by emphasizing a need to adapt to each individual students’ needs and perspectives while enforcing a need for students to directly interact with and incorporate the material into their own knowledge and experiences.

However, Critical Pedagogy takes this a step further by detailing how exactly this internalization of the material should occur in the context of current societal influences. That is, Critical Pedagogy involves combating societal and political norms very directly in order to enable each student to become self-realized and to understand where they (and their knowledge) fit into “the real world.”

Overall, I overwhelmingly agree with the ultimate recommendations and overarching rationale that drive Critical Pedagogy. Yet I find myself somewhat turned off by the overtly political nature of many of the points… That is, while I find myself shocked and amazed by Freire’s experiences and completely understand his political stances (and how they drove him to strongly encourage Critical Pedagogy whenever he could), I found it hard to relate much of these political points to my own experiences and hopes for teaching. For me, it’s much easier to see the liberating and world-changing impacts of teaching students how to read and write and how to think critically about what they read (especially in the context of their lives and the societies they belong to) than to see these kinds of impacts in my own field of Computer Science. (But perhaps that is under the assumption that students already know how to read and write by the time they enter my classroom…) In other words, reading and writing is so fundamental to accessing information and communicating with people that its enormously positive impact on people’s lives is not surprising. Computer Science is not quite as impactful and, taken as only the basic skills that are needed to develop programs, does not have the same level political undertones that reading and writing inherently do. Given this in combination with my own distaste for politics in general, I find myself resistant to incorporate such political undertones in my own teaching. Therefore, I think I find myself siding with– though not quite entirely– those who would take Freire’s teachings and attempt to de-politicize them to an extent for their own purposes.