Creating the Well-Informed and Active Learner

“Critical pedagogues believe that education should provide all students the opportunity to question, discover, and transform their futures.  The principles and practices of critical pedagogy are designed to help students become critical thinkers/readers/consumers/producers of the word and the world.  They learn to separate themselves from – and deconstruct – the values, institutions, and ideologies that shape them.  Broadly stated, critical pedagogy interrogates power structures in American education in order to challenge the status quo and enact social justice for understanding populations.”
            Critical pedagogy brings to mind the significance of incorporating critical literacy into our content area curriculum so that a social justice framework is how students and educators alike can create meaningful change in each of their individual lives and in the world.  As an English educator, it is crucial for me to encourage my students to become critical readers who understand “that how we read is as important as what we read” and to “ask questions about the construction of texts/knowledge and power relationships.”  By actively understanding their own lives and questioning the injustices and expectations that society imposes on them either consciously or subconsciously, students quickly become agents for change and liberators of a hierarchal and oppressive education system.  As Wallowitz states “a critical literacy approach to teaching offers teachers and students a new paradigm of thinking about the word and the world that empowers, engages, and challenges the American populace to resist the social forces that regulate and control and to imagine a more just reality for everyone.”  In safe classroom environments, students and teachers feel free to openly express their opinions and understand that to view controversial issues such as race, sex, gender, ethnicity, etc. (pedagogy of discomfort) there can be no allowance for prior judgment.  By observing such issues from multiple perspectives, students and educators realize that “you can’t be neutral on a moving train” (Howard Zinn) or silent lest discrimination will continue to condone the behavior of the oppressors.
            As a transformative practice, critical literacy “attempts to eradicate social injustices and inequalities” and as Paulo Freire stated relies on Praxis which combines methods of action and reflection to question the social constructs that individuals have been force fed particularly through the “banking” method of education.  To become “active subjects in their own lives,” it is crucial that educators begin to push their students towards Freire’s “liberating education” which calls for educators and students to “problem-pose, engage in dialogue, and examine the world in a way that uncovers social oppressions.”  To achieve this, however, I believe that educators must first look to themselves and their own preconceived notions and prejudices before entering the classroom.  “One can become critically conscious by developing an awareness of oneself, of one’s place in a large system of networks, and of one’s own thinking while at the same time developing a sense of interrelatedness and interconnectivity among social, cultural, and political dimensions.”  With an opportunity to challenge and question the status quo as well as our oppressive educational system that makes certain students and even educators (often among the minority groups) feel as if they do not belong, it is important to remember that our differences are actually our greatest strengths and defining qualities.
            What truly struck me while reading section one of Change Matters, was the in-depth analysis of Paulo Freire’s and Leo Vygotsky’s educational theories and how each theory has come to greatly impact the implementation of social justice in education.  While Freire believed that an individual could change his/her circumstances by “not only reading words but worlds and their intricacies within the context of socioculturally and historically shaped structures,” Vygotsky “aimed to account for how people learn, rather than to change the circumstances and thus the quality of their lives, [yet] he did suggest ways in which concepts could be taught more effectively in the context of school.”  From the research of both men, there is now a movement in education to “teach those oppressed by inequitable educational opportunities and income distribution (socioeconomic issues) to question their locations in society and ultimately seek to alter personal agency and economic structures” to achieve a more fulfilling and intellectual life.  To start the process, as educators we must begin to practice what we preach because education is a reciprocal act in which teachers are the main role models for their students.  After all, social justice is a tri-fold relationship involving reflection, change, and participation from students and teachers alike.
            A few questions I thought of during my reading:  How do we impose any sense of morality on our students without making them seem like we are taking away their voice?  When do we begin to question the social constructs that have been engrained into our subconscious?  When confronted with issues such as racism, do we work from within the system or take an external position or to respect all opinions, must we approach the situation from both perspectives?  What can be done to address and put an end to unintentional discrimination and racism?  What are ‘acceptable’ approaches in schools and society to challenge inequity, inequality, and oppression? (JS)