There is an abundance of information that has been shared on the subject of critical pedagogy. Some scholars and thinkers in the education sector have gone ahead to argue for its importance in shaping the education of the 21st Century while others have refuted these claims. To take a non-biased stand for or against the suppositions made by scholars of old, it is essential to have a critical look at the subject matter. Previous authors in this subject have argued that critical pedagogy lacks what they called a definite set of principles, which renders the process of setting the definition of its logic quite tricky. However, it has been noted that the proper implementation of the aspects advocated by critical pedagogues in the classroom can yield great scale outcomes on the teaching process. This essay looks at the literature on critical pedagogy, its core principles and the critique that has been directed against its suppositions.
Critical pedagogy shares some semblance with critical thinking. One of such similarities is the fact that they are both essential. However, there are many differences between these two disciplines. The first difference is the expectation of action. Unlike critical thinking which does not push for any effort to achieve social change, critical pedagogy aims at creating social change and action that comes about as a result of educational practices (Cho, 2013). The second difference is in the scope of interest of the two disciplines. Critical thinking focuses more on the individual action and turns a blind eye to mutual relations and actions. On the other hand, critical pedagogy focuses more on corporate action where individual criticality is linked to social criticality (Burbules & Berk, 1999). These two distinctions show that critical pedagogy goes far and beyond critical thinking.
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Critical pedagogy is often thought to be an essential extension of theory. These disciplines employ strategies that are aimed at obliterating the dominant collective paradigms and standards. However, critical pedagogy is very different from a fundamental approach in that it is an educational philosophy which aims at reacting against oppressive systems found in the educational arena. Critical pedagogy focuses on the creation of equal opportunities and setting up dialogical mode of discussion among players in the education sector. As Burbules and Berk (1999) opine, “in the language of critical pedagogy, a critical person is one who is empowered to seek justice and emancipation” (50). Similarly, Collins (1998) posits that the framework of critical pedagogy is one that is concerned with realistically broadening the sites in our learning institutions where natural and noncoercive discourse and structure opposition to oppressive bureaucratic tendencies can thrive.
Critical pedagogy departs from traditional models of education. Primarily, the factor that distinguishes critical pedagogy from other models of education is its promotion of the cause of emancipation and the championing of social justice. Further, critical pedagogy is characterized by its drive for dialogic interaction which aims at giving equal opportunities to all players and participants in the sector. Furthermore, critical pedagogy gives more weight to the experiences of the learners and places these experiences at the epicenter of the learning experience. Other models, like traditional pedagogy, look at the learner as a passive participant in the process of learning. The teacher controls and dictates the why, how and when of education leaving no room for the learner to participate in the learning process.
Paulo Freire is considered to be the Father of critical pedagogy. According to McLaren (2000), Freire’s pedagogy aimed at setting up a non-hegemonic approach which was based both on interactions and dialogue. Freire’s pedagogy had a political dimension to it; it advocated for the inclusion of political and social critiques in the education curriculum. This is why when looking at critical pedagogy, one sees that it champions for a “liberatory” form of education curriculum which stresses on the need for emancipation and at the same time rejects all forms of domestication and oppression (Freire & Macedo, 2018). Further to this, Freire maintains the need for the learning and teaching process to take into consideration two critical dimensions: the content and context of authentic discourse between educators and learners and the social realities which the learners live in.
Concerning the first critical dimension, Freire believes that dialogue has a way of empowering learners to become knowing subjects which in turn cements the relationship between the learners and the educators. According to Freire, when official discourse is applied in the teaching process, education becomes what he calls the pedagogy of knowing (Freire & Macedo, 2018). The author warns that care must be exercised to ensure that the process of education does not disintegrate into a back and forth questions which can potentially become sterile and tedious but instead, it should focus on creating a thriving interaction between the learners and educators. In this arrangement, it is the role of educators to encourage learners to commit themselves to function within the critical practice.
The second key dimension which opines that the learning process should take into account the social realities in which the learners live is of equal importance to the first dimension. Freire argues that authentic thinking does not happen in the ivory tower of isolation but the real world. This argument suggests that learning must be connected to the real world in which the learners live. Any learning process that ignores these realities risk creating divisions that make it difficult for learners to apply that which they have learned to the real world.
The most critical concept in Freire's critical pedagogy is that of praxis. Accordingly, his praxis goes beyond critical reflection and pushes for the application of educational philosophies and practices to design an enhanced educational experience (Freire & Macedo, 2018). With this in mind, learners should be viewed as being active participants in the learning and teaching process, and they should be allowed to contribute to the formulation of the teaching methods used by educators. The educators play the critical role in encouraging learners to participate in the learning process by developing essential consciousness. Critical consciousness can best be improved by implementing what Freire calls a problem-posing model of education (Freire & Macedo, 2018). The author proposed this model as a replacement for the banking model of education which he argues tends to promote domination and oppression. The author goes on to claim that the banking model of education inhibits creative power.
There are several contemporary authors whose works have been influenced by Freire’s philosophy of education. One such author is Ira Shor who authored a book dubbed Critical Teaching and Everyday Life. In his book, Shor criticizes what he calls the institutionalized mode of education that tends to promote undemocratic approaches (Shor, 2013). He observes that these traditional approaches have hindered learners from participating in the learning process and goes ahead to opine that democratic methods of teaching will translate learners from being passive players in the process of education to being active participants and contributors to their education.
Shor (2013) pointed out some limitations found in Freire’s suppositions. The author opined that it was difficult to apply the principles of the Freire's philosophy in a classroom setting. However, Freire responded to this by pointing out that his educational philosophy was designed for application in different educational environments. From this argument, it can be inferred that different learning and teaching practices should be adapted and applied in different learning settings depending on the unique features of the educational environment in question. Freire pointed out that critical pedagogy is a collection of ideologies and that ideologies vary. With this in mind, Freire argued that it is therefore impossible or impractical to come up with a single philosophy of critical pedagogy. Consequently, it is accurate to conclude that one should not speak of critical pedagogy but make reference to critical pedagogies because different pedagogy responds to particular interests, necessities, and conditions.
The difficulty of coming to a consensus regarding defining and conceptualizing critical pedagogy has seen the rise of authors who have come up with varying approaches to this philosophy. One such author is Bell Hooks, who supports Freire's push for building the link between theory and practice to place the learner at the epicenter of the teaching process. However, Hooks does not employ Freire's philosophy instead she introduces what she calls "engaged pedagogy," which combines feminist, anti-colonial and critical pedagogies (Florence, 1998). The author uses her model to repudiate the use of sophisticated vocabulary, which happens to be the key feature in most of the traditional methods. She argues that the use of such complicated language in education erects barriers between learners and their educators.
Roger Simon presented another significant contribution to an alternative view of critical pedagogy. In his approach which he calls the "pedagogy of possibility," Simon argues that pushing pedagogy is also promoting a political ideology. Simon stresses that for such a pedagogy to be successful, different forms of learning and teaching should be linked to the goal of educating learners to be risk averse, to embrace struggle as part of ongoing relations and to envisage a world that is yet to be (Jennings, 2010). Similar to Freire, Simon asserts that his ideas should not be looked at as mere abstractions but should instead be employed in various educational environments.
Jennifer Gore takes a rather unusual view of the entire subject surrounding critical pedagogy. She contends that there are two distinct versions of this philosophy and goes ahead to surmise that the two versions are a representation of the prominent figures who postulated them. In this regard, she attributes the first version, which she calls pedagogical practice, to Shor and Freire, who represents a stand of critical pedagogy that offers examples and concrete suggestions which have been derived from their educational practice and which can be extrapolated to help other educators (Gore, 2013). Her criticism is directed towards the second division which she calls pedagogical project. The pedagogical project is represented by many pedagogues prominent among them being McLaren and Giroux. Gore argues that pedagogical project relies heavily on abstract political vision and as such, it should be called a critical educational theory and not critical pedagogy (Giroux & McLaren, 2014). She further argues that the most significant shortcoming of such an approach is in its failure to outline a set of practices that educators can apply in classroom teaching.
Consequently, pedagogical project restricts its reach to those who can expend their time, inclination or energy to struggle with its content and by so doing limits its scope and its political potential. Gore's criticism is premised on the fact the proponents of such pedagogies focus more on abstract theories which cannot be potentially implemented (Gore, 2013). For example, Gore looks at the concept of empowerment which is championed for by proponents of the "pedagogical project" model. She opines that such a useful concept has been confined to extreme abstractions which force educators to be the sole agents and champions of empowerment and it does not provide the ‘how to' instructions that these educators can follow to achieve such a feat. She, therefore, calls for the creation of guidelines for educators which can guide them and make it possible for the principles of critical pedagogy to be translated and applied in real life. However, this does not in any way presuppose that the author called for the creation of “recipes” of sorts for educators. Like Freire who rejected an essentialist view of his philosophy, Gore also encourages critical pedagogues to consider the context of where the educational process happens.
In sum, critical pedagogy has been defined and explained variously by different authors. Freire has laid it bear that critical pedagogy should not be considered as a one-fits-all type of philosophy, but instead, educators should focus on customizing the pedagogy to fit the educational environments where their learners are found. Freire's philosophy is premised on two dimensions. First, he believes that dialogue has a way of empowering learners to become knowing subjects which in turn cements the relationship between the learners and the educators. Second, he opines that the learning process should take into account the social realities in which the learners live. Taken together, Freire believes that educators should strive to translate learners into knowing subjects and do all this cognisant of the social realities where the learners live. Most importantly, Freire’s philosophy pushes for the application of educational philosophies and practices to design an enhanced educational experience. His work has inspired the works of several contemporary authors who have written extensively on this subject with some supporting his suppositions and others refuting his claims.
References
Burbules, N. C. & Berk, R. (1999). Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy: Relations. Differences and Limits. Critical Theories in Education.
Cho, S. (2013). Critical Pedagogy and Social Change: Critical Analysis on the Language of Possibility . Abingdon: Routledge
Collins, M. (1998). Critical crosscurrents in education . Malabar, Fla: Krieger Pub. Co.
Florence, N. (1998). Bell Hooks' engaged pedagogy: A transgressive education for critical consciousness. Westport, Conn: Bergin & Garvey.
Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (2018). Pedagogy of the Oppressed . New York: Bloomsbury Academic
Giroux, H. A., & McLaren, P. (2014). Between Borders: Pedagogy and the politics of cultural studies. Routledge.
Gore, J. (2013). The Struggle for Pedagogies. Abingdon: Routledge
Jennings, L. B. (2010). Sites of possibility: Critical dialogue across educational settings. Cresskill, N.J: Hampton Press.
McLaren, P. (2000). Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the pedagogy of revolution. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield.
Shor, I. (2013). Critical teaching and everyday life . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
