The Origins and Tenets of
Critical Pedagogy
The origins of this broad system of educational methods
can be found in the works of a group of neo-Marxists from the Frankfurt
School during the early 1930's. Soon after the theory began to take
on a definite shape, it quickly became the paradigm of sociological education
and was adapted to fit various contexts throughout western Europe and in
the Americas. As previously mentioned, one of the earliest proponents
of the Latin American variety of this system was Paulo Freire. The
experiences of his youth in Brazil led him to an interpretation of oppression
that explicitly blamed proscriptive educational methods for the supposed
‘backwardness’ of socially marginalized peoples. He began synthesizing
his ideas on education and society during the 1960’s, after which he was
summarily jailed and exiled for the threat his ideas posed to the established
order in Brazil. In 1970 the first edition of Freire's Pedagogy
of the Oppressed was published, which received wide acclaim for its
breadth of scope and depth of analysis.
In this publication, Freire establishes a clear
connection between common educational methods in practice and oppressed
groups’ apparent
inability to act in the interest of their own liberation. He analyzes
the process by which an oppressive system maintains public submission to
the status quo; particularly a "banking"
style educational system. Freire argues that the banking system of
education objectifies its students by teaching memorization of rigid, mystified
facts, thereby removing them from the process of taking an active part
in their education and their lives as subjects. This educational
framework,
"inhibits creativity and domesticates (although it cannot
completely destroy) the intentionality of consciousness
by isolating consciousness from the world, thereby denying people their
ontological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human [to creatively
transform reality based on critical perception] (Freire, 1994: 65)."
Students are also taught to categorize this knowledge, further hampering
their ability to distinguish subtle connections and contradictions in their
own lives. Additionally, the banking
format emphasizes subordination and obedience to the educator; often with
the result of stifling valid questions and leaving the student ignorant
of the relevance of certain materials. The net result of this process
is group of students whose learned knowledge does not correspond to what
they perceive. Therefore, when they encounter contradictions between
the two, they neither possess the problem-solving
abilities adequate to decipher the issue, nor confidence in their capacity
to accurately perceive reality to begin with. A more active and creative
role could be encouraged by teaching critical thought and problematizing
techniques. Freire’s answer to a banking style education is a solution-oriented
pedagogy that fosters critical thinking and is dependent entirely on the
students’ own perception of reality. In this way, students realize
they are an active part of history, and choose to participate in the constant
'naming' of reality. Thus, in order to,
"surmount the situation of oppression, people must first
critically recognize its causes, so that through transforming action they
can create a new situation, one which makes possible the pursuit of a fuller
humanity. Although the situation of oppression is a dehumanized
and dehumanizing totality affecting both the oppressors and those whom
they oppress, it is the latter who must, from their stifled humanity,
wage for both the struggle for a fuller humanity; the oppressor, who is
himself dehumanized because he dehumanizes others, is unable to lead this
struggle." (2)
In this way, education becomes a revolutionary force, designed to contribute
to the betterment of all those involved as well as to overcome conditions
of oppression. This framework is necessarily aimed toward upsetting
the status quo, which accounts for its distinct lack of popularity
in governmental circles and public education programs in general. The aim
is to foster social empowerment.
Tom Heaney explains that,
"For poor and dispossessed people, strength is in numbers
and social change is accomplished in unity. Power is shared, not
the power of a few who improve themselves at the expense of others, but
the power of the many who find strength and purpose in a common vision.
Liberation
achieved by individuals at the expense of others is an act of oppression.
Personal freedom and the development of individuals can only occur in mutuality
with others (Heaney)."
Freire’s pedagogy is designed to educate people in such a way that their
knowledge has meaning to them, thereby raising a critical
consciousness. By bringing their knowledge base closer to perceived
reality, students may then acquire the confidence to act boldly and with
conscience in the face of oppression. The concept of ‘praxis’
is used to describe this intimate relationship between theory and action,
and addresses the common complaint of students that materials are often
taught out of context. The alienation
of theory from practice has the effect of suffocating the main purpose
of knowledge: right action. Praxis
therefore restores the overarching goal of thought and learning.
This is encouraged through a process called conscientization.
The form that a critical pedagogy takes in the classroom
is decidedly different than that of a banking
system. Teachers no longer ‘teach’ in the traditional sense of
the word; rather, they enable and guide a fruitful dialogue
among learners. Essential to this process is the educator's neutrality
in the classroom; they are not to instill their own knowledge in students.
However, this neutrality is not to be misconstrued as disinterestedness,
as Freire and Macedo illustrate:
"The role of the educator who is pedagogically and critically
radical is to avoid being indifferent, a characteristic of laissez-faire
educators. The radical has to be an active presence in educational
practice. But the educator should never allow his or her active and
curious presence to transform learners’ presences into shadows. Neither
can the educator be the shadow of learners. The educator has to stimulate
learners to live a critically
conscious presence in the pedagogical and historical process (Freire
and Macedo, 1987: 140 )."
The educator's purpose is to encourage students to explore their own existential,
concrete realities in a constructive and thought provoking manner.
Moreover, this two way encounter becomes a learning experience for teacher
as well as student. In what is termed a ‘circle
of culture,’ interaction takes place between the educator (teacher-student)
and the student (student-teacher) that seeks to establish some starting
points for discussion. Students draw from significant personal concerns
to develop a series of generative
themes as a point of departure. These themes, in turn, serve as the
basis for a constructive and exploratory dialogue
aimed at distinguishing contradictions within the codifications
that result. A dialectic
approach is used during the dialogues to avoid discussing only one side
of the story and to stimulate an ability to critique ideas or situations
that are difficult to understand. From the codified
themes,
the group then begins to move toward decodifying
the same themes in an effort to ascertain underlying causes. The
process of codifying and decodifying, or constructing and deconstructing,
allows a fresh perspective to emerge in the dialogue.
The theme's,
"'decoding'
requires moving from the abstract to the concrete; this requires moving
from the part to the whole and then returning to the parts; this in turn
requires that the subject recognize himself in the object (the coded
concrete existential situation situation) and recognize the object as a
situation in which he finds himself, together with other subjects.
If the decoding
is well done, this movement of flux and reflux from the abstract to the
concrete which occurs in the analysis of a coded situation leads to the
supersedence of the abstraction by the critical perception of the
concrete, which has already ceased to be a dense, impenetrable reality
(Freire, 1993: 86)."
With repeated codifications
and decodifications
of diverse generative
themes, students are effectively removing their own perceived barriers
to understanding and corrective action. It is this interaction which
gives rise to a critical
consciousness and liberatory
action. Students emerge from a critical education as autonomous
thinkers, empowered to respond to conditions of oppression which act at
crosscurrents to their well-being.
