[Note:
This posting is subject to further editing.]
An
advocate of critical theory continues his/her presentation …
Finally, with the last posting, this blog
introduced readers to the main ideas of the late Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator,
and respected spokesperson for the critical pedagogy perspective. He argued for education to strive for the
liberation of disadvantaged students and transform the exploitive system under
which they live. Generally, he perceived
that the prevailing system, set up by the elites, exploited the disadvantaged –
or oppressed as he would call them. The “haves”
do that by how they arrange the social and economic conditions of the nation.
The
maintenance of such conditions relies heavily on the discourses the elites
utilize. These discourses, through their
common use, effectively convince the “have-nots” that what-is is natural and
inevitable. These discourses are so
successful, the oppressed not only accept it but strive to become oppressors
themselves – of course, while not totally impossible, a highly unlikely occurrence. The bottom line is that the elites can
maintain, through the use of language, this systemic reality at minimal cost.
Ironically,
both the oppressed and the oppressors are dehumanized by this process. The oppressed due to the disadvantages they
experience – in many cases that would be the daunting challenges of poverty
which undermines their dignity – but also for the oppressors in that they lose
sight of their commonality with many of their fellow human beings. For the haves, have-nots turn out to be
merely commodities to be numbered and exploited.
Such
a national setting needs transformation, that is the common set of values,
aims, goals, and beliefs needs to be changed to achieve a just system. To begin, those who are oppressed must
transform themselves and lead the transformation of others. This is not accomplished by individuals, but
through what Freire calls comradeships among the oppressed. They must see how it is that they are being
oppressed and appreciate the need for united efforts that are characterized by
close kinship and a thorough understanding of their common plight.
They must shed any wish to
accomplish or secure the oppressors’ lifestyles. This is a complex goal in that their wishes
come about through complex networks of mental attractions – those attractions
that mirror the lifestyles of the oppressors.
While
holding this counterproductive image, the oppressed develop a high and
dysfunctional level of self-depreciation – convinced that they are unfit. Within
such a mental state, the oppressors are seen as being magically invulnerable.
And
what are the consequences of such thinking?
The main result is the debilitating disposition leads to fatalistic
thinking. The oppressed, perhaps after
an effort to become successful and with the likely failure that results, accept
their status as being inevitable, believed to result from forces of nature, or
the like. The recurring aftermath is one
of despair and pathological behavior patterns such as excessive drinking or spousal
abuse.[1]
But
effective transformative change within these exploited people can bolster a
sense of self-worth and the attainment of confidence while instilling a sense
of responsibility for what they do. In
short, they attain a consciousness of “intentionality” or an internal sense of
efficacy. And all this can be done or
assisted by schools instituting curricular changes aimed at unveiling and
deconstructing the knowledge that the oppressors promulgate. They need to reconstruct their knowledge to
one of liberation. That is, the
oppressed need to opt for a liberating construct.
But
in its stead, current oppressive curricula enable exploitive
relationships. And one chief means by
which they accomplish this is the implementation of a “banking” instructional
approach. In this approach, teachers
take the role of “depositors” of knowledge and students become “depositories”
of that knowledge. Freire describes this
approach:
Narration (with
the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the
narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into
“receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher. The more completely she fills the
receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles
permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. [2]
Missing are any call for students to be
creative, much less any element directed at transforming students or liberating
them.
In
counter distinction, a liberating instructional approach is for students to be productive
in such instructional processes that include inquiry, invention, and
reinvention, i.e., liberation is realized by interactive study. That would be when students study or work on
the realities of their subjugation. In addition,
it would not create a distinctive assignation between the teacher and the
student.
That is, the roles as they are generally found
in the classroom establish opposing functions or assumed character distinctions
between teachers and students: teacher
are informed, students are uninformed and ignorant. In this arrangement the teacher possesses
what is of worth, and students have nothing to contribute to the learning
enterprise.
A
liberating education approaches the classroom scene with a different set of
assumptions. It believes both the
student and teacher have interchangeable roles in the learning exercise. That is, both function as teachers and
students. And a lesson doesn’t end when
the bell rings at the end of the period.
Instead, it continues as students actively investigate their reality
with targeted questions to answer – that being questions that inquire into the
factors affecting their oppressed standing.
This is an on-going affair.
A
revolutionary teacher is one who strikes a partnership with the student and the
student is an active agent, with a role where students see themselves as being
“with” the world of others, not merely being “in” that world. This approach counts on teachers and students
having active consciousnesses with different goals from those found in an
oppressive arrangement: that would be to
communicate, not control, to see the world in an organic way, not in an
objectified or mechanical manner.[3]
[1] On a trip to a Central American nation to
visit schools and listen to school students present project reports on civic
related conditions in their communities, this blogger was stunned by the
recurring reports expressing the problems of alcoholism and spousal abuse.
[2] Paulo
Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
(New York, NY: Continuum Publishing Company, 1999), 52-53.
[3] But this is not the organic
way David Easton wrote about in describing how the political systems approach
changed in the late sixties (the addition of a feedback element to that model),
but instead it is a truly humanized view that respects the nature of being
human. Afterall, as this blog has
already pointed out, critical theory strives to truly humanize the learning
process not only in classrooms, but in how people conduct their lives, whereas
the political systems model does not shed its mechanical perspective – it’s
still inputs, policy making, outputs, and feedback.
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