Education, subversion and transformation

1. Education, subversion and transformation Reinventing Education Week 5 Will Curtis

2. What do Postman and Weingartner mean by ‘subversive’? • Crap-detecting • History as the ‘veneration of ‘crap’’ • The ‘anthropological perspective’

3. Why is ‘crap detecting’ important now? Why do advances in technology and mass media mean teachers need to help foster better ‘crap detectors’? P and W use a clock to show the distinct nature of society/culture today – why does this ‘change revolution’ require ‘crap detectors’? Why is it up to teachers?

4. What do teachers do wrong at present? • Where are teachers going wrong – ‘future shock’ • What are ‘Guess what I’m thinking questions’? • Why is the ‘medium the message’?

5. An ‘Inquiry Method’ • Not telling students what they ‘ought to know’ • Lessons developing according to students responses (not pre-planned structure) • Avoiding giving summaries • Avoiding making evaluations about student contributions • Posing problems for students • Student-student rather than teacher-student interaction • QUESTIONS • Success = facilitating ‘good student’ characteristics…..

6. A ‘good student’ is…. • Self confident • Confident in own judgement • Flexible • Not afraid of being wrong • Someone who enjoys problem-solving • Not afraid of there not being straightforward answers The ‘3 I Programme’ / Interesting blog

7. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) • Sao Paulo, Brazil • Marxist educationalist • Spent life as an educator, working with the adult illiterate poor in Recife, Brazil • Key text: Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) • Critique of education as ‘jug and mug’ • Developed truly democratic, empowering, grass-routes educational theory and practice • ‘Culture circles’ – learning collective not individual • His work led to development of ‘critical pedagogy’

8. “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world”

9. ‘Banking education’ • the teacher teaches and the students are taught; • the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; • the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; • the teacher talks and the students listen -- meekly; • the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined; • the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;

10. ‘Banking education’ (cont.) • the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher; • the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it; • the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students; • the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.

11. Questions and websites • How convincing is the critique of ‘banking education’? • What might ‘problem-posing’ education look like in practice? • Can we get beyond the teacher as organising, passing on, controlling knowledge? • How important are Freire’s emphasis on community, informal education, dialogue and parity between role of teacher and student? Websites of interest: http://www.paulofreireinstitute.org/ http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/Research-Centres/Centre-for-Educational-Research-in-Equalities-Policy-and-Pedagogy/London-Paulo-Freire-Institute/ http://www.paulofreire.org/ http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-freir.htm

12. Who are the key contemporary critical pedagogy theorists? Ira Shor (with Paulo Freire) Peter McLaren - website Henry Giroux Michael Apple

13. Society consists of ‘oppressors and ‘the oppressed’ • Unequal stratification (social and economic disadvantage) in: • Class • Gender • Ethnicity • Sexuality • Age • Region • Nation • Health • Reinforced through HEGEMONY (subtle, invisible control – everyone believes prevailing order is the natural, commonsense, only and right way to live – ideological – consent not coercion)

14. ‘Critical Pedagogy’ is explicitly committed to the oppressed • Education can’t be neutral – teachers either support the status quo (and therefore the oppressors) or fight for change (for the oppressed) • Mainstream schooling ‘makes’ people who are ‘captives of their ignorance’ – unable to conceive of alternatives to inequality / oppression • Critical pedagogy is about raising critical consciousness • Students helped to critique situations / ideologies as they are • Students should be helped to question and challenged domination • To reveal hegemony

15. Teachers should be asking questions like…. YouTube - Giroux interview • What knowledge is of most worthwhile? • Whose knowledge is most important? • What knowledge should be taught, and just as important, what knowledge is not to be taught? • How does the structure of the school contribute to the social stratification of our society? • What is the relationship between knowledge and power? • What does this imply for our children? • What is the purpose of schooling? • Is it to ensure democracy or to maintain the status quo and support big business? • How can teachers enable students to become critical thinkers who will promote true democracy and freedom?

16. Praxis • From THEORY to PRACTICE • Teachers need to think about what they are doing and why they are doing it! • They should consider the possibilities for change through education • Aim to provoke individual and collective action to transform the world – to be equal and democratic • Develop strategies to make students who: • genuinely participate in the world • can and do create the world

17. http://www.radicalteacher.org/default.asp • Teaching the Experimental Arts of American Protestby Joseph Entin • Teaching Protest Literatureby Paul Lauter • Hunting for the Market Economy: Using Historiographical Debates to Critique the Evolution of the Market Economy and Capitalismby Chad William Timm • Teaching Radicalism from the University Archivesby Jonathan Vincent and Danny Mayer • Queering Public School Pedagogy as a First-Year Teacherby Loren Krywancz • Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching.Edited by Deborah Menkart, Alana Murray, and Jenice View. (Teaching for Change, 2004).Reviewed by David J. Leonard • Take Back Higher Education: Race, Youth, and the Crisis of Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Era.By Henry A. Giroux and Susan Searls-Giroux (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).Reviewed by Quaylan Allen • Danger and Opportunity: The Antinomies of Environmental EducationMichael Bennett and Sarah Chinn • Reflections from the Garden: Developing a Critical Literacy of Food PracticesDeborah Adelman and ShamiliSandiford • Spinning the World: Making Visible the Genealogies of Environmental PolicyMarlia Banning • Greening the Campus: Contemporary Student Environmental ActivismAshley Dawson • Breaking Boundaries: Ecofeminism in the ClassroomCatherine Villanueva Gardner and Jeannette E. Riley • Examining the Poverty Line in the Developmental Mathematics ClassroomBetsy J. Bannier

18. An example: Reflections from the Garden:Developing a Critical Literacyof Food Practices(Adelman and Sandiford) Radical Teacher, 78, 2007 Read your extract: • What makes this ‘critical pedagogy’? • How is this a ‘radical’ education? • Is there ‘praxis’? • Would you like to be a student there? Why?

19. Look – I lifted a list of criticisms off Wikipedia!! (Am I ‘reinventing education’ or not?) • Teachers that use this method will often bias the class towards an anti-status quo position instead of allowing them to decide if they agree or disagree with the situation at hand. • This approach to understanding the nature of society is often presented in a very intellectual fashion. When an individual attains the interest to find out the validity of the statements he inherently must consider himself separate from the rest of society. Critics will describe such a self-image as being elitist in a way which excludes the bulk of society thus preventing progress. • The goal exceeds the desire to instill creativity and exploration by encouraging detrimental disdain for tradition, hierarchy (such as parental control over children), and self-isolation. • Such a high degree of distrust in generally accepted truths will create or perpetuate conspiracy theories. • Critical pedagogists selectively pick icons to interrogate and subvert: for example, Thomas Jefferson but not Martin Luther King. • Many people involved in critical pedagogy have never been involved in serious struggles and have used the field to build themselves and a small publishing cabal rather than a social movement. • Critical pedagogy is, in many instances, a movement in opposition to revolutionary or marxist movements as easily seen in its roots in Catholic base communities of Latin America, created to stave off the potential of class war. Much of critical pedagogy focuses on culture, language, and abstractions about domination rather than criticizing the centrality of class, alienation, and exploitation. • Rather than "liberating" student thought, teachers replace a cultural bias with their own bias

20. Group activity How might a ‘critical pedagogist’ approach the following subjects? • Business Studies • Media Studies • Mathematics • Health and Social Care • Chemistry • Interdisciplinary studies

21. What is Urban Education? YouTube - The Food Project - Urban Education and Outreach Video • Movement in the US since mid-1980’s • Drawing from a range of interest groups • Draws from work of Critical Pedagogy, but applied more specifically to actual, realisable practices in schools in the inner cities • Primarily concerned with SOCIAL JUSTICE “….works with stakeholders in low-income communities, community-based organizations, and public systems to expand services for children and families, improve health, educational and other outcomes, and increase employment and economic opportunities.” Urban Strategies Council

22. Anyon ‘Radical Possibilities’ (2005) • Education problems caused by urban problems and has potential for solutions – why? Strategies: • Student self esteem / politicization • Working with community • Grassroutes • Immediate small-scale projects • Dealing with people in power • Link education and community issues • Collaboration across groups • Classrooms as ‘movement-building spaces’ • Regional AND national

23. An example: ‘Bridging Troubled Waters’ (Foster, 2006) • Strategies for teaching evacuees of Hurricane Katrina • Three (four) principles for effective, hopeful, realistic, grounded, transformative teaching in crisis • Know your students • Build community • Maintain reciprocal high expectations • (teachers as reflexive about their work)

24. Imagine you are a group of people looking to support your students who are in a ‘failing’ inner city secondary school. You include a teacher, a local politician, the head of the school, a parent and a local community activist. What kinds of strategies might you employ: • On a community level • For the organisation/structure of the school • For the teachers • For the students

25. Websites of interest • http://www.urbanedjournal.org/ (key journal – have a look – loads of interesting articles!) • http://gse.berkeley.edu/research/urbaned/Center_urban_ed.html (Center for Urban Education) • http://www.rethinkingschools.org/ (independent publisher – loads of great materials) • http://www.urbanstrategies.org/index.html (lots of real examples of activities/partnerships in Oakland, California) • http://www.acorn.org (organises social movements for low income communities) • http://www.urbanstrategies.org/programs/schools/ExpectSuccess.html (Expect Success! urban education project)

26. Next week…. A debate! (broadly following the Debating Matters format) MOTION = ‘Universities are a public good’ Two to present for each team (proposer and seconder), one chair and three judges • Four presenters introduce their case for 3 minutes each • Questions from judges (1 to each presenter from each judge – 20 minutes) • Questions from the floor (20 minutes) • Cross-questioning by other team’s presenters (15 minutes) • Floor take a vote • Judges decision and feedback (10 minutes)

27. Readings for next week…. • Collini, S. (2012) What are universities for? (chapter 1 – and 6 if possible) • Book review symposium – Sociology, 47 (2) 2013, pp. 399-406 • Exec summary of Wilson review • Exec summary of Witty review