I went back today to look at one of the earliest critiques of critical pedagogy, where an instructor struggled to take the theory and put it into practice. I'm not sure if these paragraphs will make the cut.
Issues
emerged as critical pedagogy moved from theory into practice. In 1988 Elizabeth
Ellsworth claims in "Why Doesn't This Feel Empowering? Working Through the
Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy" that critical pedagogy does not go
far enough in problematizing the role of the instructor and the limitations of
dialogue. No matter what the sociopolitical vision of the instructor may be, in
college credit classes classroom equality is an illusion as critical pedagogy
practices leave the "authoritarian nature of the teacher/student
relationship intact" (306). In addition, the instructor's personal stake
and relation to their sociopolitical vision is often left unexamined. Ellsworth
suggests shedding the goal of "utopian
moments of 'democracy,' 'equality,' 'justice,' or 'emancipated' teachers --
moments that are unattainable (and ultimately undesirable, because they are
always predicated on the interests of those who are in the position to define
utopian projects)" (308).
So
should educators have a sociopolitical vision for their classroom? One of the
main distinctions between Freire and Dewey was Freire's radical agenda. This radical
agenda is a response to capitalism and the cultural institutions that reinforce
its exploitative nature. Because capitalism is pitted as the evil we are trying
to extract ourselves from, critical pedagogy became divorced from the careerist
or vocational aspect of education. As Ellsworth notes, this conscious movement
away from the professional goals of the students is fueled by the interests of
the instructor. A students' vision of utopia usually contains a well-paying job.
Complicating
this vision of helping students dismantle the system of capitalism is the
emergent argument that there is no longer any social, political, or personal
element outside the realm of capitalism. If, as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt
argue in Empire, there is no place
outside the system of capitalism, then critical pedagogy needs to assess its
counterhegemonic practices that are not only oppositional to the students
desires, but ineffectual at keeping students from feeding the system.
In
addition to the role and vision of the instructor, Ellsworth also asks us to
reconsider our expectations of students and the results of classroom dialogues.
If as Ellworth and others (Elbow, Wright) asserts, the critical class retains
the unequal relationship between teacher and student, it is not a free zone
where students feel free to say anything without reprecussion.
"Things were not being said for a
number of reasons. These included fear of being misunderstood and/or disclosing too much and becoming too
vulnerable; memories of bad
experiences in other contexts of speaking out; resentment that other oppressions (sexism, heterosexism, fat
oppression, classism, anti-Semitism) were being
marginalized in the name of addressing racism-- and guilt for feeling such resentment; confusion about the
levels of trust and commitment surrounding those who were allies to another group's struggle; resentment by some
students of color for feeling that they
were expected to disclose 'more' and once again take the burden of doing the pedagogic
work of educating White students/professor about the consequences of White middle-class privilege; and resentment by
White students for feeling
they had to prove they were not the enemy (316)"
None
of these possible road blocks are acknowledged in the abstract theoretical
vision of critical pedagogy. Though Ellsworth doesn't used the terminology,
issues related to affect are also noted in her classroom where realized
"all knowings are partial, that there are fundamental things each of us
cannot know" (310).
Affect
theory explains the limitations of rational discourse. Students cannot fully
articulate the reasoning behind their subject positions or beliefs because of the
pre-cognitive elements that shape them. Furthermore, when individuals are
presented with facts that irrefutably challenge their beliefs, their beliefs
become further
entrenched, a
phenomenon psychologists call belief preservance . As reported by Scientific American, " Everyone does it, but we are especially
vulnerable when invalidated beliefs form a key part of how we narrate our
lives. Researchers have found that stereotypes, religious faiths and even our
self-concept are especially vulnerable to belief perseverance."
Interesting, the beliefs they we are most reluctant to scrutinize and change
are the ones most often touched about in a critical classroom. No wonder the
pragmatism of critical pedagogy is being called into question.
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