Critical Pedagogy Within The Canon

Critical Pedagogy is the idea that teachers have a responsibility to teach the awareness of culture, society, and hegemony throughout their yearly lessons. This idea is plausible, but far from easy with the strictures of existing curriculums and canonical texts. Duncan-Andrade and Morrell suggest that even within a Canonical curriculum critical pedagogy is possible. They suggest that to correct for a lack of cultural texts, many school simply add a text with a writer of foreign descent or a multicultural main character. This is less helpful than creating a curriculum where students analyze the Canonical texts and find out why they exist as the predominant texts for the culture and the society. Seeking out an explanation of why the characters of another race are treated in a specific way can be far more important that reading a book written by someone other than a white guy.

            Student voice is the single most critical element to every aspect of critical pedagogy. In fact Duncan and Morrell go as far as to say students should act out to change even the most innate conditions in their school. I draw issue with students being encouraged to rise up against the institution of school. Especially since Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is cited so commonly with this line of reasoning. Freire is so clearly anti establishment. If all students were to  react to teachers as oppressors then it is without a doubt that public education would fall. It’s a fun idea to have student engage in city council matters and even push legislation to help their schools, but teaching that the establishment of school and teacher student relationships can be challenged and destroyed as Freire might suggest is an absurd notion. Duncan and Morrell even extrapolate on the idea that students can place these ideas on a single figurehead in the school which can result in hatred. This is not the direction I want to send my students. I will encourage critical thinking, but the idea that students should view schools and school leaders through a hypercritical lens is wrong.