Transcending Yonder Social Mill

Transcending Yonder Social Mill
Critical Pedagogy: Dreaming of Democracy

“To enable students to envision alternatives, to inspire them to assume the responsibility for collectively recreating society.” (97)

While certainly the quoted phrase above sounds noble, I find it to be endlessly troublesome. This pedagogy is just bursting at the seams with politics, which happens to be my least favorite subject. Conflict lies at its center. People cannot seem to discuss it without descending into impassioned argument, even when they know relatively little about the topic at hand. Perhaps the trouble is that what we are striving to change is not one singular idea existing ‘out there;’ it resides in the mind of each individual. By the nature of society, each individual, consciously or unconsciously, plays a major role in its construction and perpetuation. In interacting with others, each models ‘correct’ behavior and reacts to ‘incorrect’ behavior, as Lord Tennyson observes in his “In Memoriam:” “For ‘ground in yonder social mill / We rub each other’s angles down’” (89 ll. 39-40), and so we already collectively create society.

Emily Dickinson observes the conflict inherent in socially constructed truth; it privileges the most commonly held belief and views other, foreign ideas as subversive and threatening:

“Much madness is divinest sense / To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness. / 'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails. / Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, -- you're straightway dangerous, / And handled with a chain.”

To envision alternative ideas is not only to threaten others, it creates a division in one’s own mind between others’ ideas, contained in one’s own mind, and one’s own ideas, ultimately dividing oneself in two. George points out this dualistic phenomenon in Finlay and Faith’s students who felt a “gulf that caused them to feel oppressed despite acknowledged economic privilege” (103), one that I can speak to from personal experience. This ‘oppression’ manifests in the way I perceive choice in my life. I wonder whether I truly want to be “funnel[ed] … into [an] appropriate middle class job” or if there is some other possibility that I cannot currently perceive due to my social ‘training’ that tells me the social structure in which I live is “natural, as unquestionable … as air” (96). While in many ways I reject the opportunities presented to me as the ones I should take, I also do not want to lose access to them.

This entire business of teaching students “to envision alternatives, to inspire them to assume the responsibility for collectively recreating society” (97) is simultaneously a gift and a curse. We cannot in good conscience mould young, peaceful minds, into troubled, social threats. This is not to say we should abandon the endeavor, but we cannot force it upon them, nor should we sneakily insert it into benign-appearing coursework. It must be something that a student chooses for himself and we must make him aware of the consequences.

New Names for Old Values

I'm with Mark--after reading his post "Help! I'm in the Bamboozlizer!" I'm realizing the lack of profundity in devising a pedagogy around the whole idea of empowering students. Of liberating students. Etc. Yes, Mark, I agree: these ideas are part of the basic package of why we teach writing to begin with.

So, why critical pedagogy? Sometimes it seems these pedagogies develop as reactions to extremists teachers the writers have met, or have imagined might exist. I get that. I think we've probably all met one or two of those in our ongoing jaunt through education. The teacher that is so light-headed with glee over completing his dissertation that he's insufferable to learn from because he, surely, knows everything there is to know about this-or-that topic. Or, as George's article suggests, critical pedagogy is reacting to the "back to basics" movement of the 80s, where a "teacher-proof curriculum [was needed] to restore excellence to the schools" (95).

I wonder, how much of our education pedagogy exists out of teacher need to combat or cope with poorly-reasoned politics?

That aside, part of me feels like I've heard this tune before. Pedagogy after pedagogy is about putting some of the power in the hands of the students. Is about de-centering the classroom. Is about valuing and embracing the real, living, breathing, thinking students who sit around you in class and creating something that caters to their needs.

I suspect that this can be a radical notion for the non-teacher. But as someone who has had the opportunity to stand in front of and attempt to guide a group of students to some set of goals, my only thought is Yeah, DUH.

Perhaps I am digressing. Perhaps I am missing the thrust of critical pedagogy. I find it interesting, but necessarily self-conflicting, and George acknowledges as much in her article. In order for critical pedagogy to be used and to liberate students, the teacher MUST be in control. The teacher DOES know more than the students, and that's why she's standing up there, guiding them out of dark into the light of freedom. And, as a teacher that uses such a pedagogy, I will be deciding that the students SHOULD be liberated from something, even if they aren't much interested.

(Although I suppose that is the case with anything we teach--students are often resistent, but we press on.)

What I DO like from this pedagogy is Shor's "power-sharing moves" (106). The idea of having the students determine what the class policies are regarding grading and attendence intrigues me--if they do it, they'll be even more accountable to it. I've wished many times this first semester of teaching, that I had had a formal conversation with my students on classroom expectations.

Again, though, this doesn't seem new. Isn't this just another leg or branch of a huge, over-arcing pedagogy that says, value your students and consider them when you teach? We are just parsing this grand concept into tidy pedagogical packages, but I'm more interested in the worldview that governs all of it.

Critical Pedagogy--multilayered conundrum

“Critical Pedagogy: Dreaming of Democracy” by Ann George

First, I enjoyed the narration of George from a reader’s perspective. Her essay was easy to follow, flavored by questions and theories stemmed from her own struggle with critical pedagogy. This narration style allowed me to wallow alongside her and realize that critical pedagogy has many layers. The fluid synthesis of George’s references to critical works in the field allowed me see the arguments put forth by each major research/scholar in this pedagogy.

From the opening of George’s essay I felt the critical pedagogy’s connection to cultural pedagogy. Empowering students and creating democratic citizens seems to be similar aims between both pedagogies; however, George is quick to point out that critical pedagogy is unique for its explicit tie to education for citizenship. While I found many interesting ideas presented by George, several interesting points caught my attention.

First, George is discussing Freire, as she does throughout her piece, and relates his idea that “dialogue among students and teacher revolves around ‘generative themes’—domination, marriage, or work—that represent students’ perceptions of the world” in regards to “critical consciousness” education (93). As I read this passage, I wondered what the generative themes would be for today’s students? Would they still be domination, marriage, and work? How does one go about finding the major/main generative themes upon which a critical pedagogy class might be formed?

Another area of interest was George’s dialogue of the political influences upon education and how critical pedagogy scholars discuss these influences. I guess this portion of George’s article caught my attention because it is an election year. I was particularly struck by Giroux’s statement that contesting conservation definitions of education is important because it “gives voice to the poor and minorities but also to reach countless middle-class Americans who have ‘withdrawn from public into a world of sweeping privatization, pessimism, and greed’” (qtd. in George 96). Giroux made this statement in a 1987 publication, when Reagan was president, the DOW was averaging 2000 or higher, and Americans were prosperous. I wonder if there is a contradiction in Giroux’s statement and the current affairs at the time or if he feels that middle-class Americans, in general, have moved from a world of public concern and democratic understanding into a world of selfishness. Has this trend continued? If it has, how can critical pedagogy re-awake those who have withdrawn into ‘privatization, pessimism, and greed’? Will critical pedagogy help reach those that have withdrawn? Or is ‘withdraw’ a normal trend and practitioners of critical pedagogy must now address students within this new norm? I digress.

I like Jay and Graff’s point that teacher or school mandated pedagogy within a classroom circumvents democratic classes (George 100). I think that theirs is an important point to consider because while critical pedagogy aims for a democratic classroom, such a classroom may not always be possible. Thus, as teachers, how do we inject critical pedagogy into classroom where there is a restrictive mandate? George furthers this discussion by examining Jeff Smith’s notion that if teachers are to practice critical pedagogy and being democratic, teachers must let students set the agenda (wholly) for the class. This raises two questions: (1) where do teachers draw the line to being democratic? and (2) if students want a traditional classroom experience (what they have been schooled in up to college, let’s say) should the teacher give that to them as a critical pedagogy practitioner?

Yet another point that I found interesting was Finlay and Faith’s findings that students’ writing drastically improved when they used language connected to their private lives (George 103). I suppose these finding is why teachers are now trying to integrate students’ home language or the language they use outside of school into the teaching of writing and allowing students to write pieces that are self-chosen (the topics, genre, language, etc.). Students react more positively to contradicting the dominant culture/dominant language, as I believe Freire might put it.

The last idea or passage that stood out to me was the discussion of Shor and his classroom practices. I was intrigued with the concept of “after-class groups” (George 106). The immediate feedback for the teacher and the students would be tremendously helpful. Allowing both the teacher and the students to shape the direction of the class for the semester. I see it as continuously revising until the both participants have gleaned what they wanted from the course. Since I already practice a sort of class structure revision as my semester progresses, I found this concept possibly useful. However, enacting such a group would be a challenge given the time constraints of my classes. I would also worry that students would not be as forthcoming with me as they were with Shor. Often freshman are resistance and even scared to voice their opinions to the grader, no matter how flexible a teacher may seem.

Overall, I really enjoyed George’s long essay. Many of the ideas presented were thought provoking.