What is critical pedagogy?
Before the reading, I thought that critical pedagogy was going to be about teaching social justice concepts to students. After the readings this week, I know that it is only one facet of what critical pedagogy is, and that critical pedagogy is very connected to the concepts of holistic education that we discussed last semester. It also seems that critical pedagogy is more of a mindset or a philosophy that permeates your teaching than an concrete teaching strategy. The Olivia Gude article really helped me connect critical pedagogy to the ideas we discussed in our reading on holistic education. (Also Olivia Gude is amazing and basically my art ed spirit animal.) My takeaways from this article were that our job is to create the conditions in our classroom that allow our students to be engaged citizens. Very similarly to the ideals of holistic ed, this happens when students are connecting self, process, and product. Through hearing the stories of others and telling their own story, students develop the qualities and awareness of members of democratic society. This made me more comfortable about the idea of critical pedagogy, because I don't necessarily have to have a concrete discussion like "This is what feminism is and you should be a feminist.". My job is to create platform for students to tell their story and listen to other stories, and through that listening they become more conscious of and accepting of others differences. They also learn to read images and deconstruct the messages they are getting and asking questions. Gude's says "A truly democratic culture must be composed of many voices." Through art, students can hear the voices and stories of others. Gude goes on to discuss that through playing with meaning, forms, and ideas through telling their story, students experiment with, use, and remix socially constructed meanings. We can facilitate this discovery by curating the art experiences students have and expanded students' collection of imagery and tools. The Drinkwater article also touched on the idea that critical pedagogy develops student's cultural awareness by sharing their story, and listening to the stories of others. Drinkwater also emphasized that critical pedagogy focuses on student growth and critical thinking. Students grow and learn to think critically when they are engaged in self reflection and critical inquiry. They also grow from learning to thoughtfully express their opinions and challenge society norms. Learning to question and challenge makes them less susceptible to propaganda and other misleading messages. Drinkwater also mentions the importance of the teacher as learner and how it is so important to have the classroom be a two-way dialogue between the teacher and the students. Nagda and Durin also focused on the importance of dialogue and the back and forth learning between teacher and student, as well as the importance of reflection. It also focused on diversity and the importance of equality, freedom, and justice. This article was the most similar to what my preconceived ideas of what critical pedagogy was. Nagda and Durin define citizens as "people who are active in the public sphere of the community and can deliberate with a diversity ofperspectives and people; they have ‘the ability to keep an open mind, to stand in another person’s shoes, to change and to make decisions with others’ " (166). Now I would define critical pedagogy as a teaching philosophy that focuses on making sure students can think and question and not just regurgitate. It uses critical questioning, reflection, and story-telling to help students think for themselves, challenge stereotypes, and question social norms. The teacher's role is that of facilitator, curator, and learner, and their focus is to create an environment that values expression and process. How do you already practice it? What more do you want to incorporate? (themes? Methods? Strategies?) I think the main way I practice critical pedagogy in my classroom is by encouraging student voice and focusing on process more than product. Instead of grading products in my HS classes, I assess student's artistic behaviors on a standards based scale. The behaviors I grade for each project are:
Some of these come from their artwork, but others come completely from their journals, our conversations, or observing them work in class. For my upper level classes, we learn a new material or technique and then students are challenged to come up with original artwork that incorporates that showcases that skill. The themes and ideas that students choose to explore continue to blow me away and inspire my own art-making. My Foundations class has four large units of which two fall under the category of critical pedagogy: Artists Express and Tell Stories, and Artists are Activists and Promote Change. I think I also practice critical pedagogy by listening to and accepting students and creating that two-way dialogue. Many of my students are the black sheep in their conservative families and for some of them, I may be one of the first adults that accepts them for who they are or values their thoughts and opinions. I have learned so much and changed so many of my own stereotypes by listening to my immigrant students' stories about the challenges and bittersweet emotions that come from leaving Mexico and coming to the United States. To improve my own practice and dig in more to critical pedagogy, I would like to work on showing my students more artists and images to add more ideas to their meaning making repertoire that Gude discussed. I have also been inspired by many of our cohort members to create more connections to the local community in Osceola. Angie's post this week got me thinking about and questioning if I do enough to encourage students to think about themselves as makers-of-change. The TED talk she posted made me think about how I could bring the Artists as Activists unit full circle so that students don't see art activists as some abstract other, but begin to think of themselves as activists who have a powerful voice.
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AuthorMorgan Singleton is a secondary art educator with a Master's degree in art education. Archives
April 2017
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