Critical Pedagogy And The Reggio Emilia

John Dewey is considered to have been a pedagogical progressivist, meaning he focused on education reform by first reforming the way that the teaching was actually done. In the past education focused on teaching children facts, mostly by learning with repetition. This was a problem because it taught children information but not how to use that mindfulness with critical thinking in real-world situations. These problems led John Dewey to write a series of articles that described his views on teaching and how it should be improved upon, this is called “My Pedagogic Creed”. Dewey wanted to equally incorporate a psychological, the abilities and interest of the student, and sociological, the needs and commitments of the society, aspect into teaching. He believed that children were born with blank slates and throughout their lives they would receive guidance “unconsciously” and be molded into adults (Dewey, 1). So the introduction of these aspects would help the molded children into better citizens and that would help drive the social economy into prosperity and overall a better democratic society.

Critical pedagogy is a philosophy that aims to foster more than just dialogue between the educators and students. It encourages “exploration, to help students move through the process of discovery by talking with them, asking questions and generally keeping up the momentum of exploration” (Elmborg, 2002, p. 458). This then effectively resolves the issue of a stagnant pedagogy, one that does not keep up with the times and needs of the students. Additionally, critical pedagogy serves to place some, or perhaps a lot of autonomy on the students’ part, attributing the means to the realization potential to them as well as the educators. As such, the only way for the educator to come to a better understanding of their students’, as well as their own

A forth arguement, critical literacy, exists in small american accedemic communities as oppotititionall material rather than a popular and driving theory. As primarily a marxist idea, it is popular in 3rd world contries used as a means of power and controll over those regions. Seen as a threat to capitalism, it is considered danagerous and will most likely continue be banned from american classrooms for the forseeable future.

Firstly, Dewey's standpoint for education stands along the lines of a philosophical interpretation that left quite the impression on the people of the twentieth century. Although Dewey and Jefferson both play important roles in the education system, a variety of their ideas are in fact, dissimilar. With this in mind, Jefferson strongly believes that reading is one of the key components in every student's path to education while Dewey believes that this approach is too individualistic. Also, even though Dewey and Jefferson both agree that humans have natural instincts or impulses that aid in learning, they have different viewpoints as to what those

“Play is developmentally appropriate for primary-age children and can provide them with opportunities that enrich the learning experience” (Copple & Bredekamp 2009). Early childhood education holds two main focuses; a child-based focus and a family-based focus. Early childhood education has positive outcomes on the child through their learning experiences, and their growth and development. Based on the family, the results of early education happen through the communication that the family has with the educators and by the encouragement they get from within themselves, and also from the educators.

The terms “play”, “learn” and “teach” are commonly used in the early childhood sector. This essay attempts to define and interconnect these terms to produce a holistic understanding of how play can be used as a medium to help children learn.

In today’s current school systems, the question of whether or not schools are correctly teaching students the right curriculum is coming up for debate. In the Article,"Teaching Critical Thinking by Marcia Clemmitt, she goes into extensive research of the U.S. Department of Education’s crisis of standardized testing. Most learning activities include standardized testing which lacks many students to express creative and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the examination and evaluation of ideas, events and arguments in their contexts which introduces students to interrogate assumptions and identifying biases (Clemmitt)Pure critical thinking involves investigating a text more than just memorizing, but to apply theirself in other ways of techniques, meaning schools should stimulate more analytical methods of teaching. This would not only free students from a sheltered test culture,but will allow students to think in a deeper,more passionate way than before.

John Dewey is one of many who impacted education greatly. I believe John Dewey made such a big impacted on education because of his different beliefs with how students learned. His revolutionary ideas during his life, that remain fundamentally important to modern schooling today. Dewey had a new philosophy and ideas on how students learn and how teachers should teach. He believed that people learn by doing, and learn from a hands on approach. He also thought for this to be able to happen, students had to interact with their environment to better adapt and learn. Dewey also thought that teachers and students must learn together, which was a very interesting concept to me because I think people, even adults should always be learning. I think John Dewey says it best when he says “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

Our current society is based on oppression as it privileges certain values while marginalizing others. The school system only teaches basic skills for decoding and understanding printed texts. This approach does not provide children opportunities to challenge the texts and the ideas presented as young children are taught into the dominate discourses in our society. Educators should teach critical literacy, so children can question and challenge texts and contexts. Children need to understand the different ways of reading in order to understand the different meanings behind the texts. Through critical literacy, children can question their own beliefs and values and to understand how ideas and knowledge are socially constructed

As I progress through the module my knowledge of critical pedagogy continues to deepen, thus, my teacher led research continues to unfold. To a critical educator, knowledge acquired is never neutral or objective, but structured (McLaren, 2007). Onotologically speaking, critical educators view knowledge as historically and socially routed and this is reflected within a school setting. There are many different power relationships within a school setting, and this is an important factor in critical theory. To critical educators, problems are caused by the social interaction between the individual and society or through different power relationships (Scotland, 2012). Knowledge is socially constructed and I think this is the most prominent way my research project

Critical theory is an idea that speaks to the individual desire for achieving success as defined by the individual and not the society. It lends itself more to finding out why there are paradoxes in society.

This research is on the background of John Dewey (1859-1952), his theories, his influences and the

Theorists play an important role in society today. Members of the community look to these leaders of their field to help guide and make understanding of the situations we approach in life. There are many different views on the topics in society, especially education and how we learn. ________ The Critical Theory and leading theorist have influenced how we view education and driven to shape our understanding of how we learning in the world today.

This approach was a model of early childhood education that was based on the foundation that would facilitate a child’s learning through different ways. The ways, such as expressive, communicative, and cognitive, were intended to progress early childhood development. This approach was founded by a man who was an early education specialist from Reggio Emilia, a town in North Italy. The man’s name was Loris Malaguzzi. His vision attracted the world through his project and play based curriculum. It was also based on the play of children and the guide of educators. The overall approach is combined from principles that were based off of child-centered curriculums. These types of curriculums included parents, educators, the communities, and the children. This formulated what was known as the “environment.” The environment is known to be the third teacher because it is set up by the educators in order to observe and further the learning of the child. An important factor of this approach is documenting. This

John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont on October 20, 1859, to parents Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemisia Rich. His parents named him after his older brother who died less than a year before his birth. Dewey attended the University of Vermont along with his two surviving brothers. He studied the writings of T. H. Huxley and learned evolutionary theory from G. H. Perkins which influenced his focus on the relationship between humans and their environment.