Examples Of Critical Pedagogy

Knowing this about the gifted learner and coming to the realizations about the democratic classroom and working towards social justice, I have come to the conclusion that my reflection must include my current teaching situation, students, and practices. As Camp and Oesterreich (2010) stated in their article on critical teaching, “uncommon teaching offers the possibility of re-centering education on the students and away from the common-sense of scripted and restricted curricula to promote acquisition by students of a critical consciousness in order to become agents of change for social justice”.

One of the goals of education is to motivate and engage our students in learning, even the things that are difficult for them. This paper addresses the hopes and challenges of teacher’s today. Two key perspectives will be highlighted. First, can society find a balance of democracy and mastery of standards in today’s classroom? Second, is it possible to structure a classroom that is inclusive of each child’s individual traits and diversity?

Teaching is not merely about methods used and material presented in the classroom, but about shaping students’ lives to help them construct a firm foundation for a successful future. I desire to teach my students basic life skills as well as challenge them to set and reach their highest goals.

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

Established on these aspects of reflection I will discuss in this section the importance of critical reflection on development of my teaching. I will firstly aim to explore theories on critical reflection on teaching. Secondly I will explore critical reflection in the context of my own teaching. This includes reflecting on planning, delivering lessons, using activities and the role of assessment for learning.

Teaching higher order thinking skills is not a recent need. It is apparent that students, at all levels of education, are lagging in problem-solving and thinking skills. Fragmentation of thinking skills, however, may be the result of critical thinking courses and texts. Every course, especially in content subjects, students should be taught to think logically, analyze and compare, question and evaluate.

       Public schools have discovered the importance of critical thinking, many people are trying to teach children how to do it. The problem is that very few teachers know how to do. Robert Sternberg, an early advocate of critical thinking in teaching,

“…critical thinking is not a method to be learned, but rather a process, an orientation of

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.

According to Supon, one of the fundamental purposes of teaching critical thinking is to enhance the abilities of students to become critical thinkers. Corporate leaders, educational researchers, employers, and parents have continually pushed teachers to assist their students in the development of critical thinking ability. Critical thinking is a skill that ?involved not only knowledge of content by also concept formation and analysis, reasoning and drawing conclusions, recognizing and avoiding contradiction, and other essential cognitive activities? (Supon, 1998).

Paulo Freire is a Brazilian educator and philosopher who is a leading advocate of critical theories. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he believes problem-posing education can fulfill the expectations in a proper classroom environment, by transforming the world which results in a balance of humanization between men and women, and by enabling students to become subjects by which the teacher learns from. My advanced culinary arts class is a good example of problem-posing education because of the way the students and teacher engaged with each other and promoted critical thinking skills.

However, The subject leader is not just the machine that carries out guidelines, policies and enforces the orders from the superior, but it should more address the relationships with relevant others and related performance hoped of a post holder (Adey,1988; Ribbins, 1988; Webb and Luons, 1982). The role-set of the subject leader should involve not only to be teachers, but also their subject leaders, head teachers, governors, parents and student (David, 2001). As an intermediary, the subject leader should accommodate the relationship between all aspects. Therefore, apart from the job of teaching and learning, the more crucial issue for the subject leader is how to deal with these relationships. Furthermore,

As a teacher, one’s role and responsibility should be towards the learners’ ability to learn and for learning to be as tailored made for the individual learner.

According to this theory, critical awareness requires recognition that the social status of an individual, including educational and economic prospects and opportunities, is largely result from its race, gender, and class so the critical theorists want to raise the consciousness of these people dealing with education, knowledge, the school, and teaching and learning. Furthermore, they see the curriculum into 2 parts: the official curriculum which requires teaching subjects and specific skills, and the Hidden curriculum which imposes approved behaviors and attitudes on students through the school environment. They believe that teachers should empower themselves, because they can transform schools into democratic public spheres.

When defining the term “critical thinking” it can seem overwhelming and daunting, especially for young learners. In laments terms, you are teaching your student how to think for him or herself when it comes to problem solving. Instead of giving the student the answer, you give them the tools to discover the answer him/herself. Critical thinking is an important component of any classroom. No matter the age group, these skills stay with a child for the rest of his or her life. As a teacher, it is important to understand what critical thinking pertains to and how to structure part of your lesson plan around developing critical thinking skills.