Entry 4: Critical Pedagogy
This entry examines elements of critical pedagogy present at my fieldwork site. In particular, I noticed the lead teacher using techniques that disrupted the commonplace and created conscientization in the students.
Normally, for instance, the teacher is very friendly. He does not often criticize students directly when they fall short of an expectation. He usually begins every class with an overview of the day’s agenda and then he jumps right into the lesson. Last Friday however, the students were to take a midterm; they were given the option of taking it in person or submitting it online. Only eight of them took it. The teacher used the beginning of the first class this week to address this issue in a constructive way. He went back to the syllabus from day one and highlighted the section that covered grade distribution, pointing out that the mid-term was worth 25% of their grade. This means that those who did not take it (which included my student of focus, Dana) have limited themselves to a maximum class grade of 75%-- and that’s only if they do perfectly on everything else. When students tried to give excuses, the teacher reminded them that they are being held to college level expectations. If you turn an assignment in late in college, your grade suffers. End of story. If there are significant circumstances that prevent you from completing your work on time, you need to take the responsibility to communicate with the teacher before the due date. Anyone who did not take the mid-term and did not communicate a reason beforehand will receive a zero grade.
While all of this was discussed, I watched the students for reactions. They were all highly attentive. There were many looks of surprise and sheepishness. Dana was wide-eyed and motionless. The eight students who had done their work wore looks of pride. It was clear that the teacher’s announcement had some effect. I infer, from the reactions, that these are students who have been given a lot of chances in the past, a lot of leeway when it comes to correcting mistakes. So this announcement was a disruption of what they were used to, a wake-up call that if they are to succeed in college then they need to improve.
Later, during a lesson about stereotypes and whether they can be changed, students were asked to examine twenty people’s faces and determine which race each person self-identified with. A common social ideal is not to judge people based on how they look, and the students were being asked to judge twenty people they’d never met. The students had a difficult time with this, as evidenced by verbal comments they made as well as the amount of time it took them to complete the activity. Students were in a place of discomfort because they were being told to do what normally they know they shouldn’t. This slight discomfort had them very engaged, as evidenced by the fact that every single person participated and many people vocalized their opinions. Ultimately, the highest performing students could only guess five correct faces. Dana only got one or two right. The point of the exercise was to show that even people who do judge based on surface qualities are often completely wrong. So students’ initial beliefs about judgment, which were morality-based, were reinforced by the activity. Not only is it morally wrong to judge people in this way; it is also just very inaccurate. So this activity disrupted the commonplace, asked students for their viewpoints in determining racial identities, and then used the resulting misjudgments to enlighten the students about a social issue.
I love the “disrupting the commonplace” aspect of critical pedagogy. I love teaching people to see things in new ways rather than getting locked into routines. However, I have seen in my own experiences working with kids that routines can be quite useful. They allow you to skip all the steps of expectation setting, for instance, because the expectations are already known. Too much routine can be quite a drag however. Disruptions are a way to excite and re-engage. They also teach creative thinking. I wonder if there is a certain cutoff, though, where a disruption ends up doing more harm than good? I imagine they should be used when a topic is particularly complex or important because it takes a lot of time to do things differently than normal. So it has to be worth the time.
This entry examines elements of critical pedagogy present at my fieldwork site. In particular, I noticed the lead teacher using techniques that disrupted the commonplace and created conscientization in the students.
Normally, for instance, the teacher is very friendly. He does not often criticize students directly when they fall short of an expectation. He usually begins every class with an overview of the day’s agenda and then he jumps right into the lesson. Last Friday however, the students were to take a midterm; they were given the option of taking it in person or submitting it online. Only eight of them took it. The teacher used the beginning of the first class this week to address this issue in a constructive way. He went back to the syllabus from day one and highlighted the section that covered grade distribution, pointing out that the mid-term was worth 25% of their grade. This means that those who did not take it (which included my student of focus, Dana) have limited themselves to a maximum class grade of 75%-- and that’s only if they do perfectly on everything else. When students tried to give excuses, the teacher reminded them that they are being held to college level expectations. If you turn an assignment in late in college, your grade suffers. End of story. If there are significant circumstances that prevent you from completing your work on time, you need to take the responsibility to communicate with the teacher before the due date. Anyone who did not take the mid-term and did not communicate a reason beforehand will receive a zero grade.
While all of this was discussed, I watched the students for reactions. They were all highly attentive. There were many looks of surprise and sheepishness. Dana was wide-eyed and motionless. The eight students who had done their work wore looks of pride. It was clear that the teacher’s announcement had some effect. I infer, from the reactions, that these are students who have been given a lot of chances in the past, a lot of leeway when it comes to correcting mistakes. So this announcement was a disruption of what they were used to, a wake-up call that if they are to succeed in college then they need to improve.
Later, during a lesson about stereotypes and whether they can be changed, students were asked to examine twenty people’s faces and determine which race each person self-identified with. A common social ideal is not to judge people based on how they look, and the students were being asked to judge twenty people they’d never met. The students had a difficult time with this, as evidenced by verbal comments they made as well as the amount of time it took them to complete the activity. Students were in a place of discomfort because they were being told to do what normally they know they shouldn’t. This slight discomfort had them very engaged, as evidenced by the fact that every single person participated and many people vocalized their opinions. Ultimately, the highest performing students could only guess five correct faces. Dana only got one or two right. The point of the exercise was to show that even people who do judge based on surface qualities are often completely wrong. So students’ initial beliefs about judgment, which were morality-based, were reinforced by the activity. Not only is it morally wrong to judge people in this way; it is also just very inaccurate. So this activity disrupted the commonplace, asked students for their viewpoints in determining racial identities, and then used the resulting misjudgments to enlighten the students about a social issue.
I love the “disrupting the commonplace” aspect of critical pedagogy. I love teaching people to see things in new ways rather than getting locked into routines. However, I have seen in my own experiences working with kids that routines can be quite useful. They allow you to skip all the steps of expectation setting, for instance, because the expectations are already known. Too much routine can be quite a drag however. Disruptions are a way to excite and re-engage. They also teach creative thinking. I wonder if there is a certain cutoff, though, where a disruption ends up doing more harm than good? I imagine they should be used when a topic is particularly complex or important because it takes a lot of time to do things differently than normal. So it has to be worth the time.