Precious Knowledge Trailer from Ari Palos on Vimeo.
">Sunday, September 26, 2010
Precious Knowledge Coming Soon!
This is a new documentary about the ethnic studies program in Tucson, AZ that is coming out. It looks amazing! Check out the trailer.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Critical Pedagogy in Pop-Culture Week #1
Every week we will post something on critical pedagogy happening in pop-culture. This week is the first of our series and I have chosen a clip from the movie Dead Poets Society (1989), starring Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke, and Robert Sean Leonard. Dead Poets Society was directed by Peter Weir. Enjoy!
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Challenge #1- What is Your Teaching Philosophy
Our first charge as a group is to write our own personal philosophy of teaching. It needs to be clear and concise so that it can become something that we can remember, share with our students, and remind ourselves of when we encounter challenging teaching situations. It should also be something that is open to change because as said by many many great thinkers, "without change there can be no progress." We are taking this challenge from Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade's book, "What a Coach Can Teach a Teacher". Each of our philosophies will be different as we each come from different backgrounds and work with very different populations and ages of students.
Courtney's First Attempt at her Teaching Philosophy (likely to change in the near future)
I see teaching as a process of facilitating democracy. In the classroom my role is to help my students practice democracy, articulate and voice their opinions and perspectives, and think critically. Through problematizing constructs of knowledge, systems of power, and institutions of learning, I will encourage my students see more clearly that truth and reality are not stagnant, are not neutral, and often privilege the most powerful in society. Through challenging institutionalized power structures in education with creatively critical curriculum and dialogically dynamic classroom communities, I see education as a way to protect true democracy and enact radical equality.
Courtney's First Attempt at her Teaching Philosophy (likely to change in the near future)
I see teaching as a process of facilitating democracy. In the classroom my role is to help my students practice democracy, articulate and voice their opinions and perspectives, and think critically. Through problematizing constructs of knowledge, systems of power, and institutions of learning, I will encourage my students see more clearly that truth and reality are not stagnant, are not neutral, and often privilege the most powerful in society. Through challenging institutionalized power structures in education with creatively critical curriculum and dialogically dynamic classroom communities, I see education as a way to protect true democracy and enact radical equality.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Critical Dialogues Meeting Time and Place
It's official! The Critical Dialogues Group will be meeting every Tuesday from 6 to 7:30 pm at the Prescott College Crossroads Center, Room 206. The group will begin meeting on Tuesday, September 21st. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided. Prescott Unified School District is sponsoring the group and local educators can receive professional development credits for participating in the group. For more information please post a comment to this blog entry or email Courtney Osterfelt at costerfelt@gmail.com.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Critical Pedagogy 101
Critical pedagogy is a form of education that is grounded in critical theory, is student centered, democratic, liberatory, and seeks to challenge systems of domination and oppression. Critical educators empower their students to question traditional forms of knowledge, academia, social systems, and dominant paradigms through the process of problematizing knowledge and educational inquiries. Critical educators incorporate these objectives into any and all subject matter their students study as well as in their personal role in the classroom and the overall learning culture of the learning community. In a democratic classroom that implements critical pedagogy, the students and the teachers are both learners and co-creators of the curriculum, and rather than an environment of hierarchy, the classroom is a space of dialogic discovery where everyone, teacher and students, are participants. Critical pedagogy requires a dedication to personal reflection, not only from the students but also from the teacher. No matter where an individual is in their journey to become critically conscious, all forms of knowledge are susceptible to ideological contamination, one must be committed to a critical praxis that problematizes every level of our realities. Critical pedagogists demonstrate a willingness to constantly reevaluate ones own work to ensure it continues to be student-centered, student-engaging, honest, critical and liberatory.
Critical pedagogy has its roots in the Frankfurt School and has been most notably used and theorized by Paulo Freire. Critical pedagogy has always been a methodology whose purpose is to liberate on both an intellectual level and a truly physical level, as one cannot implement critical pedagogy without incorporating action into the learning process. What I find most compelling about critical pedagogy is that it demands educators to restructure their classrooms in ways that are in direct resistance to oppressive systems. With critical pedagogy one can deconstruct very radical topics with their students or use it to address some of the more traditional canons of academia like math or science, but because critical pedagogy is more than content or curriculum, one can explore science with their students and simultaneously teach them to operate in society in truly democratic ways that reject the subversive patriarchal, white supremacist, hierarchy of modern day society. Educators can talk to their students about democracy, equality, respect, and compassion throughout all the lessons they teach, but in my opinion, radical change will never happen if our teaching doesn’t model for our students ways to behave that demonstrate democracy, equality, respect, and compassion.
For example, when teaching a class about deconstructing patriarchy and it’s relationship to capitalism; if the class is taught utilizing the “banking method,” as Paulo Freire would say, then the students may be downloading new knowledge into their minds, but the teacher is not teaching them to utilize it to seek their own liberation, or even to incorporate it into a new way of viewing and behaving in the world. However, if the same class is taught using critical pedagogy, then students are learning to engage in a process of critical praxis, where suddenly the new knowledge they have been exploring informs their every action in a way that examines their role and relationship to oppression. The same can be said for math, science, history, English, etc.
There are many ways that educators can use critical pedagogy in the classroom. Future posts will focus on different tools and tactics that can be used in the classroom.
Critical pedagogy has its roots in the Frankfurt School and has been most notably used and theorized by Paulo Freire. Critical pedagogy has always been a methodology whose purpose is to liberate on both an intellectual level and a truly physical level, as one cannot implement critical pedagogy without incorporating action into the learning process. What I find most compelling about critical pedagogy is that it demands educators to restructure their classrooms in ways that are in direct resistance to oppressive systems. With critical pedagogy one can deconstruct very radical topics with their students or use it to address some of the more traditional canons of academia like math or science, but because critical pedagogy is more than content or curriculum, one can explore science with their students and simultaneously teach them to operate in society in truly democratic ways that reject the subversive patriarchal, white supremacist, hierarchy of modern day society. Educators can talk to their students about democracy, equality, respect, and compassion throughout all the lessons they teach, but in my opinion, radical change will never happen if our teaching doesn’t model for our students ways to behave that demonstrate democracy, equality, respect, and compassion.
For example, when teaching a class about deconstructing patriarchy and it’s relationship to capitalism; if the class is taught utilizing the “banking method,” as Paulo Freire would say, then the students may be downloading new knowledge into their minds, but the teacher is not teaching them to utilize it to seek their own liberation, or even to incorporate it into a new way of viewing and behaving in the world. However, if the same class is taught using critical pedagogy, then students are learning to engage in a process of critical praxis, where suddenly the new knowledge they have been exploring informs their every action in a way that examines their role and relationship to oppression. The same can be said for math, science, history, English, etc.
There are many ways that educators can use critical pedagogy in the classroom. Future posts will focus on different tools and tactics that can be used in the classroom.
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