WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN DARK TIMES
According to Henry Giroux, education is surrounded by political, economic, and social structures. Pedagogy is related to politics because it remarks on the relationships among knowledge, authority, and power; with questions like who has control over the conditions for the production of knowledge. Regarding the cultural and social structures, pedagogy attempts to influence how and what knowledge are being produced and acquired within a certain context.
What Henry Giroux points out is the need for students to raise their voice and defend the university, to demonstrate that the university is important in a democracy. Students must get engaged in the importance of social issues, they must learn to think critically and not just acquire an entire piece of information without questioning it. However, for being capable of doing so, the beginning is the teacher. Teachers are the responsible ones for getting their students engaged in political, economic and ethical conditions, which they will use to think, question, doubt, and imagine.
The education we currently have is one in which students are getting prepared only for presenting exams and not for what is coming next in their lives. It is in this context where we live, where we have the opportunity and possibility to build a critical society in our own life. Nevertheless, the education is still in that lethargy where only a few have the advantage for going beyond. For Henry Giroux, pedagogy is the essential tool for eradicating this problem. He proposes a certain pedagogy in which students be social agents and learn from their own reality; in this case, one in which the student be the main character of their learning process and where the teacher does not have the control, but they learn along with the students. This pedagogy is about the teacher being in a continual learning process with their students and understanding that there is not paramount knowledge but the one they find out and build together.
Summing up, education has real power because it is through it that individuals become critical. It is only when students look from a critical perspective of what is going on in the world that they are able to reflect and work on the gaps between learning and everyday life.
I agree with you, in this society the most important in the current teacher is teaching only for one purpose that is a test. So, where is the real role of teacher that promotes a critical and creative thought ?. how can we contribute with the education to improve our future?.
ResponderEliminarActually, if we see our reality the government gives a more budget for the war than education with this example, we can conclude that the main problem is the system. The government prefers to educate people from the ignorance people do not develop their own thinking. If people were critical in front of their reality, maybe we would have developed country.