Critical Pedagogy

Jeff Duncan-Andrade and Ernest Morrell in their article “Critical Pedagogy in an Urban High School English Classroom” discuss some of the same issues that Freire gets into in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. They too believe that education should be focused on dialogue between learners and teachers rather than just “a one-way transmission of knowledge” (1) and that dialogue should be used to empower our students to be agents of change. They also believe that canonical literature such as Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Shakespeare should be complemented with pop culture media such as films, music, and sports (4). This allows our students to have their personal experiences in education honored while still working towards building their academic literacies. Using pop culture along with literature gives students a connection point to something that they make more of a connection with than centuries-old literature that they may not otherwise understand or relate to.

They also discuss how it is important to allow students to “take ownership of the knowledge production process” (10). What this means to me is that students should be able to show you how they understand the literature rather than the teacher quizzing them to make sure they understand what we are teaching. This connects with standards-based grading because it allows students to build their understanding of a unit and make sure they understand it by the end, rather than punishing them when they don’t understand it yet.