Thoughts On The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Schools by Jeffrey M. Duncan-Andrade and Ernest Morrell
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Critical-Pedagogy-Possibilities-Practice/dp/0820474150
A Few thoughts about the Book:
Many aspects of the type of pedagogy that Duncan-Andrade advocates for overlap with Universal Design For Learning’s guiding frameworks. Critical Praxis where students identity a problem to research and plan a course of action for is similar to UDL Guidline 7 which is about recruiting students interest by providing them with educational options that enhance relevance and authenticity. UDL also talks a lot about helping students build their strategic networks which reminded me a lot of the chapter on "what teachers can learn from coaches"; there are countless other examples of overlap as well like recognizing the wide range of abilities in each classroom and providing options to tailor the curriculum to each child’s zone of proximal development. However, the biggest difference between UDL and Critical Pedagogy is the the word "critical." In Critical Pedagogy, students actively investigate and critique their own circumstances and what greater societal factors led to those circumstances. For example, they might research and write about questions like "What inequalities arise in the experiences of California students and why do these inequalities arise." Or they might research something like positive and negative influences of hip hop in urban communities. I believe this type of analysis of their own situation and factors that influence their schools, neighborhoods, and lives can be an effective way to both engage students and help them learn valuable academic skills; at the very least, Critical Pedagogy's effectiveness should be researched more. However, that may be politically difficult.
Now for a side note: A few years back I went through this kick where I read nothing but books from conservative pundits; one of the reoccurring themes in the books was that schools from kindergarten to college were controlled by liberals. I fear that because most of the proponents of critical pedagogy are liberal and the idea of Social Justice is something that would be associated with liberals that it would be hard to get much political traction to get these types of reforms enacted because they might end up getting lost in endless liberal vs. conservative talking points battles that many important issues end up as. Furthermore, critical pedagogy does not lend itself to soundbites as well as KIPP style longer hours and draconian disciplinarian philosophy. However, I believe that there may be a way to gain more political traction for Critical Pedagogy. At their core, the steps of using critical praxis (i.e. identifying a problem to research and implement a plan for) are completely apolitical. Thus, I think it would be interesting if a curriculum with a focus on critical pedagogy was implemented as schools that one might not associate with critical pedagogy such as Catholic Schools or Rural Schools. Students at those schools might identify a completely different set of problems to develop plans for and would provide different points of view on race, class, religion, and other factors affect society. It would then be an interesting meta-study to look at the differences on the types of problems the students worked on in different types of schools. Furthermore, I think this would go a long way to making critical pedagogy more politically viable because if Duncan-Andrade and others focus too much on only urban schools I could easily see the entire pedagogical philosophy being too easily stereotyped by those on the right wing as some sort of liberal elite plan to indoctrinate urban youth with a liberal political philosophy. By having examples of a wide array of schools using critical pedagogy, there may be an opportunity to show that the central tenants of solving problems, helping ones community, seeking justice, and learning the linguistic and math skills that one needs in life along the way can jive with the goals and values of any reasonable person on the political spectrum.
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