ROLE OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN EDUCATION

Critical Pedagogy

Teacher and student engagement is critical in the

classroom because it has the power to define whose

knowledge will become a part of school-related

knowledge and whose voices will shape it. Students

are not just young people for whom adults should

devise solutions. They are critical observers of their

own conditions and needs, and should be participants

in discussions and problem solving related to their

education and future opportunities. Hence children need

to be aware that their experiences and perceptions are

important and should be encouraged to develop the

mental skills needed to think and reason independently

and have the courage to dissent. What children learn

out of school — their capacities, learning abilities, and

knowledge base — and bring to school is important

to further enhance the learning process. This is all the

more critical for children from underprivileged

backgrounds, especially girls, as the worlds they inhabit

and their realities are under represented in school

knowledge.

Participatory learning and teaching, emotion and

experience need to have a definite and valued place in

the classroom. While class participation is a powerful

strategy, it loses its pedagogic edge when it is ritualised,

or merely becomes an instrument to enable teachers to

meet their own ends. True participation starts from the

experiences of both students and teachers.

When children and teachers share and reflect on

their individual and collective experiences without fear

of judgement, it gives them opportunities to learn

about others who may not be a part of their own

social reality. This enables them to understand and relate

to differences instead of fearing them. If children’s

social experiences are to be brought into the classroom,

it is inevitable that issues of conflict will need to be

addressed. Conflict is an inescapable par t of children’s

lives. They constantly encounter situations that call for

moral assessment and action, whether in relation to

subjective experiences of conflict involving the self,

family and society, or in dealing with exposure to violent

conflict in the contemporary world. To use conflict as

a pedagogic strategy is to enable children to deal with

conflict and facilitate awareness of its nature and its

role in their lives.

Learning to question received knowledge critically,

whether it is found in a ‘biased’ textbook, or other

literary sources in their own environments, can be built

by encouraging learners to comment, compare and

think about elements that exist in their own

environment. Women and dalit activists have used songs

as a powerful medium for discussion, comment and

analysis. Repositories of knowledge exist in different

mediums, hence all these forms, whether television

programme, advertisements, songs, paintings, etc., need

to be brought into create a dynamic interaction among

learners themselves.

A pedagogy that is sensitive to gender, class, caste

and global inequalities is one that does not merely affirm

different individual and collective experiences but also

locates these within larger structures of power and raises

questions such as, who is allowed to speak for whom?

Whose knowledge is most valued? This requires

evolving different strategies for different learners. For

example, encouraging speaking up in class may be

important for some children, while for others it may

be learning to listen to others.

The role of teachers is to provide a safe space

for children to express themselves, and simultaneously

to build in certain forms of interactions. They need to

step out of the role of ‘moral authority’ and learn to

listen with empathy and without judgement, and to

enable children to listen to each other. While

consolidating and constructively stretching the limits

of the learner's understanding, they need to be

conscious of how differences are expressed. An

atmosphere of trust would make the classroom a safe

space, where children can share experiences, where

conflict can be acknowledged and constructively

questioned, and where resolutions, however tentative,

can be mutually worked out. In particular, for girls

and children from under-privileged social groups,

schools and classrooms should be spaces for discussing

processes of decision making, for questioning the basis

of their decisions, and for making informed choices.

Critical pedagogy provides an opportunity to reflect

critically on issues in terms of their political, social,

economic and moral aspects. It entails the acceptance of

multiple views on social issues and a commitment to

democratic forms of interaction. This is important in

view of the multiple contexts in which our schools

function. A critical framework helps children to see social

issues from different perspectives and understand how

such issues are connected to their lives. For instance,

understanding of democracy as a way of life can be

chartered through a path where children reflect on how

they regard others (e.g. friends, neighbours, the opposite

sex, elders, etc.), how they make choices (e.g. activities,

play, friends, career, etc.), and how they cultivate the

ability to make decisions. Likewise, issues related to

human rights, caste, religion and gender can be critically

reflected on by children in order to see how these issues

are connected to their everyday experiences, and also

how different forms of inequalities become compounded

and are perpetuated. Critical pedagogy facilitates

collective decision making through open discussion and

by encouraging and recognising multiple views.

Why should stereotypes persist?

A matter of serious concern is the persistence of

stereotypes regarding children from marginalised groups,

including SC and ST, who traditionally have not had

access to schooling or learning. Some learners have

been historically viewed as uneducable, less educable,

slow to learn, and even scared of learning. There is a

similar stereotype regarding girls, which encourages the

belief that they are not interested in playing games, or

in mathematics and science. Yet another set of stereotypes

is applied to children with disabilities, per petuating

the notion that they cannot be taught along with other

children. These perceptions are grounded in the notion

that inferiority and inequality are inherent in gender,

caste and physical and intellectual disability. There

are a few success stories, but much larger are the

numbers of learners who fail and thus internalise a

sense of inadequacy. Realising the constitutional values

of equality is possible only if we prepare teachers to

treat all children equally. We need to train teachers to

help them cultivate an understanding of the cultural

and socio-economic diversity that children bring with

them to school.

Many of our schools now have large numbers of firstgeneration

school goers. Pedagogy must be reoriented

when the child’s home provides any direct suppor t to

formal schooling. First-generation school goers, for

example, would be completely dependent on the school

for inculcating reading and writing skills and fostering

a taste for reading , and for familiarising them with

the language and culture of the school, especially when

the home language is different from the language of

school. Indeed they need all the assistance they can get.

Many such children are also vulnerable to conditions

prevailing at home, which might make them prone to

lack of punctuality, ir regularity and inattentiveness in

the classroom. Mobilising intersectoral support for freeing

children from such constraints, and for designing a

curriculum sensitive to these circumstances, therefore is

essential.