Day One of ED 619T
Today saw the commencement in the latest in a line of courses in the pursuit of my Masters of Education.
I chose those words, “the latest in a line of courses,” quite deliberately. When I say it like that what I think I am doing is reflecting the way in which each of these courses has followed the other like items in a checklist. That’s not exactly the most flattering way to describe courses in a Masters degree, but in a way, that’s exactly how I, and perhaps others have been treating it. But, hopefully, that all stops here.
Today we had the first class in Critical Pedagogy, and as a course like that should do it posed us a number of questions over the course of the day. Too many questions in fact to cover them all in a single reflection, but I’ll hit what I feel are the high points in questioning and thinking from today, and we’ll see if that paints enough of a picture for the first day.
First of all, the point I led this reflection off with. Is this course the latest in a line of courses, or does it have any special significance?
Of course it is significant. All of our courses have meaning, but the problem up until this point has been what meaning we allow to be lent to each course. It is very easy to think of each course as a separate component of the Masters degree. An item to be checked off a list, at the end of which we will have a new piece of paper to hang on the wall, and potentially a larger paycheck to put in the bank.
Today that idea was exposed to the light, examined, and challenged. It’s not that I, or any of my peers are particularly greedy or materialistic. We aren’t in this for the money (or none of us would have become teachers to begin with). It’s just so easy to lose sight of why we started the program when we are so busy putting our heads down and trying to get through it with our families and our sanity intact.
I started this Masters because I saw that this cohort would be offering a specialization in 21st century learning, and for the first time since I started teaching I saw the value in a Masters degree to my own practice. I took this program to develop and improve my teaching.
When did that idea slip away? Probably by the second course, through no fault of the particular course or instructor, but because the whole program was lacking one thing that today was highlighted in our class today. A theme. Ironic that I never noticed that before, considering the way I have so often advocated to my own students the need for a cohesive theme to bind their own bodies of artistic work together. To my students I have always tried to illustrate how a theme or connection in the work helps them to develop and understand each part better.
Meanwhile, I was failing to see the absence of such a unifying force in my own work.
In each of my courses I have tried to apply the projects, papers and presentations to topics that would help me in my actual practice, and this course will be no different, but from here I hope to be able to proceed and see the threads that tie each of these courses together. To make sure each idea builds on the last one, and each discovery informs the next one.
The next big moment in class for me today came as the result of working with one of my peers to examine a single aspect of Kincheloe’s first chapter from his Critical Pedagogy Primer. Our topic was; “Avoid Empire Building”. Which had not been one of the three original points I had picked out of this reading and pinpointed as a take away for me. Despite that, I was deeply engaged in my conversation with Jeff about Empire Building, and the way that under the shadow of an empire, all cultural groups that do not conform to the paradigm of “reason” created by that empire are marginalized.
The examination of this made me quite indignant in fact, and I realized the terrible ways in which this sort of behavior not only vilifies alternate views, but also forces them to adapt and conform to the standard of the empire, and thus lose the differing points of views they may have once cherished.
A true advocate of critical pedagogy must respect knowledge, but never place it on a pedestal and believe that it is exempt from criticism. The value in challenging the ideas of the status quo had never been so apparent to me as it was today, and the value in people having a voice to cry out and be heard.
The status is not quo.
Kincheloe pointed out that the United States in particular is a classic example of empire building in the 21st century. The U.S. has developed a sense of cultural elitism and superiority that has become embedded in so many aspects of it’s culture. It is apparent in the behavior of it’s people to people of other cultures, as well as in it’s production of knowledge and it’s curriculum development. It holds it’s place in such high esteem that any views outside of it’s “western view” are deemed as unworthy and underdeveloped.
Which means in the west a notion of “reason” has been developed, and to those western culture “those who exercise reason enter a new stage of human maturity. Those who don’t are viewed as depraved and underdeveloped. ” (Kincheloe, 2008, pg.26)
Kincheloe went on to point out this same Empire Building behavior had led to other empire’s whose “reason” had developed and in it’s own turn contributed to the marginalization of various minority groups in ways those empire’s deemed “justified”. Example? The Crusades against the “heathen” Muslims carried out by the Europeans, the Holocaust inflicted by the Nazis (on many different minority groups from the jews, to gays, to gypsies and many others), and the African slave trade.
In light of these trends it is no wonder that Friere insisted that the role of Education was to allow our students the opportunity to transform our world. He believed it was the right of our students to do so, and clearly, the world often needs transforming.
I have only really touched on two of the thoughts I have had today (and I realize now those two thoughts have gone on way too long!), but both of them have had a transformative effect on me. First on how I view my own work and development, and second on how I view the world around me. In closing today I have a few last thoughts and questions I’ll just throw out there and see what comes back to me;
What empires have been built up around me, and have I been indoctrinated into accepting the way my world works as being the “right” way for things to work?
Am I the product of the cultures I have grown up in; geographically, economically, socially, and ethnographically? And is a failure to grow beyond these things indicative of a failure in critical thinking?
What is being forgotten in the world of teaching? How do we start to think about real critical experiences?
Are we marching to the drum or are we setting the beat?
Striving for Mastery 