Critical Pedagogy

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Instructors practicing critical pedagogy are active participants in the fight against authoritarian abuses and the promotion of freedom. This philosophy of education is explicitly political, coming from a background incorporating a mix of radical views ranging from anarchism to Marxism to feminism. The unifying theme of these background views is combating oppression, whatever its form or context. Although this method of pedagogy is clearly biased, proponents argue that all educational methods are biased toward one political perspective or another.

• The main founder of this theory is the American-born Henry Giroux.
• Giroux taught high school for six years before going on to study for his doctorate.
• Drawing on experiences from his stint teaching in public schools, he began writing about the concept of critical pedagogy as a means of fighting oppression.

The eminent philosopher of language John Searle severely criticized Giroux and the paradigm, pointing out that in the end, the real goal of the method is merely to turn students into political radicals.

Advocates of the method, of course, do not necessarily consider this portrayal to be a negative. On their view, the world really is full of injustice and the sociopolitical order institutionalizes oppression, racism, and sexism against marginalized peoples. For them, to recognize this fact is in itself a radical act, and an appropriate education is one that enables students to do it. Radicalism is not so much an intended goal as it is a necessary result of the understanding enabled by critical pedagogy.