This week’s readings by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Paolo Freire felt like a great place to land for our final blog post in CI 5441. Both pieces were frank, measured challenges to the notion that teachers of any background (but especially those who are from white or other dominant/oppressor groups) can be inherently neutral in their approach to teaching and learning.
Freire’s famous Pedagogy of the Oppressed takes on the process of social change, advocating for education as a site of “humanization,” where the task of each person is to realize their innate humanity. To Freire, however, this process is complicated by the fact that society (and educators) exist within the oppressor/oppressed framework that informs so much of how Western, colonized society functions. Because of this, teachers must be self aware about their own background and the biases they carry with them into the educational space. He challenges the “savior” complex of many [white] teachers, saying:
This was a hugely impactful section of Freire’s thinking for me. The bluntness of it is both admirable, effective and left me with a sort of internal feeling of “daaaaang.” As a white teacher heading into the classroom, I am exactly the type of person his words are aimed to address. In particular, his words “because of their background they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation” really hit home for me. How often have I, perhaps unconsciously, assumed that my belief in the importance of equity and social justice somehow means I am immune (or have ‘addressed/overcome) the fact that I have been socialized by whiteness and am a lifetime beneficiary of its privilege? Since I am bothered by social injustice, that means I must be qualified to address it, right? … Probably not. Freire puts out a call to teachers who have been oppressors -- consciously or otherwise -- to be vigilant in self-examination and to never assume a place of power within movements for change by way of their privileged background. Instead, he advocates for all teachers to strive towards a humanizing pedagogy, where “the method ceases to be an instrument by which the teachers (in this instance, the revolutionary leadership) can manipulate the students (in this instance, the oppressed), because it expresses the consciousness of the students themselves” (1970, p. 18). What a humbling experience to reflect and realize that I still have so far to go in learning how to do this! Ladson-Billings’ update on her “culturally relevant pedagogy” theory provides some ways forward, but certainly not simple ones. She notes how her theory has been misapplied by many teachers over the years, and how often theories like hers are watered-down in practice. I wonder if part of this is because educators do not do the type of self-reflection Freire discusses in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In her discussion of the use of hip-hop practices in the classroom and Paris & Alim’s furthering of her theory in "culturally sustaining pedagogy," she discusses this very issue. “[Paris and Alim] urge us to guard against the voyeuristic culture-vultures that consider hip-hop to be the next trendy thing that can be used to hook students, only to draw them back into the same old hegemonic, hierarchical structures” (2014, p. 83). In essence, it is not enough to label practices as “culturally relevant” or “culturally sustaining” simply because you’ve changed one element of the lesson to include a nod to students’ background cultures. If, as the educator, you don’t do the actual work to change your mindset, your curricula will only be a replication of the oppressive hierarchy you never dealt with inside of you -- no matter how ‘culturally relevant/sustaining’ you want it to be. Resource Link: Django Paris’ Twitter Account. Am I linking Twitter as an educational resource? Yes, I am! Django Paris, author of Gloria Ladson-Billings’ cited work in this week’s reading, is an amazing educational advocate and current faculty at the University of Washington. He frequently posts links to resources and keeps followers updated on his work, and related social justice work in the field of education. References: Freire, P., & Ramos, M. B. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Seabury Press. Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. the Remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84.
1 Comment
Quynh Van
12/9/2019 11:14:12 pm
Hi Kathleen,
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