ISSN : 2241-4665
|
Κριτικές του άρθρου |
ISSN : 2241-4665
Ημερομηνία έκδοσης: Αθήνα 8 Μαΐου 2018
“ Η Κριτική
Παιδαγωγική στις Φυσικές Επιστήμες της
Ελλάδας”
του
Μπούσιου Π. Κωνσταντίνου
« The Critical Pedagogy in the Natural
Sciences of Greece »
by
Bousios P.
Konstantinos
ABSTRACT
Critical
Pedagogy, though due to a variety of interpretations and positions, cannot be
defined in a particular and precise way, constitutes a wider social movement
aimed at creating a stream of pedagogical ideas aimed at empowering the
powerless and overthrowing existing social inequalities and injustices. Its
pedagogical practices aim at wider social changes based on the principles of
racial, ethnic and economic justice. Its main representatives are: Paulo
Freire, Michael Apple, Peter McLaren and Henry Giroux. Freire seeks to
transform students from subjects of educational processes into individuals
responsible for autonomy and emancipation. Apple suggests that in order to
understand how social reproduction takes place within schools, we must study
the ideological and cultural practices that take place within the classroom. By
adopting a Marxist framework, Revolutionary Education aspires to help teachers
understand or overcome the forms of oppression associated with the teaching and
learning process. According to Giroux, school is a political space that plays
an important role in the production of ideas and identities and allows control
of their representation, distribution and consumption. Critical pedagogues consider that the "formal" and
"hidden" curriculum distinguish and discriminate in favor of specific
knowledge and social groups. Current Curriculum in Natural Sciences for Compulsory
Education in our country, adopt proclamatory part of the ideas of Critical
Pedagogy. Today's school, despite its individual improvements, has failed to
adequately prepare its students for the ever-changing demands of a
sophisticated society. It is often a place of coercive work where the joy of
learning, research and discovery, creation, are lacking. It often treats
students as empty containers for filling, and rewards those who memorize,
reproduce and repeat. The question is whether this is being implemented with
essentially positive results in the science education of our country.
INTRODUCTION
This work is divided into three
sections. In the first section we try to define what is critical pedagogy, what
are its main influences, what it aims to do and how to attribute the positions
of its main representatives. In the second section, we explore ways of
interconnecting critical pedagogy with Natural Sciences’ Curriculum. In the
third section, after studying the Curriculum and the Cross-Thematic Curriculum
Framework for Natural Sciences, we examined whether critical pedagogical
positions are involved and whether they are applied in practice.
1.
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
1.1. Basic theoretical influences
The concept of Critical Pedagogy over
the last decades is one of the main subjects of study at a global level and has
caused a large number of discussions on deadlocks and its potential as a
current [1]. Critical theorists use various theories and sciences to form a
framework of understanding and empirical view of social and economic structures
in relation to the relationships between individuals and groups as well as
cultural developments [2].
Critical Pedagogy appears in the
early 1970s in the U.S.A. and is more aware of growth in the middle of the next
decade. As has been pointed out, it is essentially an extremely complex task of
synthesizing traditions, transforming theories, political conclusions and
educational policies which, to one degree or another, oppose the dominant
modern social and educational (neoliberal and neoconservative) policies, a
"radical" pedagogical act [3].
However, the concept of critical
pedagogy cannot be attributed in a particular and precise way, basically
because of its synthesis and complexity. In practice, critical pedagogy has so
many manifestations as its supporters, which makes it difficult to formulate a
single, coherent definition of the concept [4].
The first use of the term Critical
Pedagogy is found in Henry Giroux [5] "Theory and Resistance in
Education". During the 1980s and 1990s, Henry Giroux's work with Paulo
Freire, Stanley Aronowitz, Michael Apple, Maxine Greene, Peter McLaren, Bell
Hooks, Donaldo Macedo, Michelle Fine and Jean Anyon was undoubtedly one of the
most central and dynamic moves to renew the debates on democratic education in
America. However, Giroux was the first to firmly claim that critical pedagogy
emerged from the long historical heritage of radical social thinking and
progressive educational movements that aspired to link the practice of
education to the democratic principles of society and to the benefit of
oppressed communities [6].
Basic influences on the formation of
critical pedagogy have been practiced by educators and activists of the 20th
century. The ideas of American philosopher John Dewey had a particular
influence on progressive educators who were trying to promote democratic
principles in education. According to McLaren [4], Dewey's work is based on his
attempt to link the concept of atomic and social (collective) intelligence to
democracy and freedom. By doing so, he put forward a "language of
possibility" - a philosophical structure which played a major role in the
development of critical pedagogy [6].
McLaren [7] connects Critical
Pedagogy with the Frankfurt School recognizing at the same time that there is
an entire "critical" theoretical tradition that has given theoretical
tools to Critical Pedagogy.
Gounaris and Grollios [8], although referring to McLaren's view and to
the connection of Critical Pedagogy with the tradition and trends of Critical
Theory, follow the entire literature on the production and evolution of
Critical Pedagogy in relation to the socio-political context, concluding that
the beginnings of Critical Pedagogy are found in Freire's work and in the
elaboration of the theory of resistance by Giroux. From then on, various trends
have been developed within the framework of Critical Pedagogy. The trend
associated with Marxism, is represented by the work of Paulo Freire, Henry
Giroux, Stanley Aronowitz, Ramin Faramandpur and Peter McLaren. Some of these
theorists have also used aspects of the "progressive", as they call
it, postmodernism [9] as well as aspects of cultural studies.
The central assumptions of critical pedagogy can be summarized in the
following [3]:
(a) "Significances" create the existing structures of values
that eventually embody social relations of oppression, alienation
and subjugation (knowledge is based on linguistic relations that are socially
and historically structured, and in this sense the category of language is
decisive in shaping subjectivity).
(b) The concept of meaning-object, signifier and signifier is never
stable, nor transcendent, but mediated by capitalist production, consumption
and social relations.
(c) Compression has many "faces", stems from social
discrimination of gender, race and status, but focusing on one of these
discriminations at the expense of others prevents them from understanding their
interrelations.
(d) At the same time, the person creates and is created, by the social
universe of which he is part, and emphasis is placed on human dignity and
integration.
Critical pedagogy consists, in the educational
level, a project that invites students, scholars and teachers to analyze the
relationship between their expressed experiences - pedagogical practices - the
knowledge that (re) generates in the more general socio-cultural-economic
arrangements. Critical pedagogy is intertwined with the exploration of the
formation of the "subjectivities" of trainees within the developed
capitalist social formations, aiming to generalize non-racist, non-sexist,
non-xenophobic pedagogical practices, directed towards changing the wider
social structure, based on the principles of racial, ethnic and economic
justice [10].
1.2 Main
representatives
1.2.1.
Paulo Freire
Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, with
his work, has had a major influence on the development of critical pedagogy.
His texts have inspired a large number of progressive and democratic educators.
His book "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed" and the adult literacy
program he has applied in Brazil make him a universal physiognomy. Freire's
pedagogy emphasizes the unity between theory and practice in an education
oriented towards the liberation of the individual in a given society [11].
Giroux, McLaren, Shor, Torres, and
Macedo studied and deepened Freire's liberating pedagogy and critique literacy
theory in order to apply them to schools, workplaces, homes, universities and
colleges in North America. They investigated the possibilities and practices of
his work and argued that with these practices we have active people who shape
economic, social and cultural formations for themselves and for others [12].
There are many philosophical trends
that have influenced Freire and formed the philosophical basis of "Pedagogy
of the Oppressed". These trends are: phenomenology, existentialism,
Christianity, humanism, Marxism and Hegelianism [13].
1.2.2. Michael Apple
Apple, studying the concerns and positions of the American Revisionists,
New Sociology, Marxist Sociologists and Philosophers, who gave a new
perspective to pedagogical science, broadened the positions of critical
pedagogy with its reflection on the social role of education in capitalist
societies and the understanding of modern educational and social reality.
In the 1980s, Apple lends weight to the theory of resistance and
examines the dual nature of cultural sovereignty. Schools foster the economic
and cultural reproduction of the conditions of society [14]. Informal and
contradictory processes in the institution of a school, if not recognized and
not addressed as factors of structural crisis, lead to the legitimation of the
dominant ideology. Involving his reflection on the relations of education with
concepts such as state, status, culture, ideology, hegemonies, reproduction,
resistance and knowledge, he notes that while there are important links between
the cultural, political and economic sovereignty of a society, the education
system cannot be considered as a mirror that passively reflects its interests.
Instead, reactions and tensions are emerging that lead to the expansion of
democratic processes and are a field of contradiction between capital and
capitalist society [14].
Apple, in the 2000s, believes and argues that the creation and
development of democratic and critical education is a collective effort that
can be applied in practice rather than an invention of critics of critical
pedagogy. It considers that restrictive and hypocritical perceptions of
democracy must be rejected and replaced by moral and practical correctness, as
well as social and economic arrangements based on the principle of equality [15].
1.2.3.
Peter McLaren
McLaren connects
Critical Pedagogy with the Frankfurt School, recognizing at the same time that
there is an entire "critical" theoretical tradition that has given
theoretical tools to Critical Pedagogy.
Peter McLaren disputed and
criticized the relationship of critical pedagogy with the postmodernism axioms [3].We
note that the concept of "progressive" postmodernism - formulated
mainly by McLaren in the 1990s - is based on the logic that a face of the
postmodern "attacks" and "degrades" hegemony and
sovereignty, such as white race hegemony, homogenizing and universally
hegemonic Eurocentric thinking, the mastery of men, of every nature of dominant
versions of the West that have been exploited by bourgeois ideology. Thus, from
this point of view, postmodernism not only is not competitive in plans and
attempts of social emancipation, but if it is combined with class analysis, it
can enrich modern Marxist theory and further contribute, in the context of
Critical Pedagogy, to understanding how capital and the law of value shape
identities, concepts and practices in the school environment. This
understanding is a precondition for critical awareness and educational and
social change [9] [16].
- Who benefits from the education
system in its present form?
- Who benefits from existing
educational mechanisms?
- Who suffers?
- What are the interests of
existing pedagogical practices?
- What is the relationship
between pedagogical practices and education as a system of social
mediation and the reproduction of the system of the established order (eg.
capitalist)?
- Why are economic rights not
part of the United States in the broader human rights dialogue?
- How can education play a role
(necessary but not sufficient) in the social revolution?
1.2.4. Henry Giroux
Giroux is considered one of the most
creative theorists of 21st century education. Initially, Giroux examines
education in the light of the theory of the Frankfurt School. It then supports
reforming, processing and criticizing its perceptions, based on new historical
conditions in the spirit of liberation and emancipation that created them [17].
Giroux [17] argues that pedagogy is
not defined as something that happens in schools but as something central to
any political practice that deals with questions such as how people learn, how
knowledge is generated, and how the subject's positions are generated. Through
the study of different theoretical positions of pedagogy, it places critical
pedagogy in a political context, emphasizing the sociological and cultural
dimension of education.
Giroux sought to consolidate a
radical democracy with social justice, freedom and equal relations in the
educational, economic, political and cultural spheres. He argued that places do
not only undermine the possibility of a radical democracy but support the
dominant way of economic production. Using the scientific and interdisciplinary
tools of social studies has made pedagogical theory a democratic act.
He investigated the relationship
between pedagogy and politics and argued that this relationship is central to
any social movement attempting to make social transformations and liberation
struggles. For Giroux, critical pedagogy must assert that education produces
not only knowledge but also political subjects and that ethos is central to it.
So, it is necessary to create new forms of knowledge, to regain a sense of
alternative proposals, and finally to develop the theory of teachers as
transformational intellectuals who occupy specific social and political
positions [17].
2. CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND CURRICULUM
Critical pedagogy analyzes the
relationship that develops between power and knowledge. In this context, it is
considered that the dominant curriculum separates knowledge from the question
of power, treats it technically and mechanically, as something to be conquered [13].
Ben-Peretz [18] argues that this
knowledge is an ideological construct that interlaces with specific interests,
is historically and socially grounded and class-defined. Critical educators
argue that knowledge should be studied whether it is oppressive and
exploitative and not whether it is "true". Teachers are required to
look at the knowledge of how to manipulate or marginalize specific views of the
world, as well as how to understand the way the world is constructed. School
knowledge should be emancipatory rather than preserve the values
of market realism. It should help to create favorable conditions
for self-identification of the pupil in the wider society.
Gotovos, Maurogiorgos
and Papakonstantinou [19] consider that critical pedagogues accept that the
curriculum represents much more than a school manual, or a teaching program.
The curriculum partially prepares students for dominant or predominant
positions in existing society. It discriminates in favor of specific forms of
knowledge and realizes the dreams, desires and values of selected
groups of students, often discriminating on the basis of race, social class and
gender.
Critical pedagogues accept that
students are shaped both through standardized learning situations and through
other processes such as management rules, classroom organization and generally
all informal or non-pedagogical processes used by teachers [17].
Apple [15] reports that the hidden
curriculum is parallel to the school curriculum that is specific to each school
and department and includes the teaching modes, the classroom style of
learning, the messages passed on to students from the environment, the
governance structures, teacher expectations and scoring procedures.
Critical pedagogues consider the
curriculum as a form of cultural policy [19].
3. EXISTING CURRICULUMS OF NATURAL
SCIENCES IN COMPULSORY EDUCATION
The education policy of each nation-state is reflected in the existing curriculums
[18]. With existing curriculums and Cross-Thematic Curriculum Framework (CTCF) for
Natural Sciences, the Greek school seems to adopt a large part of the positions
of progressive pedagogy. At least, there is a saying about a "comprehensive
school", a school that is supposed to remove the hierarchy between thought
and action, academic and practical knowledge.
In addition, exploratory learning is
preceded and there is no school manual that does not contain group and
experiential activities. Encouraging students to take part in interdisciplinary
works where they are asked to search for the material and method with the
discreet assistance of their teachers is supposed to be used in school
activities such as environmental education and projects in the secondary or on flexible
area in primary education. In matters of discipline and evaluation, no one can
seriously argue that the situation has changed significantly, but there is a
literature on supposedly internal control, self-discipline, self-evaluation.
Studying the general and specific
objectives outlined in the curriculum and the CTCF for Natural Sciences, we find
that they are characterized by intense academicism, uneven and clear structure
of objectives and pursuing maximalist intentions and low level of cognitive
objectives, i.e. objectives related to the level of memorization (while
objectives related to the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are
missing).
The existing curriculum
contradicts itself. While proclaiming that it is provided in a unified form
from nursery school up to the third grade of high school, this is practically
falsely contradicted. Natural Sciences begin in essence from the Grade 4 of
primary school (instead of kindergarten) and would expect to continue as the
third grade of a high school in a unified form. Instead there is a program of
classes E and F and one for high school. In high school, it is simply a sum of
physics, chemistry, biology, geography classes, independent of each other with
clear academic orientation and difficult content.
In these, "cross-thematic
integration" is promoted, but in fact it is "interdisciplinarity",
since on the basis of each subject it is defined the issues with which the
pupils will deal.
Thus, the interconnections between
them are prespecified, and means, relevant skills, abilities, attitudes, which
are required by students to assimilate syllabus, are predetermined. The
development of any critical and creative thinking aims unilaterally in the
mechanistic understanding of the world. Thus, the school does not become
learner-centered, experiential, creative and does not turn into an area of authentic
learning, joy and life with the teachers and the students really involved [13].
The teaching methodology proposed
for the individual lessons consists of a set of methodological proposals that
are common (learning through exploration and guided discovery, discussion -
dialogue with students, laboratory exercises, constructivism) and a variety of
other proposals that are not harmonized.
To evaluate the teaching and the
educational system in general, current curriculums are only limited to the
pupil's assessment for which they claim to be a necessary educational process.
Its aims are [20]: (a) identifying achievement of the learning objectives, (b)
recording the individual and collective course of the pupils, (c) identifying
learning difficulties, (d) cultivation of research spirit and problem-solving
capacity, (e) accountability, collective work and self – evaluation, and (f)
reinforcement of self-confidence, self-esteem and acquiring metacognitive
skills.
To what extent, however, and how
effective the current teaching practice makes active learning, exploratory
learning, group discussion, constructivism, and everything else proposed by the
curriculum and the CTCF of the Natural Sciences? Teachers can overcome the fact
that they are children of an educational system in which, for years, the
achievement of cognitive goals and the selective functioning of their pupils
through standardized exams dominate and act to change their beliefs about
learning and teaching of Natural Sciences?
However, both internationally and in our country, there is a significant
inconsistency between the proclamation and the applied speech. There is growing
evidence that teachers do not use practices, as indicated in the curriculums
and in School Manuals. Laboratory work is not being used effectively by
teachers, i.e. it does not achieve the purposes for which it is designed [21].
The way teachers use lab work could
be influenced by their perceptions of it. Although some studies [22] [23] [24]
and other empirical researches published in conferences and scientific journals,
have investigated the interaction between teachers' perceptions of goals of the
lesson of Natural Sciences, and the use of laboratory work in the course and
practice, the nature of this interaction has not been fully understood [25].
Thus, the way in which teachers
implement the curriculums is decisive and the question is whether they
understand themselves their role as an "intellectual reformer" or
simply they implement curriculums mechanically and unbiased.
4. CONCLUSIONS
Through this study, we conclude that
critical pedagogy is a social, radical and democratic movement based on the
theoretical and practical strand of socio-political and educational
transformation.
It is important to
investigate whether any critical pedagogical positions that appear to be
contained in our country's new curricula are effectively implemented or
falsified and merely consist rhetorical commitments.
The view of critical pedagogy still
remains important and it is the one that can transform our schools into what
must be done in the future.
REFERENCES
[1] Grollios, G: Progressive Education
and Curriculum, Epikentro, Thessaloniki 2011.
[2] Petrou, A: Critical Theory and
Critical Pedagogy. In: Petrou A (Ed) Philosophical Dimensions in Education,
University of Nicosia, Nicosia 2013: 171-194.
[3] Grollios, G, Kaskaris, I:
Educational policy, "postmodern" and "critical pedagogy",
The deadlocks of a relationship and the "weapons of criticism",
Utopia 1997, 25: 110-118.
[4]
McLaren,
P: Life in schools: An introduction to critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of
Education. Longman, London and New York 1989.
[5] Giroux, AH: Pedagogy and the
Politics of Hope Theory, Culture and Schooling, Westview Press, USA 1997.
[6]
Darder,
A, Baltodano, M, Torres, DR: The Critical Pedagogy reader. Routledge,
New York and London 2003.
[7]
McLaren,
P: Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of
Education. Allyn and Bacon, Boston 2007.
[8]
Gounari,
P, Grollios, G: Critical Pedagogy. Gutenberg, Athens 2010.
[9]
McLaren,
P, Farahmandpur, R: Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, New York 2005.
[10] McLaren, P: Schooling as a Ritual
Performance. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, New York 1999.
[11] Freire, P: The politics of
Education, Culture, Power, and Liberation. Bergin & Longman, New
York 1984.
[12] Torres, CA: Paulo Freire as
Secretary of Education in the Municipality of Sao Paulo. Comp Ed Rev
1994, 38(2): 181-214.
[13] Grollios, G: Paulo Freire and
curriculum. Vanias, Thessaloniki 2005.
[14] Apple, M: Education and power,
trasl. Kokavesis F. Paratiritis, Thessaloniki 1993.
[15] Apple, M: Modernization and
Conservatism in Education. Metaichmio, Athens 2002.
[16] McLaren, P: Che Guevara, Paulo
Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution. Rowman, Lanham 2000.
[17] Freire, P: Pedagogy of the Opressed,
transl. Kritikos G. Rappas, Athens 1997.
[18] Ben-Peretz, M: Policy-making in
education: A holistic approach in response to global changes. Rowman
& Littlefield Education, Lamham, Maryland 2009.
[19] Gotovos, T, Maurogiorgos, G,
Papakonstantinou, P: Critique Pedagogical and educational act. Modern
Education, Giannena 1984.
[20] Ministry of Education, Research and
Religious Affairs, Pedagogical Institute: Cross-Thematic Curriculum Framework
and Curriculums, Vol. A (Official Gazette No. B 303 / 13-03-03) & B
(Official Gazette No. B 304 / 13-03-03). Operational Program ‘’Education and
Initial Professional Training’’ (OPEIPT), "Education in the Top",
Athens 2003.
[21] Kipnis, M, Hofstein, A: The Inquiry
Laboratory as a Source for Development of Metacognitive Skills. Int J of
Sci and Math Educ 2008, 6(3), pp.601-627.
[22] Kang, N, Wallace, C: Secondary
Science teachers’ Use of Laboratory Activities: Linking Epistemological
Beliefs, Goals, and Practices. Sci Educ 2005, 89(1): 140-165.
[23] Millar, R: The role of practical
work in the teaching and learning of science. Paper prepared for the Committee:
High School Science Laboratories: Role and Vision, National Academy of
Sciences, Washington, DC 2004.
[24] Halkia, K: Attitudes of Greek
teachers of primary and secondary education to the teaching of physics. Modern
Education 199, 106: 47-56.
[25] Vhurumuku, E: Pre-service Teachers’
Beliefs about Scientific Inquiry and Classroom Practices. Int J Edu Sci
2015, 10(2): 280-296.
© Copyright-VIPAPHARM. All rights reserved
