Blog Post #9: Critical Pedagogy

• Pedagogy is a political and performative act: This assertion is very powerful and when faced with the realities of this profession, at cynical moments can feel almost laughable. As Friere asserts that education should be liberating, this role as it has traditionally been structured can be that of a "dictator." These readings ground me in the importance of radical pedagogy and the gravity with which I need to acknowledge my work.
  
• Our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. On a regular basis, I try to remind myself that I am never just teaching "content," but I am aiding in the process of facilitating the self-actualization of phenomenal and amazing human beings. Of course, this is an enormous job. But remembering that the students should not be only ones to grow or be empowered, but that teachers should also experience these things, makes the entire venture seem much more human, and therefore simpler.
  
• I was struck by bell hooks' comment on "white male professors who claimed to follow Freiere's model even as their pedagogical practices were mired in structures of domination, mirroring the styles of conservative professors even as they approached subjects from a more progressive standpoint," and I wondered, is this who I am? As a young woman, I receive judgments from other more experienced educators on my practice, and sometimes on my own experience a sort of impostor syndrome that I am not being a "real teacher," because "real teachers" are strict and stern and cover content and produce good test results. I think radical and critical pedagogical thinking is difficult to absorb even today because so much of society's expectations of teachers are rooted back in centuries-old experience. So, it feels as though I am constantly in pulled in two directions - one which emphasizes the human quality of my students and myself, and the other which wishes to conform to and appease the standards of our mainstream society which is focused on data and results.