CRITICAL DIDACTICS: CHARACTERISTICS, AUTHORS AND EXAMPLE - ECONOMÍA - 2024

The critical teaching is a pedagogical theory that understands education as an eminently political process. It is based on the ideas of critical theory, as well as theories drawn from fields such as education, sociology, and the study of culture.

Defenders of critical didactics reject the traditional idea that teaching should be a neutral act. On the contrary, they think that the acts of teaching and learning are closely related to other vital issues, such as democracy, social justice and political activism.

The main objective of critical pedagogy is the emancipation of citizens from oppression, through the awakening of what is known as "critical consciousness."

When achieved, critical awareness encourages individuals to make changes in their own lives through social criticism and political protest.

characteristics

Critical didactics is a discipline that is still in development. Therefore, each of the contributing authors have different theories about how it should be applied in the classroom.

However, there are a number of characteristics that most authors agree on. Next we will see the most important of them.

Promotes critical thinking

Critical didactics tries to help students reflect on the values, ideas and beliefs they have acquired due to their development within a specific society.

This is especially important for the authors of the theory of critical pedagogy, since they think that the educational system helps to perpetuate this type of teaching.

For this reason, in a classroom in which the critical vision of education is promoted, students must learn to think for themselves and to think about the knowledge and ideas they are acquiring.

This criticism of the acquired knowledge is made in the hope that it will help students to live a freer life, in which they are not conditioned by the social teachings they have received or by ideas that they themselves have not determined to be valid.

Criticism of the prevailing ideology

One of the aspects that most worries the authors of critical pedagogy is the maintenance of ideologies that they consider to be erroneous. Thus, many of them are against concepts like capitalism.

Therefore, a classroom in which the critical methodology of education is applied has to serve as a platform for students to reflect on whether the prevailing model in society is the most appropriate or not.

Union of theory and practice

According to critical didactics, theory and practice in teaching are inseparable, because the knowledge that is acquired about an object is conditioned by the interaction that one has with it.

The most developed model in this sense is known as «action research». In it, students play an active role in their own educational process, having to make decisions about what they want to learn and how they want to do it. The teacher, therefore, only has a role of facilitator of learning.

Rationality

Critical pedagogy tries to promote, above all things, rationality in students. To achieve this, the method chosen is to overcome the subjectivity of personal opinions by contrasting them with the experiences of others. In this way, the ideas of each student must be evaluated by the others.

Therefore, from this educational model, debates, discussions and exchanges of opinions become some of the most important tools to acquire knowledge.

This differs greatly from traditional education, in which students have to accept outside knowledge as valid without examining it.

Denial of the empirical method

From critical pedagogy, the belief that the world cannot be reduced to simple cause - effect relationships is promoted.

Therefore, for the defenders of this theory, the own subjective experience of the world is more important than the experimental findings made by scientific research.

Desire for social change

Finally, the main objective of critical didactics is to encourage students to question the social system in which they live, and to achieve their freedom through political struggle and social activism.

Featured Authors

Although many authors have worked to develop the discipline of critical didactics, we can highlight three main thinkers behind this ideology: Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Peter McLaren.

Paulo Freire

This Brazilian was the creator of the concept of critical didactics, in his 1968 book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Freire, who at this time was a professor of history and philosophy of education at the University of Recife in Brazil, tried to create an educational model that would help the most disadvantaged in their struggle for survival.

Henry Giroux

Giroux is an American thinker who helped bring critical pedagogy to his country. His work focuses on criticizing ideologies such as neoliberalism, religious fundamentalism or imperialism, and defends a movement known as radical democracy.

His works are some of the most influential in this field; and today, he writes for a multitude of international media, having achieved great fame within pedagogical circles and cultural criticism.

Peter mclaren

This Canadian born in 1948 is considered one of the fathers of critical didactics. His fame is based above all on his extensive criticism against capitalism and neoliberalism, having been influenced by Marxist philosophy.

Today, he teaches Critical Studies classes at Chapman University in Los Angeles.

Application example

Because critical didactics is based above all on the exchange of ideas between students, the main format of classes is debate.

The operation of an educational session is as follows: the teacher proposes a question or points out an existing problem in the community, and the students must exchange ideas and opinions on the subject until reaching a consensus.

During this process, they are encouraged to seek information about what they are discussing, so that they learn while generating their own knowledge.

References

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2. "What does a critical didactics consist of?" in: School and Social Reproduction. Retrieved on: May 05, 2018 from School and Social Reproduction: reproduccionsocial.edusanluis.com.ar.
3. "Didactics" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: May 05, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.
4. "Critical didactics" in: Aulaneo. Retrieved on: May 05, 2018 from Aulaneo: aulaneo.wordpress.com.
5. "Critical pedagogy" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: May 05, 2018 from Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org.