UCLA

InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies

Title
Teachers’ Reflections on Critical Pedagogy in the Classroom

Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2c6968hc

Journal
InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 10(2)

Author
Katz, Leanna

Publication Date
2014

DOI
10.5070/D4102017865

Copyright Information
Copyright 2014 by the author(s). All rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. Contact the
author(s) for any necessary permissions. Learn more at https://escholarship.org/terms

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 Many critical pedagogues contend that there is a need to move beyond
theory to consider the practical applicability of critical pedagogy (Giroux, 1997;
Osborne, 1990; Sweet, 1998). Ira Shor argues that teaching is a highly practical
activity, and thus “teachers are more interested in practice than in theory” (Shor &
Freire, 1987, p. 2). Yet, studies on the practice of critical pedagogy tend to be
written from the perspective of those who already identify as critical pedagogues
(Shor, 1987). This study investigates the perspective of teachers who do not self-
identify as critical pedagogues to get a sense of the theory’s usefulness for a wider
range of teachers. Although most critical pedagogy research focuses on students
of lower socio-economic status (Ainsa, 2011; Markovich, 2013; Shor, 1987;
Yilmaz & Altinkurt, 2011), this study examines students from relatively high
socio-economic backgrounds to understand how critical pedagogy can be applied
to them in classroom teaching.
I conducted interviews with nine high school teachers in a suburb of a
major Canadian city to get a sense of the aspects of critical pedagogy they find
valuable based on their experiences. The themes from critical pedagogy that I
focused on in the interviews were
• integrating students’ personal experiences into classroom lessons;
• deconstructing the student-teacher hierarchy;
• avoiding the banking method of education and embracing an environment
where students and teachers are both educators and learners;
• deconstructing the idea of knowledge as neutral and acknowledging the
political nature of education;
• making social justice an explicit focus in the class; and
• considering how the classroom can serve as a model for promoting
democracy.
The intention of this study was to understand the range of responses
toward critical pedagogy by teachers who do not have much, if any, formal
training or prior experience with critical pedagogy and who work with students
who have not had a political awakening because of their positions of socio-
economic privilege. The broader question motivating my research is to find out
how desirable and feasible it is for these teachers to use critical pedagogy in the
classroom.

Positionality Statement

I was driven to conduct this study based on my personal experiences as a

student. Having just completed my undergraduate degree, I had been in school for
the past 18 consecutive years and exposed to dozens of different teachers and
teaching styles. I felt that my most valuable learning experiences tended to be in
settings where the teacher engaged my existing understanding of the world, asked
me to question the reasons why we were learning what we were learning, and
incorporated relevant social justice issues into classroom lessons. In a fourth-year
university seminar, the professor seemed to use these teaching practices and
referred to the term critical pedagogy. I wanted to learn more, so I began to read
theoretical works ranging from Paulo Freire to bell hooks.
I found some aspects of the theory persuasive, such as acknowledging the
political dimension of the education system, but others struck me as dogmatic, for
example, the insistence on revolutionizing classroom teaching, which seemed
nearly as dangerous as a staunch commitment to the status quo. I grew interested
in what teachers who had not necessarily read critical pedagogy theory, but who
were in my estimation effective teachers, would think of the common themes in
critical pedagogy based on their years of teaching experience.
I approached teachers at the high school I attended to share their teaching
experiences, especially insofar as it would help me understand the value of critical
pedagogy. To protect their anonymity, the teachers’ names have not been used in
this paper. I decided to interview teachers rather than students since pedagogical
theory is generally aimed at teachers and I believed that speaking with teachers
would give me a sense of whether critical pedagogy theory matches up with the
practice. My initial, perhaps mistaken, assumption was that as a student I had a
sense of what other students find to be effective teaching practices. I have not
tried to determine in a systematic way whether other students find the same
teaching practices effective as I do. Learning more about students’ experiences
with critical pedagogy would be a worthwhile next step in this research.

Literature Review

There are many definitions and versions of critical pedagogy and

attempting to establish a single definition or version contradicts the aim of critical
pedagogy—to avoid a one-dimensional narrative (Gur-Ze'ev, 1998; Kincheloe,
2004). To avoid being overly reductive, I framed critical pedagogy as rooted in
what students know based on their daily lives. A critical education begins with
students exploring their concrete reality, sharing those experiences and linking
themselves to their socio-political context. Critical pedagogues like Paulo Freire,
Ira Shor, Donaldo Macedo, and bell hooks reason that by addressing issues that
affect students’ daily lives, students become more engaged with the ideas they are
learning, thereby becoming more critically conscious. Critical pedagogues also
emphasize the importance of teachers learning about the students—what their
personal and work lives are like, what their authentic language sounds like, what
degree of alienation they have experienced—and basing courses on students’
experiences (Florence, 1998; Freire & Macedo, 1998; hooks, 1994; Shor & Freire,
1987). This practice contrasts with the standard “banking” concept of education
where the teacher’s task is to fill the students who act as receptacles of
information (Freire, 1998, p. 67). With the banking model of education, students
are passive recipients of information that is detached from the context that gives it
significance, while teachers are a privilieged voice responsible for imparting this
information. Shor and Freire (1987) argue that rather than having knowledge
produced at a distance from the classroom by researchers, textbook writers and
curriculum committees, knowledge should be “created and re-created by students
and teachers in their classrooms” (p. 8) with students and teachers playing both
roles simultaneously.
hooks (1994) emphasizes the need for educators to consider students as
whole people with complex experiences. This fits with the understanding in
critical pedagogy that education is about more than achieving academic success or
becoming professionals, but rather about becoming engaged in public life. Freire
and Macedo (1998) argue:
[I]t is impermissible to train engineers or stonemasons, physicians or nurses,
dentists or machinists, educators or mechanics, farmers or philosophers, cattle
farmers or biologists, without an understanding of our own selves as historical,
political, social and cultural beings—without a comprehension of how society
works. (p. 263)
Shor goes further, saying that it is naive to see the classroom as a separate space
from the rest of society where inequality does not affect learning (Shaw, 2010).
hooks (1994) rejects a view of education as either separate or neutral, and
instead begins with the assumption that schools are sites for organizing
knowledge, power and desire. Educators determine what is passed on to students
as legitimate knowledge and culture, thereby reproducing existing culture and
beliefs (Shaw, 2010). This system has the effect of privileging Western European
accomplishments over others, which keeps these forms of knowledge entrenched
in the dominant culture. The result is the naturalization of an unequal society,
where some students are empowered while students outside of privileged groups
are pushed further into poverty and powerlessness (DeLeon, 2007). DeLeon
advances a new aim for education: to challenge existing social structures and
work toward social transformation. A critical education encourages students to
think of themselves as agents capable of shaping their own education and society
(Shor, 2012). Giroux (2011) argues that educators are responsible for working
toward a more socially just world, while McLaren (1997) argues for “a
revolutionary movement of educators informed by a principled ethics of
compassion and social justice, a socialist ethos based on solidarity and social
interdependence” (p. 1).
Given this revolutionary mandate, it is important to take critical pedagogy
beyond the theory and consider its applicability. Shor does this in his 1987
anthology of essays Freire for the Classroom, recounting the experiences of
critical pedagogues in North America. However, these essays are written by self-
identified critical pedagogues, all of whom are successful in applying the
pedagogy. There is no dissenting voice and scant evidence of struggle in applying
the theory. More recent studies also examine the implementation of critical
pedagogy, but the focus remains on self-identified critical pedagogues (Ainsa,
2011; Markovich, 2013; Yilmaz & Altinkurt, 2011).
Ruiz and Fernandez-Balboa’s 2005 study consisted of 17 teachers who
identified as critical pedagogues. The study set out to examine the teachers’
critical praxis and found that many of them struggled even to define critical
pedagogy and thus also struggled in its classroom implementation. According to
Ruiz and Fernandez-Balboa (2005): “[teachers’] emancipatory intentions
sometimes translated into oppressive practices” (p. 258). Based on these results,
Breuing (2011) saw a need to further explore the critical praxis of self-identified
critical pedagogues by investigating their definitions of critical pedagogy.
Breuing also found that teachers responded with overlapping and contradictory
definitions of critical pedagogy, and concluded that her attempt to universalize
“truth” may contradict the possibility of a critical pedagogy that is “multiple,
overlapping, and contested” (p. 20). Ultimately, Breuing seeks not to resolve the
tensions between the varied definitions of critical pedagogy, but rather to
acknowledge them and affirm the need for critical pedagogues to broaden their
understandings of critical praxis. My study takes a step back to answer the
question: how desirable and feasible is it for teachers to use the common themes
from critical pedagogy?
In answering this question, I specifically examine the applicability of
critical pedagogy to students from privileged socio-economic backgrounds. Freire
(1970) wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed to empower poor, illiterate, oppressed
Brazilians, and teachers may be uncertain how to apply the theory to students
from privileged backgrounds. Most critical pedagogy applies the theory to
students in marginalized positions, such as immigrants and those from low socio-
economic backgrounds, rather than to students in the oppressor group. The
widespread study of critical pedagogy among marginalized students is
unsurprising considering that underprivileged students suffer more from the
oppression that critical pedagogy seeks to address.  
Another example of a study applying critical pedagogy to marginalized
students is Markovich’s (2013) investigation of the scholastic achievement of
students from a predominantly socio-economically disadvantaged group in Israel,
the Mizrahim Jews, those of North African or Middle Eastern origin. According
to Markovich, the graduation eligibility of Jewish Mizrahi students is less than
20% that of students of Ashkenazi (European or American) origin (p. 4).
Markovich studied one secular Jewish high school, the Kedma School, which
applies critical pedagogy with the aim of promoting a critical consciousness
among its students to empower them to achieve greater academic success. Now,
18 years after the school opened, the Mizrahi students are succeeding at rates
higher than the national average with a 48% matriculation rate compared to the
41.4% national average and less than 10% in the neighbourhood surrounding the
Kedma School (Markovich, 2013, p. 5).  
Such studies examining the effectiveness of critical pedagogy among
marginalized students help prove the value of critical pedagogy. But examining
the perpetuation of oppression by looking only at the situation of the oppressed is
to miss half the equation. Would it not be more effective to tackle oppression by
also exposing students from privileged backgrounds to the ideas in critical
pedagogy? Allen and Rossatto (2009) write: “Paying theoretical and practical
attention to oppressor students must coincide with a new belief in the possibility
that oppressor students can change and that their transformation is a major
component of counterhegemonic projects” (p. 171). I undertake my research with
the belief that engaging oppressor groups is an important part of achieving the
goals of critical pedagogues, namely ending the reproduction of an unequal social
order. I thus aim to understand the effectiveness of applying critical pedagogy
among privileged students and teachers who have not been trained in critical
pedagogy.  

Methods

Because this research focuses on examining the applicability of critical

pedagogy among privileged students and teachers who have not been trained in
critical pedagogy, my study is based on teachers’ lived experiences. My interview
questions served as starting points for discussion. I avoided academic jargon in
the interviews and based the conversations on teachers’ experiences in the
classroom. Taking a constructivist qualitative approach, I attempted to understand
the teachers’ experiences from their perspective (Costantino, 2008). Constructivist
qualitative research emphasizes participant observation and interviewing such that
I, as the researcher, tried to understand the perspective of the interviewee.
Following the constructivist qualitative approach, I perceived my understanding
as co-created with the participant through our interactions, and I trusted the
participants’ account of their experiences.
The following questions served as starting points for discussion with
teachers:
1. Do you incorporate students’ experiences into your teaching? If so,
how?
2. How often do you teach your students while they learn as compared to
students teaching their peers and teaching you?
 3. In your teaching, to what extent do you openly acknowledge the
political nature of education and the social and historical context that
serves as a framework for the knowledge being taught?
4. Do you incorporate learning about social justice issues in your
lessons? If so, how?
5. Would you like to add anything else about your teaching that is
relevant to our discussion?
Teachers knew from the outset that the aim of my study was to get a sense of their
experience with critical pedagogy so that I could understand the desirability and
feasibility of the common themes in critical pedagogy.
I initially emailed 11 teachers all of whom I had contact with when I was a
student, and all of whom I knew from personal experience or had heard to be
excellent teachers for a variety of reasons. Two teachers did not respond, but the
other nine were willing to participate. The nine teachers—four men and five
women—were of a wide age range, from early 30s to 60s, and had anywhere from
5 to over 25 years of teaching experience. Teachers were of different ethnic
backgrounds, including Asian, African, South American, Eastern and Western
European. The teachers worked in various departments, from social science to
humanities, science, and alternative education courses (smaller classes on a
variety of subjects for students at risk of dropping out). I deliberately sought
representation across disciplines by emailing teachers from different departments,
but did not intentionally seek out any further diversity in choosing the
participants. I believe, however, that having such diversity in age, ethnicity and
teaching experience was valuable to broaden the perspectives represented in my
research. This fortuitous outcome arose despite the fact that participants were
selected based on convenience sampling. I approached teachers I believed would
be willing to participate and my sample ultimately consisted of the teachers within
that group who agreed to participate. There are some drawbacks to such an
approach, which are discussed in the limitations section below.
All of the teachers interviewed work at the high school I attended in the
suburbs of a large Canadian city. The school has an enrolment above 1,000
(Ontario Ministry of Education, 2011) and the average parent income is nearly
$90,000 CAD (Fraser Institute, 2010), compared to the average personal income
per capita in Ontario of $38,535 CAD (Ontario Ministry of Finance, 2012).
Interviews took place in May and June of 2012. The individual interviews lasted
between 60 and 90 minutes, and one 75-minute group interview was conducted to
follow-up on ideas and generate informal discussion between teachers. The
interviews were semi-structured to allow for organic discussion. After
transcribing the interviews, I organized the responses into the themes that
emerged most strongly and that aligned with ideas in critical pedagogy.
 Findings

The three themes that commonly arose in the interviews were 1) power
and authority among students and teachers, 2) the political nature of education,
and 3) teaching about social issues in the classroom.
As my principal form of analysis, I considered how the interviewees’
responses aligned with the practices proposed in the critical pedagogy literature.
Teachers signalled a positive response to the ideas from critical pedagogy if they
already practiced or were interested in practicing critical pedagogy. This existing
commitment or interest in critical pedagogy offered an indication of how
desirable and feasible it was to use ideas from critical pedagogy among teachers
who do not already subscribe to the theory while working with students largely
from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds.
In my study, teachers were particularly enthusiastic about grounding their
teaching in real-world social issues. In contrast, teachers’ hesitation or opposition
to the theory at times indicated either an unwillingness to move away from
oppressive practices or a lack of knowledge about how to. I found this to be the
case with sharing authority between students and teachers and making room for
students to be experts in the classroom. At other times, teachers’ opposition to the
theory highlighted an area where critical pedagogy may develop, for instance, by
focusing more on promoting critical thinking skills in students as a way to push
for social change rather than being dogmatically revolutionary.

Limitations

These findings raise important issues in critical pedagogy that may resonate
with teachers. However, there are several limitations to my study that must be
acknowledged. The small sample cannot be said to represent the views of teachers
more broadly. Moreover, the fact that participants were selected through
convenience sampling based on who I believed would be willing to participate
and who ultimately volunteered for the study may have introduced a systemic
bias. As such, the results from this study may differ significantly from what
would arise in discussion with a different group of teachers, and it may not tell us
much about the entire population of teachers. Moreover, there was regrettably no
observational component to my study. Future work to complement this study
would involve classroom observation and a comparison with another field site.
This could help shed light on discrepancies between how teachers articulate their
beliefs and classroom practices.
Because of such limitations, the findings from my study cannot be
extrapolated beyond these nine teachers. Yet, the themes raised in my discussions
with teachers seem to go to the core of the issues that arise in applying critical
pedagogy, and as such will hopefully be of interest to a wider audience of
scholars and teachers.

Analysis

When analyzing the content of the interviews, several themes emerged,

including power and authority among students and teachers, the limits to student
contributions in the classroom, the political nature of education, and social justice
issues.

Power and Authority Among Students and Teachers

Many teachers mentioned the importance of student contributions in the

classroom: one, Teacher A, going so far as to say, “In my class we have 31
teachers and 31 students.” But a common challenge is how to negotiate the
parameters for student and teacher contributions to classroom learning. In the
interviews, teachers discussed the importance of relating course content to
students’ experiences and gave examples of how they try to encourage student
participation. But, they narrowly defined the areas to which students could
contribute, often limiting student contribution to shared social experiences and
excluding students’ personal experiences. These exercises can be valuable, but
can also restrict students from fully immersing themselves in and benefiting from
their education. For instance, Teacher A, a humanities and social science teacher,
described a lesson in which he deconstructs race without explicitly tying in
students’ personal experiences. While he said many students find this lesson
valuable, students stand to gain even more by using personal experience as a
starting point for learning about concepts like the social construction of race.
Some teachers demonstrated more openness to students interacting with
the curriculum in a direct and personal way. For example, Teacher B, a
humanities teacher, explained that the best way to study a novel is by connecting
it to personal experiences, and so he shares personal anecdotes with his students.
When I asked why he shares his experiences with students, whether he means to
encourage students to share their own stories or model how students can engage
with the text, he responded:
To me the humanity of the teaching experience is the bottom line…I see the
literary text as secondary and…I see communication with my students as the
primary objective, their humanity and their understanding of life. I see their
understanding of the literary work or the fiction or non-fiction piece as a
prop…The stories are not real, our experiences are.
This teacher believed that the students’ experiences should be the basis of and the
reason for classroom learning.
 In contrast, Teacher C, a social science teacher, was vocal about the
importance of exercising caution in integrating students’ knowledge into
classroom lessons. She insisted that the teacher is the authority and that students
do not have sufficient knowledge to contribute to classroom learning. She offered
the example of a student who read about Holocaust denial online and was
convinced that the Holocaust never happened. In recounting this story, the teacher
highlighted that students gather information from all types of sources and may not
have the critical faculties or judgement to determine the validity of the
information. This is why, she explained, it is paramount for teachers to discern
what is true from what is not. This teacher also noted that although the social
science courses she teaches lend themselves to integrating students’ experiences,
she does not encourage sharing personal experiences. She does, however, think
about students’ experiences, for instance she knows that students are increasingly
facing mental health issues, so she teaches about mental health, but does not
invite students to discuss their experiences, nor does she share her own
experiences with students. She also reasoned that many students are private and
do not want their peers or teachers to know personal information about them. This
teacher’s sensitivity to introverted, private students is important and goes some
way to integrating students’ experiences. But, she fails to consider that more
direct and personal sharing may be a valuable part of learning for some and allow
for classroom bonding. In asserting herself as the sole authority in the classroom,
she ignores that students’ understanding is a significant source of knowledge. Not
all student ideas should be affirmed, some must be challenged, but excluding
students from the process of knowledge creation in the classroom undermines
their ability to learn. It is worth highlighting the distinction between challenging
and excluding students’ ideas: challenging students’ ideas means engaging and
working with them, whereas exclusion does not invite students to become
personally involved in the learning process. Excluding students’ knowledge from
classroom learning restricts the possibility of a fuller, more profound education
for both students and teachers.
Limiting the areas where students contribute to classroom learning can be
appealing to teachers because it means their ideas are less often challenged, they
are not forced to contend with opposing viewpoints and they can stick to a version
of knowledge that they are comfortable and familiar with. Or, as is likely often the
case, teachers may not know how to effectively incorporate students’
contributions into classroom learning. This social science teacher rightly
acknowledges that ultimately the teacher is in charge of the classroom, but
students benefit from a space where they can contribute. hooks (1994) notes: “I’m
not suggesting that I don’t have more power [than my students]. And I’m not
trying to say we’re all equal here. I’m trying to say that we are all equal here to
the extent that we are equally committed to creating a learning context” (p. 153).
What Teacher C dwelt on that hooks does not are the areas in which students and
teachers are not equal. Teachers have a more developed sense of judgement and
critical faculties, but they should help impart these to students by engaging with
students’ experiences and ideas. The balance comes in respecting students as
knowledge producers and expecting them to be accountable for their views.
hooks (1994) takes issue with teachers claiming their voice is the sole
authority, and argues that students’ voices should be affirmed. She says: “You
can’t deny that students have experiences and you can’t deny that these
experiences are relevant to the learning process even though you might say these
experiences are limited, raw, unfruitful or whatever. Students have memories,
families, religions, feelings, languages and cultures that give them a distinctive
voice” (p. 88). But teachers in the study expressed misgivings about endlessly
affirming students’ ideas, coddling students and allowing incorrect notions to slip
by.
In interviewing Teacher C about the knowledge students can bring to the
classroom, her responses highlighted the value of a teachers’ expert knowledge
and skill, and the importance of teachers using their expertise to engage with
students’ knowledge rather than simply dismissing or seeking to replace it.
When I asked about the value of the knowledge students bring to the
classroom, Teacher C responded: “Students don’t have expertise yet. They’re 16,
they’re 14, and their source is the Internet. [I can correct them] because of the
education I have, they don’t yet have that ability.” I followed up by asking: “How
would you respond to the idea that there are different types of knowledge that can
be valuable? You have a strong academic background, and that is part of your
expertise, but it may also be valuable to integrate a student’s knowledge which
would come from their parents, family, and culture.” Teacher C answered: “I
think that starts to get into opinion… you have to be objectively correct.” She
illustrated her point with an example of a student who researched domestic abuse
on the Internet and concluded that men suffer more from domestic abuse than
women.
This discussion brings to light a point that is not often brought to the fore
in critical pedagogy: students’ beliefs sometimes need to be corrected because
they are outright wrong. In such cases, teachers must still engage with students’
knowledge, but without indicating to students that they are right. Correcting
students need not amount to the banking method of education. Rather, teachers
should call on students to contribute their experiences so that teachers can
critically engage with students’ ideas. In turn, teachers should invite students to
critically engage with the ideas presented to them so that students can incorporate
what they are being taught into their understanding of the world.
This conversation also raises questions about how different teachers
understand knowledge as compared to my understanding of knowledge and the
understanding of knowledge in critical pedagogy. The gap here is that critical
pedagogy considers students’ experiences a valuable form of knowledge whereas
this teacher sees them as subjective opinions. Critical pedagogy does not dispute
the subjective dimension, but argues that such experiences (or knowledge) must
be engaged for students to learn in a meaningful way.

Exploring the Limits to Student Contributions in the Classroom:

The Importance of Engaging Students’ Questions

How do we establish parameters so that student contributions to classroom

learning are productive? What knowledge and skills can high school students
contribute to the classroom? While critical pedagogues emphasize students’
knowledge based on their lived experiences, teachers often raise the point that
students lack knowledge in the areas prescribed by the curriculum. And the
teachers are right in many cases. But, there is nevertheless room for students to
contribute to classroom learning in every discipline if teachers invite students to
ask questions and if teachers are willing to let these questions have power in
guiding classroom discussions. My conversations with teachers revealed that this
is a difficult task, particularly in disciplines that are more remote from students’
daily experiences.
Teacher D, who teaches both sciences and humanities, points to a
disciplinary divide. In his experience, students are not prepared to make
substantial contributions in science classes due to a lack of knowledge and skills.
But he noted that students are better able to contribute in humanities courses:
“The skills students have in language […and humanities courses] are higher order
than their skills in science courses. This is because students have seen a lot of
movies, read a lot of books, and this input is different from their daily experience
with science and math.” This teacher points out that subject areas dominated by
facts that are produced at a distance from students’ lived experiences are often
less accessible to students.
He has found, however, that a lack of knowledge and skills in an area does
not exclude the possibility of meaningful student engagement. Learning in such
an area should build off of students’ existing knowledge. Students can even direct
such lessons by asking questions. Teacher D offers an example of a science lesson
where students did not have enough substantive knowledge to make significant
contributions to classroom learning, but one student asked: “How do we know
there was a Big Bang?” This teacher wrote the question on the board and
answered it rather than proceeding with the lesson as he had planned. This
example demonstrates that there is space for critical pedagogy in the sciences,
especially if students’ questions are encouraged and if teachers make room by
allowing their understanding of scientific concepts to be disrupted.
 Teacher E, a social science teacher, takes student-driven learning a step
further by inviting students to design guiding unit questions. This is a worthwhile
initiative to engage students to contribute to classroom learning. But without
reflection or training in an area like critical pedagogy, it can be difficult for
teachers to develop strategies for integrating student knowledge and identifying
areas where students can be authorities. Encouraging genuine questioning and
making space to build on students’ knowledge allows both students and teachers
to hold power in the classroom. The next theme considers how teachers use their
power as authorities in the classroom to frame lessons and teach with a certain
political end in mind.

The Political Nature of Education

Few teachers seemed prepared to accept the idea from critical pedagogy
that the primary purpose of education is to transform our society into one that is
more socially just. In discussions about the revolutionary nature of critical
pedagogy, Teachers B and C expressed misgivings about their role in using
education as a tool for social justice. Three teachers strongly agreed with the
importance of talking about the political nature of knowledge. But the six others
seemed uneasy using terms like power, privilege, or politics and shifted to
discussing critical thinking.
In each interview, I brought up the notion of education as a political tool
for maintaining the status quo and offered the example of a history teacher who
only discussed the history of western accomplishments. I explained this
legitimizes a Eurocentric culture and keeps the history of students from other
backgrounds at the margins. Teacher B responded: “You can take this line of
thinking to different extremes; [for instance,] I could right away expect that
someone has an agenda against the white establishment.” This teacher preferred to
teach formal and informal logic to “give students the intellectual tools of
reasoning to argue.” Nearly all the teachers expressed a preference for teaching
critical thinking skills so that students can learn to question issues in society as
well as the knowledge taught in the mainstream curriculum.
There seemed to be a generational difference in teachers’ views about the
political nature of education. Younger teachers seemed more at ease talking about
the political nature of education, perhaps reflecting the fact that in recent years the
curriculum has more of a critical bent. Teacher F, a science teacher in her early
thirties stated: “I try to explain this [what I am teaching] is a science and not all
sciences…our curriculum is based a lot on Europe and North America, but there
are spaces to talk about things…like Aboriginal medicinal culture.” Teacher A,
who had prior exposure to ideas from critical pedagogy comments: “We are
studying a very particular history and a very particular curriculum, and it is the
curriculum of the white male and for the most part Anglo-Saxon, so that’s why I
ask the kids to ask very important questions: who is represented in the history text
and who is not represented and why?” Notably, as the teacher with the most
exposure to critical pedagogy, Teacher A tended to speak from a theoretical
perspective rather than offering concrete examples of adopting a critical lens in
his teaching. This suggests there may be a gap between theory and practice. In
this case, the gap may be attributed to the teacher’s difficulty communicating his
teaching practices, but it is nonetheless important to explore the challenges of
trying to put elements of critical pedagogy into practice.
Some teachers said the curriculum has a critical lens built in, for instance,
learning about conflict theory or talking about left-wing and right-wing biases in
the news in social science classes. But, these teachers conveyed that while they
try to teach students to look at social issues with a critical eye, that critical eye is
rarely turned toward course content. Teacher G, a humanities teacher, said she is
open to discussion if students ask, “Why are we learning this?” but she does not
build such questions into her lessons. These teachers’ efforts are reformative in
that they are a system maintenance type of change, rather than opening up a space
for transformative, or revolutionary, change. Reformative efforts are limited in
their objective to change only certain aspects of society, while a transformative
approach aims to achieve far-reaching social change. Thus, from a critical
pedagogical perspective, while this teacher’s intentions may be positive, these
efforts do not go far enough toward tackling the power structure perpetuated
through the education system.
At the other end of the spectrum, some teachers disagreed with the notion
that teachers can or should attempt to question existing power structures. The two
teachers with this view have both been teaching for over twenty years. They listed
a number of reasons why they do not tackle the political nature of education in
their classes. Teacher D stated that there is not a lot of time to discuss the political
nature of education because science teachers are “driven to teach factual
knowledge.” That being said, Teacher D does at times adopt a critical lens; for
instance, while teaching about how to generate electricity, he asked his students to
consider why regulations are changing in the fuel industry and who is controlling
these regulations. But he also questioned whether students are ready to engage
with these critical questions because “it doesn’t always get them to be their most
creative.” He wondered if students have the political tools or the “fire in their
bellies” to engage with these critical questions. This relates to the issue of class as
these students come from relatively privileged positions and thus, have no
impetus to question the status quo since they generally benefit from it.
Teacher D sums up what seems to be a shared sentiment: “Perhaps [the
students] haven’t had a political awakening, and I don’t see myself in a position to
wake them up. But I do try to make them think on both sides of an issue.” I think
this insight, which comes from a less ideological stance and puts more of an
emphasis on critical thought, is worthwhile for critical pedagogues to consider
because it allows both teachers and students to engage with the theory and put the
most useful parts into practice.

Social justice issues

It is also worth asking why many students at this high school have not yet
had a political awakening. The vast majority of students at the high school in this
study are from privileged socio-economic backgrounds. The school is also very
culturally diverse. While some students are likely to have experienced
discrimination, many students have not experienced serious social
marginalization. Because they have not had this experience of social exclusion,
they may lack the experiences that drive the desire for a critical education.
Students often need exposure to why the status quo is problematic before they
may be compelled to question it or push for change.
As such, for privileged students an important part of a critical education is
learning about marginalization and oppression in their own communities and
around the world, for instance poverty, slave labour, and violent conflict. All the
teachers except Teacher A described the current curriculum as having a strong
basis in learning about social issues. Teacher H explained that he previously
taught students in a low-income area where it was necessary to focus on issues
relevant to students’ lives to keep their attention. Now teaching in a school with
more affluent students, he still focuses on social issues to make lessons more
interesting and because it keeps students grounded. Several teachers noted that
discussion about social issues often organically becomes part of the lesson
because of student interest in what is going on in the world. Only Teacher A
expressed the belief that the curriculum does not facilitate learning about social
issues. He stated:
The curriculum is set up in such a way that doesn’t allow us to talk about these
things [as in social issues like poverty, sexism, racism]. And that’s where you
come in as a teacher. It doesn’t mean you have to completely throw the
curriculum... But if I can show the kids how the curriculum is written, or that
some things that are left out, you are definitely talking about social justice.
In contrast to teachers’ reluctance to the idea of being revolutionary
educators, most seemed comfortable and enthusiastic discussing social issues in
their classes. They felt less like ideological crusaders and more as though they
were educators informing their students about an issue and encouraging them to
develop the intellectual tools to have an informed perspective.
Teacher H leads alternative education classes, which are smaller classes
on a variety of subjects for the small, but significant number of students at risk of
dropping out of school. He explained that students in alternative education, unlike
the majority of students in mainstream classes at the school, are marginalized and
this marginalization is perpetuated by the education system. For many students,
their lack of social power and privilege leaves them at the bottom of the
classroom heap, and they get caught in a cycle that reproduces the social order
with them at the bottom. These students lack social power often both in their
socio-economic status and in their difficulty succeeding academically. When I
interviewed Teacher H, he had to answer my questions twice—once in reference
to students in mainstream classes and again to describe the situation in alternative
education classes. The disparity in his answers highlights the considerable
differences in applying critical pedagogy among students from high and low
socio-economic backgrounds. For instance, Teacher H describes how he takes a
different approach to encourage students in his mainstream and alternative
education classes to participate. In mainstream classrooms, he finds students are
driven by a desire to get high marks, whereas in alternative education classes,
marks are not a currency that has value to the students, but students tend to be
motivated if they have a good relationship with their teacher.
A final point worth noting is teachers’ assessment of their own socio-
political positions. Even though not every teacher thought about the political
dimension of education in the classroom, they were nonetheless all concerned
about the influence of politics on their role as teachers. Teachers were concerned
about who determines the purpose of education and whether the classroom is co-
opted by authorities with a particular agenda. Teachers pointed out that in recent
years, raising standardized test scores has become a primary goal in the education
system. The introduction of grading based on rubrics had students become more
focused on getting high grades rather than on the learning process, being creative,
or acquiring skills. Standardized tests incentivize teachers to focus on test scores
rather than on educational experience. Frustrated, Teacher I said:
When you ask ‘what is the most important purpose of an education system’ the
answer changes every few years…[is it] graduation rates, or are we [more
concerned about] taking care of the whole child and providing them with
counselling [or are we focusing on] teaching them to read? It can be whatever we
want it to be and politicians know that so they turn it into whatever they want it
to be.
Interestingly, this acute awareness of the role that politics plays in shaping
the education system does not often extend to teachers thinking about how politics
shapes what is taught in the classroom and how they reproduce a set of political
beliefs in their classrooms. This may also relate to the notion of privilege. When
teachers are in positions of privilege, they do not seem to be aware of their own
power perhaps because people tend to be aware of power differentials only when
they are subject to someone else’s power.   Hence, the challenge in introducing
privileged students to a critical education.
 Conclusion

In this study, I tried to get a sense of the practical usefulness of the theory
of critical pedagogy, but throughout the study and in writing this paper I had
reservations about excessive theorizing. As Shor correctly points out: “teachers
are more interested in practice than in theory” (Shor & Freire, 1987, p. 2) and
given the applied nature of the teaching profession, it is important that future
research focuses on what is directly useful to teachers. In my own research when I
did a group interview, I witnessed teachers’ appreciation for the opportunity to
discuss teaching practices with their peers. Teachers need more opportunities to
reflect on their practice and engage in discussions with other teachers about their
successes and failures. Such discussions can be enriched by drawing on critical
pedagogy.
I suggest that teachers may benefit from discussion groups led by a teacher
who is familiar with critical pedagogy. It would be particularly useful for teachers
to discuss with others in their department, for teaching Grade 12 Physics is
significantly different from Grade 9 English, and I found that although teachers
had common experiences, some of the most creative practices seemed to be born
from experience in a particular discipline. It is important to make room in the
discussion for teachers who do not believe that education should be disruptive to
the status quo or who are reluctant to discuss the political nature of education in
the classroom. These teachers’ views come from experience and whether they fall
in line with critical pedagogy must be secondary to the fact that a dogmatic
application of critical pedagogy undermines the theory’s value.
Although the teachers in my study had little prior experience with critical
pedagogy, they showed an intuitive awareness of some of the main principles, in
particular the importance of rooting education in real-world social issues and
discussing experiences of oppression in the classroom—whether the oppression of
the students or of other people around the world. In fact, whether part of the
curriculum, stemming from a teacher’s personal interest, or brought forth by
students, social justice issues seemed to feature prominently in science, social
science, and humanities courses. In discussions about the roles of students and
teachers in the classroom, most teachers described basing lessons on students’
experience and including students’ knowledge, but the vast majority of teachers
were reluctant to include student contributions beyond a narrow set of parameters
or a superficial depth. Teachers also seemed uncomfortable discussing what
knowledge is taught in the mainstream curriculum, who benefits from the
knowledge taught, and who is disadvantaged. Few teachers seemed prepared to
encourage students to transform the status quo, revealing that they are not ready
or do not currently have the tools to embrace the central goal of critical pedagogy
and use education as a tool for social justice.
 Instead, many teachers have their own philosophies on education, whether
it is helping students see beauty in the world or fostering the opportunity to share
and nurture our humanity. None of the philosophies teachers described were
entirely at odds with the aims of critical pedagogy to help students become aware
of themselves as political, social, and historical beings; question mainstream
education that perpetuates the status quo; and work toward creating a more
socially just society. But, none of their philosophies go far toward pushing for
revolutionary social change either. However, the more appropriate role for
teachers is to awaken students’ minds by teaching them critical thought rather
than persuading them of the need for revolution. Granted, these two may go hand
in hand—exposing students to ideas about privilege and disadvantage may
compel them to believe there is a need for social change—but it should be up to
students to wrestle with questions about how to achieve such change.
In the future, I am interested in re-evaluating the teachers’ perspectives
after they engage in more critical reflection in discussion groups with their peers
either by including a teacher who is sensitized to critical pedagogy or by bringing
critical pedagogy literature into the group. Such an approach respects the value of
teachers’ experiences while introducing the possibility that teachers can broaden,
enrich, and disrupt their own practice by incorporating new ideas.

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Author

Leanna Katz is currently working on her J.D. at the University of Toronto. She is
a recent graduate of the Arts and Science Program at McMaster University in
Hamilton, Ontario. Her research interests include pedagogy, immigration and
refugee issues, and mental health as well as investigating the legal dimensions of
these areas.