As time continues passing, the educational system continues having some weaknesses of which the main affected are the students. Some of those weaknesses are for instance the fact that students should follow some previously established norms which were for a different context. It is thought that people have not been totally conscious about the fact that this is a new century of which not everything should be either totally different nor everything the same. As it was said by Agger, (as cited by Sarroub & Quadros, 2015) “The internalization of values and norms, which induce people to act and behave according to what it is expected in society.” (p. 252),. Nowadays, education rule set does not allow students to be conscious, to come up with their own considerations about their own and actual context. Educators should start to change the pedagogy in their schools, otherwise, there is not going to be an improvement, improvement that had been and continues been expected years ago.
The importance to make these changes is due to the fact that education should stop following the idea of oppressors and oppressed as it was before. This ideology consisted of classifying people into two different groups. However, it was not about which group you wanted to be in, it was depending on who and how you were; you had the obligation to follow a way of thinking which is imposed. Lee Allen and Rossatto (2009) defines the oppressor student as “a student who is member of an oppressor group (white, male, middle- or upper-class, etc.)” Besides, they clarify “Since oppression is a structural phenomenon, no individual person can escape their location as the oppressor any more than no individual person can escape their location as the oppressed.” (Lee Allen & Rossatto, 2009). There was no chance to anything.
This helped to foster the idea that anyone who was in the oppressed group was less for the society, they did not have voice and vote. This idea was seeing many years during the slavery time. Many color people were not allowed to learn how to read and to write. And if in any case one of them did do it, they would be sentenced to be executed. Illustrated in a movie based on a novel written by Haley in 1976. Those were really hard times for them. In other words, only the privileged to have access to education were the dominants, the oppressors; that is to say, the white people.
After that, the industrialization emerged. This time, where the most important was to enhance people to be consumers. Even education was modeled according to those interests of the industrialization. Schools were considered as factories of which made people in order to work hard and to produce more money, which was the only interest. Stated by Henry Giroux (2015), this pedagogy based on the industrialization takes off many skills to students, including the creativity and their own reasoning. Besides, as Robinson (2008) pointed out, there was one exam which aim was to classify people into two different groups, the academic and the non-academic ones. Sadly, some of those thoughts are still in the actual educational system, education that has not had time to be up dated.
In order to change the educational system to a different and more effective, more objective education, there have been some theories and concepts which seem to be a guide to get the answer to take students to the next level of education. A theory called critical pedagogy theory by Paulo Freire, of which try to consider the importance of being critical during the learning process. Moreover, there is, for instance, the concept of the lateral thinking by Edward De Bono, of which has some type of close relationship with the critical pedagogy by Freire. These may work as a relevant resource that it was being implemented or followed, it could provide a considerable change to education nowadays.
So as to get deeper into this concept of lateral thinking by De Bono. De Bono considers it as a technique to change the paradigms of education. In this conception, De Bono points out that the lateral thinking consists of the skill of having original ideas that help to interpret in different ways a situation and at the same time to find a solution. Besides, De Bono clarifies that this ability everyone has it; however, it gets deteriorated gradually because of the education that has always established only one answer, only one way to get to the result and no letting students going beyond the class.
Furthermore, this critical pedagogy theory by Paulo Freire considers the importance of everyone who has a close relationship with the school, mainly educators and student. This theory main objective is to take students to be free from oppression, to put on one side all those previous concepts and to start to elaborate theirs owns based on their beliefs, ideas, and thoughts. For instance, the idea that the United States is the best country in the world when actually it is not... It is considered on that way due to their educators that continue the heritage about the idea that the USA due to some events that passed in history. Such as the first country to send a person to the moon.
On one hand, the critical pedagogy considers the importance of the role of educators. “Critical educators cannot just work to change the social order without helping to educate a knowledgeable and skillful group of students.” (Kincheloe, 2008, p. 21) Educators have a huge responsibility to encourage students to think critically. It is important and gives hope to see educators highly interested in following the critical pedagogy in order to forget the traditional education that only has made students weaker; actually, it does not have interest on what students prefer. It is said that it is because of the fact that the government is afraid of one day students discovered their own power which is their words and thoughts.
Educators should be resourceful so as for students to start questioning everything. Peterson highlights (as cited by Sarroub & Quadros, 2015) “that even with standardized curricula, teachers can utilize the life experiences of students, as well as poetry, movies, field trips, and music to boost critical thinking and awareness in the classroom.” (p. 256). As well, taking into account different aspects as Young assumed such as (as cited by Sarroub & Quadros, 2015) “students’ interests, cultural needs, and community empowerment.” (p. 254) Sometimes, it is not easy to make students start thinking critically if the educators take into account only one situation or one context in particular of which students do not have a particular interest in it. It is determining to employ a variety of context and situations to students can make their own comparisons and analysis; those sort of exercises are the ones which really enrich students mind.
At the same time of the importance of educators, there is the students' one. Nowadays, it is easy to say that the central issue that makes students do not reach critical thinking is because of themselves, or it is because of the teachers. So to clarify, there is not just only one guilty, it is a cooperative work. Students have a huge responsibility as the educators do. It is important that students can reach those skills that will help them to analyze any situation, and it is not only beneficial for them, also for the whole society. Students should be totally motivated and confident that critical thinking would help them in the future.
As this theory has become really interesting for education, there have been different educators of who have taken the time to put into practice the critical pedagogy in their schools. For instance, in an Iranian school, Sadegui decided to use this theory through (as cited by Sarroub & Quadros, 2015) “adopting locally and situated forbidden topics or taboos, as well as engaging students through discussion; reading diverse articles; and utilizing students’ own sources of information and knowledge, such as texts, pictures, and audio recordings.” (p. 254) The more original material and sources are used in class the better is going to better result.
Also, in South Korea, Shin and Crookes (as cited by Sarroub & Quadros, 2015) “employed critical pedagogy by creating projects, such as slide presentations, travel plans, discussion groups, poster presentations, and written essays.” (p. 255) Additionally, as a result, students showed an interest in the importance of the different discussions during the class as a way to listen to one another’s thoughts and ideas so as to deeper with. That also support students to be more tolerant of their partners' different ideas.
Nevertheless, there is still emerging a variety of questions about the outcomes after that critical pedagogy in the learning process. In accordance with Rotger (2009, p. 69) “critical literary analysis should not be limited to an examination of power relations that inhere in race, class or gender differences in the text… should also be directed at power relations that emanate from the text to its global implications.” In other words, students should take into account those situations that may affect them, situations that are actually happening in their context and that have a worldwide connection.
Furthermore, Sarroub and Quadros points out some aspects which should be an obstacle to implement the critical theory such as “teachers’ limited understanding of the implementation of “critical” in their curricula, lack of support in adopting critical perspectives within the school site, as well as practitioners’ skepticism of the “empowering” outcome in students’ lives.” (2015). Ko and Wang highlights (as cited by Sarroub & Quadros, 2015) "the teacher’s lack of time, insufficient classroom time, large class size, and cultural expectations in education as barriers in Taiwan English classrooms.” (p. 255) Large class size was and continue being a wide problem, and if it is expected to view any improvement in education; first, there should be a limited amount of students per classroom and at the same way, more time class hour.
And last but not least Eastman.(as cited by Sarroub & Quadros) “questions whether it is even appropriate to introduce and implement critical literacy into classrooms where students have more of an interest in learning the English language itself or a need to learn the language, rather than an interest in being critical of it.” (p. 257) One aspect is that educators consider better that students become more critical but it is common in language classes; however, what about what students prefer? Sometimes the lack of interest from students makes the process of being critical slower.
To conclude, future teachers should start thinking about how they can help to change education nowadays. If people could be aware of how education is the only answer to any problem in society if everyone believed that everything starts through education, that if solid bases are formed before, during the first years of learning... This world would be another completely different. Sadly, after the industrialization, everything in this world has become a business. In order to survive is to produce and to have money, and the knowledge has lost its value, its power. From a personal perspective, I am highly sure if at the elementary school implemented more activities so as to motivate the critical thinking, the quality of consciousness of the students would be totally outstanding.
References
Giroux, H. (2015, September). Where is the outrage? critical pedagogy in dark times. Retrieved 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAxj87RRtsc
Kincheloe, J. L. (2008). Critical pedagogy primer (Second ed.). New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Retrieved 2019
Lee Allen, R., & Rossatto, C. A. (2009). Does critical pedagogy work with privileged students? Teacher Education Quarterly, 165. Retrieved 2019
Robinson, K. (2008, June). Changing education paradigms. United Kingdom. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms/up-next
Rotgers, R. (2009). An introduction to critical discourse analysis in education (Second ed.). Missouri, United States. Retrieved 2019
Sarroub, L. K., & Quadros, S. (2015). Critical pedagogy in classroom discourse. The Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics, 252-257. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1155&context=teachlearnfacpub
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