Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy: Similarities, Differences and Critiques

Posted on February 7, 2015 by admin

Snea Thinsan
Language Education Department,
School of Education, Indiana University

Introduction

New to the critical literacy field, I was overwhelmed by the diverse uses of the word ‘critical’ in different contexts. However, I did not see it used much at all in the hardcore TESOL literature, or even in the CALL community, to which I assume I belong. The major phrases that struck me the most often include critical thinking, critical pedagogy, critical reading and writing, critical education, critical media literacy, critical discourse analysis, just to name a few. Among which, I also saw other phrases that share similar concepts with critical literacy such as critical media literacy, empowering education, multicultural education, liberation education, etc. I had simply thought the word ‘critical,’ added to any context of use, would lead to critical literacy. Then, my confidence about whether I truly understand the conceptions of critical literacy was shaken, particularly when I proposed a project to Professor Harste and he replied, writing that ‘critical literacy’ is not ‘critical reading’! So, I decided to read more to gain a sense of what critical literacy means in a wider context.

Overwhelmed by the body of literature, I decided to use a web concordancer to help detect how the word ‘critical’ has been used in the educational literature. Based on the data, now available at http://php.indiana.edu/~sthinsan/criticalincontext.htm, two terms appear very frequently: Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy. I suspected that they are not the same, but that there are both similarities and differences between them. I also thought that there must be some critiques against them. An initial consultation with the literature informed me that not much at all has been said about the relationships between and the limitations of these two traditions. Thus, this paper will briefly define these terms, highlight the similarities and differences between them, and point out some limitations and critiques against them. It was hoped that this investigation would enable me to see critical literacy more clearly.  My discovery results in the following notes:

Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy: Definitions

The body of literature shows that Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy are two different traditions. “Each has its textual reference points, its favored authors, and its desired audiences” (Hatcher, 2000). There are websites and departments clearly labeled with either of the two terms. See, for examples of the Critical Thinking tradition, Baker University, Center for Critical Thinking athttp://www.bakeru.edu/html/crit/; The Center for Critical Thinking athttp://www.criticalthinking.org/, which was founded by Richard Paul at Sonoma State University; and The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, chaired also by Richard Paul at http://www.criticalthinking.org/ncect.html. For Critical Pedagogy, there are prominent websites such as 21st Century Schools(http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/) , which was created by Anne Shaw to provide information for teachers, principals and curriculum specialists involved with the K-12 classrooms; and Possibilities: Critical Pedagogy Web Site(http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~possible/index.html), which is a collaborative project to analyze society from the perspective of the Frankfurt School of critical theory.

How are these two terms defined by their prominent thinkers? Too many definitions and details are provided by people of the two sides, so it is not possible to mention all of them. For the purpose of this paper, definitions by a few prominent thinkers of each tradition should suffice.

A draft statement prepared for the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinkingby Scriven and Paul, available at its website athttp://www.criticalthinking.org/ncect.html, offer a most comprehensive scope of Critical Thinking as follows:

Critical Thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue, assumptions, concepts, empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions, implications and consequences, objections from alternative viewpoints, and frame of reference. Critical Thinking – in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes – is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.

Harvey Siegel regards that Critical Thinking aims at producing a self-sufficient person, who is a liberate person, “free from the unwarranted and undesirable control of unjustified beliefs” (Seigel, 1988, 58). Ennis (1996) thinks that critical persons should not only be able to seek reasons, truth and evidence, but should also be able to do such things.

Other Critical Thinking theorists include Israel Scheffler, John Meck, etc. Their definitions are thoroughly analyzed by Hatcher (2000) and made available online at:http://www.bakeru.edu/html/crit/literature/dlh_ct_defense.htm. His observation about the confusion caused by the many definitions is interesting:

For many years, teachers of critical thinking have been faced with a problem: there are numerous definitions of critical thinking. Some are long and tedious, others are short and succinct; some emphasize skills, some dispositions; some emphasize context and world views, some focus on arguments and evidence.

On the Critical Pedagogy camp, the word ‘critical’ is used based on a different fundamental conception. The idea of Critical Pedagogy began with the neo-Marxian literature on Critical Theory (Stanley 1992), but the most influential authors in this field nowadays include Paolo Freire, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, and Ira Shor (Burbules & Berk, 1999). Paulo Freire, considered the Father of this tradition, is widely known and admired for his work in adult literacy, education and fighting oppression.  His best known work is Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he sees Critical Pedagogy as concerned with the development of conscienticizao, or often translated as critical consciousness. He thinks that, for people to gain freedom, they need to understand the system of oppressive relations and know where they are situated in that system. Influenced largely by Freire, Critical Pedagogy therefore aims at bringing members of an oppressed group to a critical consciousness of their situation so that they can move on to praxis, or social action that leads to desirable transformation. Essentially, Freire considers an ingrained, fatalistic belief in the inevitability and necessity of an unjust status quo as a great single barrier.

Another definition is offered by Giroux, who interestingly raises a point about schools teaching a “language of critique” but failing to encourage a “language of possibility” (Giroux 1983, 1988). He, therefore, thinks that critical educators should work hard in order to “raise ambitious, desires, and real hope for those who wish to take seriously the issue of educational struggle and social justice” (Giroux 1988, 177). In his later work, Giroux adds that Critical Pedagogy . . . “signals how questions of audience, voice, power, and evaluation actively work to construct particular relations between teachers and students, institutions and society, and classrooms and communities. . . . Pedagogy in the critical sense illuminates the relationship among knowledge, authority, and power” (Giroux, 1994: 30).

In essence, Critical Pedagogy theorists agree that it is not enough to reform the habits of thoughts of thinkers without challenging and transforming the institutions, ideologies, and relations that engender distorted, oppressed thinking in the first place, and that the reform needs to go hand in hand with efforts to challenge the institutional policy and practices and all that causes distorted, oppressed thinking (Burbules & Berk, 1999). These similar points are also stressed or exemplified in work by other prominent authors including Henry Giroux, Douglas Kellner, Peter McLaren, Carlos Torres,  Angela Valenzuela,  and Lev Vygotsky.

Similarities and Differences

While approaching work by the authors of the two fields, many may feel confused which tradition they belong. I believe knowing the natures of the two camps will help us understand the work by their authors more easily.

By and large, the two traditions share some common concerns. Fundamentally, they both assume that people in the society are generally deficient in the abilities or dispositions that would allow them to discern certain kinds of inaccuracies, distortions, and falsehoods (Burbules & Berk, 1999). These flaws are seen in both fields as a barrier to freedom, though they are more explicitly addressed in the Critical Pedagogy tradition. However, Critical Thinking authors, in their more recent work, tend to make their concerns about social actions that lead to humanizing effects across all social groups/ classes more explicit (see Ennis, 1996, Paul & Elder, 2002). A statement by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking also reflects such a scenario:

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. — (National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 1996).

A closer look at the literature from both fields reflects some further distinctions. Whereas the Critical Thinking tradition is focused predominantly on criteria of epistemic adequacy, the Critical Pedagogy tradition regards “specific belief claims, not primarily as propositions to be assessed for their truth content, but as parts of systems of belief and action that have aggregate effects within the power structures of society” (Burbules & Berk, 1999). Paul (1990), a prominent Critical Thinking author, sees irrational, illogical and unexamined living as the basic problem, and thus people need to learn how to express and criticize the logic of arguments that underpin our everyday activity, saying, “The art of explicating, analyzing, and assessing these ‘arguments’ and ‘logic’ is essential to leading an examined life” (66). In a higher note, critical pedagogues are preoccupied with social injustice and how to change inequitable, undemocratic, or oppressive institutions and social relations (Burbules,1992/1995). However, it is important to note that these two endeavors can be seen as interconnected because, as Burbules and Berk (1999) put, the standards of epistemic adequacy themselves (valid argument, supporting evidence, conceptual clarity, and so on) and the particular ways in which these standards are invoked and interpreted in particular settings inevitably involve the very same considerations of who, where, when, and why that any other social belief claims raise. In practice, I think these foci, if adopted differently in different situations, can lead to different results. For example, Critical Thinking, if seen as a system of searching truth and knowledge as in research training, may be limited to certain skills that are not necessarily conducive to social actions, or even a discussion of social issues. In addition, in classrooms, different mindsets will also yield different effects on the students. For instance, if teachers see classroom activities as a way to think critically without bearing in mind why they should be critical and about what to be critical, they may not encourage the students to challenge the status quo, and even may, instead, produce critical students who support the status quo that is, as Nieto (1999) argues, already deeply embedded in any given educational institution.

While the Critical Thinking tradition increasingly embraces the conception about social actions as promoted by Critical Pedagogy, Burbules and Berk (1999) also interestingly present how the fundamental philosophies of these two traditions crash.

From the perspective of Critical Thinking, Critical Pedagogy crosses a threshold between teaching criticality and indoctrinating. Teaching students to think critically must include allowing them to come to their own conclusions; yet Critical Pedagogy seems to come dangerously close to prejudging what those conclusions must be. Critical Pedagogy see this threshold problem conversely: indoctrination is the case already; students must be brought to criticality, and this can only be done by alerting them to the social conditions that have brought this about. In short, we can restate the problem as follows: Critical Thinking’s claim is, at heart, to teach how to think critically, not how to think politically; for Critical Pedagogy, this is a false distinction. (No page number).

For details of debates surrounding the issue of different nature of the two traditions, please see Burbules and Berk (1999). Although the debates seem lengthy, the main story is about whether and how Critical Thinking can lead to the transformations that Critical Pedagogy tries to promote. Due to page limit, I will move on to critiques on these two traditions.

Limitations & Critiques

Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking is open and thus problematic by nature, so it is critiqued in the following ways. First, although efforts by people in the field are made to bring Critical Thinking from a skill-only status to skill-plus-dispositions, which pays more attention to contextual and institutional factors, Burbules and Berk (1999) see that it is still limited for several reasons: ambiguity of what dispositions part of Critical Thinking entails; the potential lack of enough attention to institutional contexts and social relations; and the focus on the individual person (which goes against a general concept that associating with people is an integral part of learning to be critically literate in Critical Pedagogy’s views). Paul and Elder (2002), however, may disagree and argue that critical thinking can and should move in the same directions.

Second, there has been a doubt with regard to “the extent to which Critical Thinking can be characterized as a set of generalized abilities and dispositions, as opposed to content-specific abilities and dispositions that are learned and expressed differently in different areas of investigation” (Burbules & Berk, 1999). Applying Critical Thinking in different contexts becomes problematic because, for example, in the engineering and literature courses may not require the same set of abilities and dispositions. This inevitably leads to a problem in the question of both how to teach and how/whether we can test for a general facility in Critical Thinking (Ennis, 1984). In fact, the question of what to test in Critical Thinking courses is a dominant area of discussion among people in this field (see, for example,  Paul, R., Elder, L. & Bartell, T., 1995).

Third, as many may expect, Critical Thinking has been accused of being culturally biased in favor of a particular masculine and/or Western mode of thinking, which implicitly devalues other ways of knowing (see Warren, 1994). Nieto (1999) emphasizes the influence of educational institutions in shaping the classroom practices, which implies that educational practices that promote critical thinking may not necessarily be justifiable. It is therefore easy to understand how Critical Thinking activities that do not take into account feministic views or multicultural education views (including the role of students’ background cultures in their learning) may only serve to maintain the status quo. This critique has, as I see, encouraged the authors of the Critical Thinking camp to consider the contextual and social factors more seriously. A problem I can foresee is the gap that this movement shall bring into classroom practices. Teachers can no longer rely on the old guideline of what to teach. Critical Thinking is both a subject in itself and/or part of the subject they are teaching; that is, they have to look into how to help people think critically with the purpose of moving toward, for example, social justice and a more democratic world, while still trying to make sure that the subject contents are well covered.

This paper would lack a substantial dimension if I did not mention the problems in practicing Critical Thinking. A lot of problems among teachers implementing Critical Thinking are found in study titled “Study of 38 Public Universities and 28 Private Universities To Determine Faculty Emphasis on Critical Thinking In Instruction,” by Dr. Richard Paul, Dr. Linda Elder, and Dr. Ted Bartell, who found that the teachers in their studies:

• do not understand the connection of critical thinking to intellectual standards.
• are not able to clarify major intellectual criteria and standards.
• inadvertently confuse the active involvement of students in classroom activities with critical thinking in those activities.
• are unable to give an elaborated articulation of their concept of critical thinking.
• cannot provide plausible examples of how they foster critical thinking in the classroom.
• are not able to name specific critical thinking skills they think are important for students to learn.
• are not able to plausibly explain how to reconcile covering content with fostering critical thinking
• do not consider reasoning as a significant focus of critical thinking.
• do not think of reasoning within disciplines as a major focus of instruction.
• cannot specify basic structures essential to the analysis of reasoning.
• cannot give an intelligible explanation of basic abilities either in critical thinking or in reasoning .
• do not distinguish the psychological dimension of thought from the intellectual dimension.
•  have had no involvement in research into critical thinking and have not attended any conferences on the subject.
• are unable to name a particular theory or theorist that has shaped their concept of critical thinking.

(Source: http://www.criticalthinking.org/schoolstudy.htm, retrieved November 6, 2002. )

Critical Pedagogy

Critical Pedagogy does not go without criticisms, of course. A very interesting one has to do with the missing of female voices among the top authors in this tradition, as well as in the Critical Thinking side. There are certainly celebrated women writing within each tradition, but the chief spokespersons, and the most visible figures in the debates between these traditions, have been men (Burbules & Berk,1999).

In the same light, Critical Pedagogy is accused of being, in my words, an evil in a smiling face. Burbules and Berk (1999) summarize the scenario very well:

Claims that Critical Pedagogy is “rationalistic,” that its purported reliance on “open dialogue” in fact masks a closed and paternal conversation, that it excludes issues and voices that other groups bring to educational encounters, have been asserted with some force (Ellsworth 1989; Gore 1993). In this case, the sting of irony is especially strong. After all, advocates of Critical Thinking would hardly feel the accusation of being called “rationalistic” as much of an insult; but for Critical Pedagogy, given its discourse of emancipation, to be accused of being yet another medium of oppression is a sharp rebuke. (No page #).

The accusation is of course defended by the prominent thinkers of the attacked fields (see, for instance, Siegel,1996; Wheary, & Ennis,1995), but I like Burbules and Berk’s (1999) observation below:

We find it impossible to avoid such a conclusion: that if the continued and well-intended defense and rearticulation of the reasons for a Critical Thinking or a Critical Pedagogy approach cannot themselves succeed in persuading those who are skeptical toward them, then this is prima facie evidence that something stands beyond them — that their aspirations toward a universal liberation, whether a liberation of the intellect first and foremost, or a liberation of a political consciousness and praxis, patently do not touch all of the felt concerns and needs of certain audiences, and that a renewed call for “more of the same,” as if this might eventually win others over, simply pushes such audiences further away.

My Reflections

Having learned about the relations, conflicts, and weak points of both Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy, I am pushed to think about how they can fit in the Thai educational context. One thing that Burbules & Berk (1999), my primary source for this paper, do not mentioned is how these traditions may be viewed differently in different cultures around the globe and how that can complicate the issues even further.

Perhaps, Thai educators have to start with a clear definition of what kind of education they want for the Thai citizens. I know that social justice and equity among diversities in any given country should be an ultimate aim, meaning that Thais also should be educated to become critical thinkers when solving daily life problems and to have critically fair minds at the same time so as to serve as the world’s civilized citizens.

A further question is, though, whether all subjects in the school systems and courses/learning opportunities outside school fences should be taught with the same foci. This has been a question I constantly ask myself. A math teacher, in my opinion, may be able to promote social actions less frequently than a social studies teacher. If this makes sense, the way the objectives of each course/ subject/ activity are planned can be different in terms of priority. Despite this, my feeling is that Critical Pedagogy conceptions should be introduced to and encouraged among all teachers, new or experienced, because they promote qualities that people in all corners of the world should possess. In that light, I see Critical Pedagogy as a vein in the body of knowledge; it is not always seen, but it is there, inevitably.

With regards to EFL teaching, I see the need for adopting conceptions of critical thinking, critical literacy/ pedagogy, critical media literacy, critical feminism, etc. The issues and methods these diverse views involve will at least increase motivation among students because language is about life and I am sure that issues about lives that deserve attention in their society will interest them or at least provoke their conscience. In addition, I agree that language is never neutral, so I think Thai students should not just learn about the English language itself, but also about the hidden features such as power relations, biases, assumptions, and social issues. I have realized that to teach students to be proficient in English is not enough; I need to empower them with the ability to unpack what comes with and hides between the lines of the language they hear, read, speak and write. To this end, let me present what I was kindly shared by Professor Harste while I was struggling to find the interrelations of these two terms that had lingered in my head. I like the last two sentences—Professor Harste’s playful but often profound trademark:

Critical literacy is about examining issues surrounding language and power and language and access.  Whereas critical thinking is psychological, critical literacy is sociological, interested in interrogating the systems of meaning that operate to position language learners in particular ways in particular contexts.  From an instructional perspective, critical literacy is also about redesign and taking new social action but these later components need to be built on an understanding of the systems of power that are in play on language speakers and learners.  Having said all this, no topic, it seems to me, is more appropriate for study by EFL teachers and their students than what it means to be critically literate and how the language they are learning impacts their identity.

I see Critical Pedagogy as focused on helping students understand what differences make a difference as well as who benefits with particular differences in place and to what ends. I don’t know.  These are too hard questions!

(Harste, personal contact, November 6, 2002)

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Giroux, H. A. (1992c). “Resisting difference: Cultural studies and the discourse of Critical Pedagogy.” Cultural Studies, Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler, eds. (New York: Routledge), 199-212.

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This entry was posted in Education, Love, Morality & Peace, Freire, Marx, Buddha, & Me, Language Learning Pedagogies, Revolutionary Pedagogies. Bookmark the permalink.

Education for Peace: What I wrote in 2008-9

Posted on February 7, 2015 by admin

I believe education should help to plant the seeds of peace within individuals, society, nation, and our shared globe, simply because only peaceful people can love and serve others constructively in the humankind society in order to bring about positive changes to it. Education that follows the trail paved roughly and inadequately for us by the materialistic, capitalistic efforts and ignorant perspectives of life will continue to serve the status quo, which structurally has generated ignorance, oppression, and thus violence at all levels.

At the personal level, all individuals will need to find the peace in them through the right kind of education that promotes critical personal reflections and actions more intensely, rather than gearing toward test-taking or material success pursuit. In the real world, a balance between different purposes may be needed, but peace must be a major part of the equation. On the societal scale, peace-oriented education cannot be any more important nowadays.  The learners must be encouraged to see the world from multiple perspectives and to reassign their roles in bringing about positive changes. In the end, global education, peace education, civil education and the like must be encouraged or integrated around the world where ignorance, nationalism, patriotism, and violence forcefully prevail. Talk is merely enough, and it can be cheap; however, unless we talk in a caring, sincere and regular manner, we could forget the importance of planting and taking care of the sees of peace.  Actions must be taken regularly, too, so the peace seeds will grow and yield fruits to the humankind.

I have worriedly noticed that hatred, mutual misunderstanding, lack of critical thinking, ethno-centricism, greed, ignorance, unkind pride, narrow-mindedness, and extremism are creating tensions and violence among the humankind at all levels. Education is the most powerful tool to fight against all these downfalls of the human race. I am therefore very interested in how to incorporate all these in education of all types.

Here I will share all that I have learned about this new field.

Other Sources of Food for Thought

MIT Opencourseware
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

Stanford on iTunes
http://itunes.stanford.edu/

Columbia VDO Archive
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/media/06/

Harvard KSG Video Archive
http://www.iop.harvard.edu/events_forum_archive.html

MIT archives
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video_index.php

Princeton Lectures Video
http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/

Stanford GSB (Audio&Video)
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/audiovideo.html

Ethics Video (Philosophy)
http://ethics.sandiego.edu/video/

Idea Channel
http://www.ideachannel.com/

ฺUC Berkeley webcasthttp://webcast.berkeley.edu/

University of Chicago research video
http://research.uchicago.edu/highlights/search.phtml

Stanford video archive
http://news-service.stanford.edu/videos/2006.html 

This entry was posted in Education, Love, Morality & Peace. Bookmark the permalink.

Critical Literacy as “Compromisation”

Posted on February 7, 2015 by admin

Snea Thinsan

This article came out of a semester-long self study with L750 classmates under supervision of Dr. Stephanie Carter.  Each participant unpacked and repacked “Critical Literacy” following intensive discussions on what is and is not CL.

I. Introduction: The critical roots II. A common theme: “Tensionsâ€� Tensions that require “”compromisation”â€� – To liberate and/or to empower – To “unbankâ€� by way of “”compromisation”â€� III. Bridging the extremes To sensitize or conscientize To challenge the commonplace, the dominant views, or the taken for granted To unpack sociopolitical systems To give voices to the silenced To take action or to reach praxis IV. Ending notes

Introduction: The critical roots

The notions of critical literacy, emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Green 2001), refer to many things practiced by many groups of people and appear in various dimensions. Green further suggests that` “The notions of text, literacy as social practice, and discourse, which have been discussed within cultural literacy, are…integral to critical literacyâ€� (2001, 7), but that there are other stances and the distinction is not clear. Harste (2002), likewise, defines critical literacy as “a moving target” that generally involves efforts in “disrupting the taken for granted, interrogating dominant perspectives, exposing the political in what was thought to be innocent, and promoting social justice in all kinds of forms” (Harste, L750 Course Syllabus, Fall 2002, Indiana University), which is similar to Lankshear’s observation that critical literacy is a “contested educational idealâ€� with “no final orthodoxâ€� (1994, p. 4).

Wink (1997) argues that critical literacy is one name among the many similar views from around the world, which can be linked to the real education world via critical pedagogy, or radical pedagogy. See figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Critical Roots (Wink, 1997, p. 64)

Insert the figure here.

Gore (1993) also identifies a close link between critical and feminist discourses with critical pedagogy. Nieto (1999) defines multicultural education in a comprehensive sense and as conceptual echo of Freire’s pedagogy.

Paolo Freire, the Father of critical pedagogy, holds strong views about the oppressing world in which two opposing groups, the oppressed and the oppressors, are competing within the unjust status quo, (1970, 2002), and the contradictions thus result in a lot of tensions in pedagogical practices. His radical approach, the pedagogy of the oppressed, has influenced the writings of a lot of prominent authors around the world, including those under the broad critical literacy umbrella, such as Comber, Shor, Kempe, Finn, Street, Gee, Luke, etc.

Critical literacy, with its linked veins with critical pedagogy, has evolved around many themes as implied in definitions given earlier, but it is very often discussed in light of tensions, conflicts, opposing views, contradictions, and differences of varied sorts among people. As far as I see, the views among prominent authors of the field about how to deal with these opposing realities break into two major groups: one with and the other without “”compromisation”,â€� a new word I created to mean “making an effort to compromise.â€�

This paper will first argue that critical literacy has to do fundamentally with tensions. Then, it will relate relevant history of me especially as a person born and raised in a Buddhist culture and yet, later predominantly educated in the westernized mode of education, with why I view “”compromisation”â€� as an appropriate way for practicing critical literacy in the face of tensions. Next, elaborating the extreme nature of Freire’s views around Banking Education and his pedagogy, the paper will discuss what can be compromised and briefly how to do it.

 A common theme: “Tensionsâ€�

I believe tensions are caused when there are at least two extremes. Critical literacy, if we agree that it is a child of critical or radical pedagogy, is evolved around the theme of tensions because of the extreme nature of its parent. Freire. Freire started his renowned book, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by leading our attention to the task of ‘humanization’ and elaborating the opposite term, ‘dehumanization,’  by relating it to “injustice, exploitation, oppression, and the violence of the oppressorsâ€� (2002, p. 44).  When we look at these words and phrases, we can see that they imply the tensions between two major groups of people in similar forms: the oppressed vs. the oppressors; the winners vs. the losers; and the manipulators and the manipulated. Division of human beings into two main groups has become the basis for discussion of with whom to side among people dealing with critical literacy. Some divide human beings by gender; others by races, abilities, social classes, power and authority, cultural practices, religion, economic power, and so on. Essentially, a common theme that emerges is that the two groups do not share equal gains under even bases or just systems. Whether the authors in related fields that promote critical literacy take Freire as their inspiration or not, they tend to deal with this very basic division, but the details or emphases of their discussions and/or practices may vary according to the specific areas of their interests.

Let me point out the extreme nature of Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed in order to see why tensions are inevitable and thus “compromisation” necessary.  As illustrated in Figure 2, Freire rigidly divides human beings as two contradicting groups, and in order for the pedagogy to work, Freire sides with the oppressed and bases his pedagogy on his belief that the oppressed, his students, need to be liberated or empowered through conscientization, or “learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality,” –Translator’s note in Freire (2002, p. 35). Conscientization is used to fight against naturalization, or the efforts by the oppressors to desensitize the oppressed and make them stay within the systems without challenging them. Freire contended that it is important to help the students see their position within the unjust systems within the status quo, in which the dominant group manipulates the systems historically, socially, and culturally. To conscientize members of the oppressed, he advocates “Dialogue Education,â€� which is the opposite to “Banking Education,â€� or the kind of education that is operated within the unjust status quo. It is the assumptions about the banking education that generate the extreme pedagogy.

Figure 2: Overview of Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed

The oppressed	The oppressors
- Liberating	Naturalization	= Efforts to maintain the status quo
- Conscientization
- Empowering
- Praxis (Reflective action)-	Banking Education
- Transformative education
- Dialogue education

We will, in the next section, examine the extreme elements that Freire proposes. Now, Freire also sets the goal of his pedagogy at changing the unjust systems within the status quo. He thus encourages the students to engage in praxis, or reflective action. After the students learn that they are situated within the unfair systems, they should take actions in order to change the systems. Another extreme stance is created. Freire does not think there is an alternative to confrontation between the two groups. In other words, his pedagogy of the oppressed does not allow “compromisation” from either group. Freire, for instance, even sees that acts of charity and generosity by the oppressors cannot resolve situations of oppression, and are false because they do not attack the causes of oppression. On the other hand, walking softly within the status quo is also not advisable because, according to Freire, many times when the oppressed seek to liberate themselves, they become sub oppressors, identifying with the oppressor because “the oppressed find in their oppressor their model of ‘humanhood'” (1970, p30-31).

My history and how my views are shaped

While I love so many lines in Freire’s writings, the semester-long discussions in efforts to unpack critical literacy with the team has made me feel that some things are missing in this radical approach. In order to know exactly where I stand in light of Freire’s extreme views, I am forced to revisit my own history. I share his view that there are inequalities and unfair systems. However, I think viewing human beings rigidly as two opposing groups can be inadequate because an individual may belong to both groups at different times or even at the same time.  “You win some; you lose some,â€� say wise people with real world experiences that may confirm such inadequacy. The division of people into two opposing groups will dictate the ways with which problems are dealt, and my different view on this basic notion will prove to be influential over the way I view critical literacy. The journey back to revisit my ‘self’ helps me understand myself and the immediate present world differently and more clearly.

I was born and raised in a Buddhist country, Thailand, where ways of living were largely influenced by a selected portion of Buddhism. Having looked at the society in which I was shaped critically, I realized the society has moved through histories where the notion of classes has been accepted with Buddhism as a scaffold. By this I mean that Buddhism was adopted as the nation’s main religion because, as I have realized, it serves the status quo well, and perhaps it has proven to serve the society as a whole as well. A son of a farming family with nine children, I was taught to compromise in many ways. Within the family, I was assigned the outdoor and heavy work, and at home I never had to clean the house or cook. The gender roles were divided, but there was never a single complaint from any member about the division. In fact, we did what we had to do and just found our shared life very peaceful, rewarding, warm, happy, and constructive. The most influential piece of Buddha’s teaching that I had learned since I was a boy was to accept the fate as a starting point without frustration, but also to strive on with positive actions (mind, verbal and physical). Violence was not what worried Thais back then, because people were always compromising, often clinging on to the most prominent concept of “the Middle Path,â€� which can be perceived as staying between the two extremes in thinking, speaking and acting. Thai people accept their natural fate and recognize that people in a better starting point at the present time did better deeds in the past or even the past lives, and that they should give them recognition of their past deeds. Instead of envying and hating the people in a better socioeconomic status, for instance, Thais would normally seek to associate with them, especially if the gives and takes were exchanged and if opportunities for advancements could be associated with the relationship. And that was the way things went and still do now. Buddhism, therefore, was a best option for people in power because it would make people grateful for even the little thing they receive from the superior, dominant groups. People then submit in order to survive and yet find opportunities to do better in life, and that was what the ruling groups in the status quo wanted.  Is that necessarily bad? Does mixing with the oppressors lead to naturalization or endless oppression? I am not so convinced.

The most touching scenes in my life flash again when I keep traveling back. That boy I have known all my life was a member of the oppressed. He was the fourth child of the farming family with nine children. He went to school without a lunch box nor any money. He had no choice during lunch time, but to make friends with tap water. The regularly overheard conversations about debt and worries between his parents always haunted him. The poor neighbors, who had been in the farming ‘burden’ that never yielded as much gain as the ‘business’ that middlemen ran, kept showing their sad, hopeless faces to him. The only happy place was school, where he was brought into a new world full with dreams and far from oppressing scenes. His father always said to him, “I don’t have anything to leave with you because we’re not rich, but I hope you will pursue education.� The boy found it easy to take the advice and joyfully went to school, but he, at a certain stage when he moved to a new school for a higher level, had a hard time telling his father that he needed the new uniform to replace the torn, donated clothes. His father took him to the market on the back of an old bicycle to beg the Chinese shopkeeper to kindly grant some ‘credit’ and it would be paid back after the crops had been harvested. The boy felt inferior at the shop and at school, staying humble and obedient in classes. He was loved by his teachers for that. Despite the lack of his family’s ability to support his education away from home, he managed to enter higher levels of education because of scholarships awarded in return for his academic achievements. However, the intimidation kept haunting him as if it was embedded right inside the back of his head. He was small, thin and often hungry. It is funny how you feel hungry more frequently when you don’t have access to food or money. He skipped meals just to make the ends meet each month away from home.

The same boy luckily managed to go on to university after his entrance examination fee was paid for by donations from the kind teachers at his high school. At the university,  his confidence started to grow larger, despite occasional feelings of inferiority when he was in front of young, rich girls. He grew physically, mentally, and most importantly academically. His academic performance was still very good and his confidence rose to the level that he became president of the Voluntary Club for Social Development at the university, leading teams of caring students to learn and share with villagers. That thin, pale boy now became a young man with ample confidence. He started to question, challenge, learn and relearn about the world around him. After his graduation, he became a teacher at a refugee camp in Thailand for five years before receiving a scholarship to study in Australia. After that he returned to Thailand to teach at a famous university. His journey takes him as far now as the author of this article.

Having been educated in four continents Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America, I am now wearing the different lens, and yet I realize that I tend to still see and accept things they way they exist in reality, not necessarily seeing them as all bad or flawlessly good. I think more critically about solutions to a problem, yet again, in compromising ways. I tend not to see the world as black and white, although some Western-based academic tasks require me to take one position and be firm about supporting it with figures or proved evidence. I no longer see the systems in the Thai society as fair and non-oppressing, but I still appreciate a lot of the positive effects they yield. I look at issues at hand with more skeptical eyes, and yet I may still appear submissive and more frequently compromising. What I have learned in life so far is that nothing is perfect, and nothing is really completely wrong or useless. Enough about me, but how would I deal with contradictions that Freire invites us to face.

Buddha would suggest that I deal with conflicts differently from the Freirean camp members would about dividing people, because Buddha encourages me to see human beings as friends of the same fate, who are born, become old, get sick, and pass away all alike, whereas Freire encourages a clear distinction between the two opposing groups. These fundamental different views will later affect how Freire and I view critical literacy practices differently in light of the encountered tensions.  Freire maintains, “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutralâ€� (Freire:http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_compromise.html ). While Freire refuses to compromise with any effort to get along with the status quo and would argue that “”compromisation”â€� will reproduce oppressive systems, I will try to challenge this fundamental belief of my own hero and propose “compromisation” as an option.

Tensions that demand “”compromisation”â€�

The semester-long discussions and the selected readings have informed me that, among the efforts by people claiming they practice critical literacy, they try to achieve several similar goals.  However, critical literacy can be used in different contexts by different people for different purposes. For instance, feminists may promote gender equalities; educators may try to reform schools; social workers may try to sensitize the oppressed and lead them to actions that would create positive changes, etc. Within the scope of this paper, I would like just to point out the tensions related to classroom-based efforts and argue in favor of the need for “compromisation”.
To liberate and/or to empower

I have to assume that we agree in principle that the hardcore or radical rationale for critical literacy stems from the critical pedagogy camp, of which Freire is considered the Father, and Giroux, Shor as well as McLaren as prominent authors. Their implications for pedagogy go beyond the classroom. McLaren, for example, states, ‘the major objective of critical pedagogy is to empower students to intervene in their own self-formation and to transform the oppressive features of the wider society that make such intervention necessaryâ€� (1988, p. xi). Giroux  maintains that teachers must not only see schools as places where the dominant society is reproduced, but also to develop alternative pedagogical practices, if they want to achieve such the objective that McLaren proposes.

The word “liberateâ€� suggests a goal at the level of humanizing the humankind (Freire, 2002). We can take this stance and go as far beyond the classroom as examining cultural domination at the global level. Spring (xxxx) very interestingly elaborates cultural, religious, education, and linguistic dominations in his chapter titled “Education and White Love: The Foundation and Language of the Global Economy.  However, such a goal to liberate humankind is not easy to practice in the restrictive classroom environments, i.e. under the shadow of the need to prepare the students for standardized tests, the need to respond to their real life needs that are dictated by the external forces (including economic, social, cultural, and even professional). Tensions emerge whenever we want to go as far as, for instance, challenging the invincible English language. How can knowing that English is a tool that gives advantage to its native speakers and a tool that helps maintain the higher status of certain groups of people help, when teachers and students know that the students will need English to pass high-stake exams, get a good job and gain access to a good materialistic life? Plus, how many teachers would view English in that light, anyway, because they are usually the people who enjoy their gains from teaching the language or using it to show their perceived higher social status? Therefore, a real tension emerges when such a radical goal is sought.

Authors in the critical literacy field, as well as practitioners, have limited their goal down to “to empowerâ€� probably due to the restrictive nature of classrooms and schooled literacy.  In fact, these two words are used almost interchangeably by many authors.  The intention is then shifted more towards recognizing individual learners’ abilities, background knowledge/skills, multiple ways of learning, etc., which in turn empowers the learners. The scope is thus reduced. The goal of liberating the humankind can be further reduced to specific details when critical literacy is used for narrowed-down teaching, such as reading. Whereas Freire maintains that education and knowledge have power only when they help learners liberate themselves from oppressive social conditions (Peyton & Crandall, 1995), The International Reading Association (IRA), for example, defines its position as accepting different stances, but “it consistently encourages pedagogical approaches that empower students to think critically and also equip them to participate responsibly in the life of their communities.â€� What they mean by “think criticallyâ€� and participate “responsiblyâ€� are not clear, but we can see that the goal is reduced. IRA’s definition of critical literacy is more relevant to reading texts and the world, the stance also encouraged by Freire. It says,

Notions of how texts relate to meanings lie at the heart of literacy instruction at every level. Among the various ways of approaching the question, a critical perspective on literacy “involves an understanding of the way ideology and textual practices shape the representation of realities in texts” (Cervetti et al., 2001). Because all texts are created and situated within particular social and ideological contexts, “students of critical literacy are generally encouraged to take a critical attitude toward texts, asking what view of the world they advance and whether these views should be accepted.” Recognizing the profound social and ideological dimensions of texts allows readers to “question, resist, or revise” their representations of the world.

From IRA website: http://www.reading.org/focus/critical_lit.html

I see this incident as an example of compromised goals. However, even with this specific goal, tension does not disappear. The word “empower”  or “empowerment” is rightly questioned and challenged by Street mainly in terms of what my colleagues and professor also asked during the sessions:

• What is the nature power? Can it be given to others? Can it be taken?
• Does power remain the same or does it change forms?
• What does it means to empower?

In our class discussions, we reached a point where we saw that people could be empowered to see their problems and the causes, but they may still be unable to do anything about them. Thus, we questioned the extent to which such kind of empowerment helps liberate or change people’s lives. The tension between knowing the causes of unjust systems and the inability to direct changes is an important one. The tension teachers face in positioning themselves while trying to empower their students is another. Are they the persons with the power to give? Are they actually at the same level as the students, if they are to adopt the “dialogic” approach Freire suggests? The power relations between the students and the teacher, in my view, generate tensions that need “”compromisation”” which can at least take place in the form of negotiation. In this light, I find the notion of dialogic teaching very agreeable, but the question of where the balance is will still need to be asked, and “”compromisation”” would be required.

To “unbankâ€� by way of “”compromisation”â€�

Now, I will examine tensions that are embedded within the Freire’s views about banking education. In banking education, Freire separates the teacher and the students as two separate and contradictory groups. Freire (2002)describes “Banking Education” as one “in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits….Instead of communicating, the teachers issue communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat” (p. 72). His Pedagogy of the Oppress obviously goes against this tradition, but tensions occur. Let’s look at the ways Freire assumes the relationships between the students and some of what my lens reveals and reflects in Figure 3.

The arguments or sometimes dialogues in the Figure 3 reflect my effort to compromise, or “compromisation”. I think we need to ask practical questions that will lead us toward concrete, positive and constructive actions without deviating too from Freire’s ultimate goal of liberating people. “compromisation” would encourage the questions and responses such as:

o       What if the teachers do not want to allow fossilization of bad habits, bad practices, or wrong principles that may jeopardize people’s lives or security of the country, such as in military or medical training?

o       What if, for some subjects such as mathematics, and physics, there is more need for the teachers to lay out principles or formula to the students first? Would their banking approach only oppress the students?

Figure 3: Assumed teacher-student relationship vs. my lens’ reflections

Banking education’s assumed teacher-student relationships (Freire (2002,p. 73):	My lens:
The teacher teaches and the students are taught;	We should not go to the opposite extreme. Teachers can teach and learn, but teachers cannot not teach. Balance must be found.
The teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;	Teachers know more about certain things, but not everything. Freire also thought “the teachers must be expert and knowledgeable to be a responsible critical-democratic educator (Shor & Pari, 1999, p. 13).
The teacher thinks and the students are thought about;	Who is in charge? Don’t students as human beings have the innate ability to think and challenge? (action<-> reaction!)
The teacher talks and the students listen  meekly;	This is not true in the real world. No teacher wants to talk too much and the students cannot do so either.
The teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;	Students at least need self-disciplines; and teachers can help arrange the agreeable mechanism.
The teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;	Both parties can contribute. Yet, thegoals must be firm, and teachers can have an agenda while students can learn to read the worlds.
The teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher;	This depends on what kind of actions and the given roles and situations.
The teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it;	Teachers as authority of knowledge that is not ill-structured need to set up the program. However, flexibility and space can still be embedded and negotiation can exist.
The teacher confuses the authority of knowledge  with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;	The freedom of the students can be constrained by many factors, linguistic needs, background experiences, etc. and the teachers usually can help to provide guidance.
The teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.	Where is the line? How far can the students be in taking care of their learning? The ground may vary in different cultures, fields of study and profession.
Learners are regarded as adaptable, manageable beings.	Do we not want the students to be adaptable and manageable in the classroom?

A fundamental question my notion of “compromisation” would lead us to ask is, “Would banking education always push the teacher to reproduce the unjust status quo?â€� My journey through experiences with banking education may have shaped me in certain ways, but am I now a person reproducing the status quo, or am I actually trying to operate within it in order to change it? I hope and believe I am doing the latter. In addition, many academically successful people, i.e. scientists, doctors, critical teachers, who used to adopt and submit to rote learning, might not agree completely with Freire. Freire does not seem to value the expertise of teachers as a resource of experiences and known knowledge of the field, although he adds that in his later work (see Shor and Pari, 1999). I strongly argue for the place in the classroom where teachers can take different roles although I know that it is usually more difficult to take two or more contradicting roles at the same time. Practitioners and authors in the critical literacy field such as Philion (1998) have begun to realize that they as teachers should be honest about having their agendas while allowing the students to read them as a text in the world on which to encode, decode, and evaluate.

Bridging the extremes

Words have the power to both destroy and heal.
When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.–Buddha

I was surprised when Buddha is quoted as saying the above line because that is almost like what Freire would say, too. That led me to think that there is hope for compromising the extremes because after all everything is connected in one way or another. It would be fair to say that Freire also tries to compromise. In fact, the dialogic approach that is intended to erase the above contradictions between the students and the teacher is a sign of “compromisation”. The question here is how far we should go and where the needed balance would be. I will look further into Freire’s pedagogy for the oppressed and the common critical literacy practices to see where “compromisation” exists and/or would be appropriate.

To sensitize or conscientize

Freire encourages the teacher and the students to be co-learners, treating each other with trust, love and respect— the most beautiful line in educational philosophy. This is in fact a sort of “compromisation” between the two groups. However, he does not see that same principle as applicable between the oppressors and the oppressed. He believes in the potential of the oppressed to transform, but he does not seem to acknowledge the willingness of the oppressors to change and to support a fairer system. I have seen people working with the privileged children, and I think that is a way to go. In many mixed classrooms, teachers may have to teach members who are children of the oppressed and the oppressors. That means there is a good opportunity to conscientize both groups. How do we do it? That is a constructive question that will move us ahead.

I believe Freire’s principle of relationship based on mutual love, trust and respect applies as well to relationship between members of the oppressed and the oppressors. I hope we can hav….

(Sorry, but I will update with the rest soon.)

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