Unlike CDA which is somewhat restricted to the critical analysis of spoken and written text to find the hidden agenda of the dominant society and how inequality has been perpetuated by this society and challenged by disadvantaged groups, critical pedagogy (CP) in general pushes both educators and learnerso get involved not only in critical reading (as more elaborated on in CDA) but also in empowering learners to get involved in some form of resistance in real practice through advocacy (politically and maybe legally) for a group of people being assisted by the learners. Whit is working definition, i challenge carter and numan (2001) who argue that:
Critical pedagogy [is] a way of teaching that strives not only to transmit linguistic knowledge and cultural information, but also to examine critically both the conditions under which the language is used, and the social, cultural and ideological purposes of its use (p. 220)
CP began to flourish in latin America, especially Brazil, in the 1960s and 1970, after the publication of Paulo Freire’s book whose English translation is entitled Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This book has been so influential internationally that we cannot overlook Freire’s historic contributions to CPs. Challenging capitalistic “oppressors” (particularly feudal landowners in his time), he attempted to empower the “oppressed” people (specifically the peasants who worked for landowners) through raising their critical awareness of their being oppressed through dialogues which are mediated by critical educators. One of his theories is called “a humanizing pedagogy” as opposed
to “banking education system”(see pp. 55-74). To sum up his theory here, I will focus on three main aspects central to a humanizing pedagogy: the views of (1) human, (2) education, and (3) history.
First, humanizing pedagogy puts human at its central subject which does not simply live in the world as an object but exist “with the world” and “with others” (i.e., with other humans or people). Inside the world in the Freirean sense are different forms of reality, various meanings, and fellow human beings. Merely living in the world in a biological sense only makes people become viewers of the world without abilities to re-create it with other people. Furthermore, people simply living in the world know that they have “consciousness” but they are unable to be “conscious being[s]” who think critically. People who only think they have consciousness are prone to be passive receivers (or depositors) of reality from the world they live in (Freire, 1990, p. 62, italics original). As passive depositors of reality, they take things for granted, adapt to the “normal” way of life, and do not question it.
Second, making the analogy of banking, Freire contends that non-humanizing pedagogy (or education) is “deposit-making”, which should be transformed into liberating education that contains “praxis” (reflection and actions), which, in view of Pennycook (1999, 2001, 2004), entails problematizing practices (cf. sections 2.8 below). Typical of banking education system is the fact that educators determine which “deposits of information” are considered “true” knowledge (Freire, 1990, p. 63). In a humanizing pedagogy, the educator’s role should be to nurture communication that allows student to express their authentic thoughts without the educator imposing or indoctrinating their own “truth” into the students’ mind. In view of Bloom’s (1984) cognitive skills, a humanizing pedagogy pushes learners to think beyond depositing knowledge, but also to comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate.
The roles of teachers and students in banking education system and humanizing pedagogy also differ. In the former, teachers always teach students(“students-of-the-teacher” and “teacher-of-the-studets”). Arguments are based on “authority” (i.e.,teachers) and are to be swallowed by students(Freire,1990,p.67). Teaching is also geared to “preservation of culture and knowledge” (p.68) which only restricts students’creativity because the students are shaped by whatever is considered “good”, “true”, or “normal” knowledege and culture. In such a culture, students’ consciousness is in many ways intentionally submerged below teachers’ (or educational system’s) domination. In the latter, however, the teacher is ” himself[sic] taught with in dialogue with student”(p. 67). Put another way, teachers not only teach but also learn from their students dialogically. Besides that, a humanizing pedagogy calls for more awareness(conscientization”) on the part of the students of the realities around them that are not static but subject to transformation (more specific discussions on conscientization will be in chapters 3 & 4).
Third, a humanizing pedagogy can be distinguished from banking education system in terms of how humans view their history. A humanizing pedagogy does not fail to recognize that humans are “historical beings”(Freire,1990, p. 71). Such beings are aware of the transforming capacity they have at their disposal. This is based on the premise that humans are “beings in the process of becoming – as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality” (p. 72; cf. also Bakhtin’s view of “idiological becoming”, as elaborated on by Freedman & Ball,2004,p.5). Also inherent in the belief of humans as historical beings is, therefore, its “prophetic (instead of “fatalistic”) perception. That is, the past situation is reflected upon in the present(“here and now”) situation in order that humans “transcend themselves” and “look and move ahead” to the future (Freire, 1990,p. 72) by resisting oppression through political or legal advocacy, among others.
There are certainly some other tenets of CP that denote freire’s legacy in the field of education. In fact, I used thesetenets in my analysis (see chapter 4). However, in an attempt to conceptualize critical pedagogies in a more pluralistic way,I need to address some other critical approaches that have critiqued the freirean CP (see 2.8.2).One of such approaches is labeled as critical applied linguistics by Pennycook(1999,2001,2004,2007).