Critical demagogues: what happens when ideology and teaching mix - check the facts

Education Next, Fall, 2003 by J. Martin Rochester

To the egoistic and asocial being that has just been born, [society] must, as rapidly as possible, add another, capable of leading a moral and social life. Such is the work of education.

--Emile Durkheim, 1911

"Critical pedagogy" a body of education theory represented by the writings of Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, Michael Apple, and other leftist-leaning thinkers, takes its cue from the Durkheim quotation above, but it carries the notion of schools as agents of moral instruction and socialization far beyond what Durkheim envisioned and what the public expects. Critical pedagogy extends critical theory--the neo-Marxist examination of the relationship between power and culture, aimed at addressing issues of class, race, gender, and social justice through the remaking of societal institutions--to the realm of schools. The core concern of critical pedagogy is to illuminate the role of schools in perpetuating the established order and to convert them, instead, into instruments for social reform.

Despite its radical bent--bordering on the kind of liberation theology associated with Latin American revolutionary clergy--the critical pedagogy school has managed to carve out a respectable niche in America's schools of education, enough to get its views aired in journals such as the Harvard Educational Review (see Giroux's essay in the Winter 2002 issue) and to have its patron saint, Paulo Freire, the Brazilian Marxist, recognized by the New York Times as one of 13 "provocative leaders" in education" on whose shoulders the future is being built" Marilyn Cochran-Smith, the newly elected president of the influential American Educational Research Association (AERA), is at least sympathetic to the critical pedagogy movement and is the director of a curriculum and instruction doctoral program at Boston College that lists critical pedagogy as one of only four areas of specialization. At its 2002 annual meeting, the AERA program featured more than 40 panels on critical theory and pedagogy.

Admittedly, the critical pedagogues have squarely confronted two of the most enduring issues surrounding the work of education: 1) To what extent should the mission of public schools be focused on character development, societal, reform, and other such affective goals, as opposed to cognitive development and academic preparation? 2) To the extent that values should be taught in school, whose values should take precedence? A related issue, first raised by Durkheim and now at the center of critical pedagogy, is: How much emphasis should schools place on promoting individual achievement vis-avis collective well-being? Proponents of critical pedagogy view "egoism" as incompatible with societal progress and complain that schools have become too wedded to Social Darwinist competition. By contrast, traditionalists worry that schools have taken the "it takes a village" slogan to such lengths that they risk producing an increasing number of village idiots.

Historical Context

There has always been the temptation to use schools for proselytizing or other ends normally associated with religious and other institutions. Both conservative and progressive forces at various moments in American history have been behind the move to turn schools into sites not only for informing minds but also for transforming lives. In Who Controls Our Schools? Michael Kirst notes that the widely read McGuffey readers, first published in 1836, openly preached the Protestant ethic, while Catharine Beecher "urged that the school teach the importance of fresh air, loose clothing, simple diet, and exercise." By the early 20th century, schools were increasingly relied on to assimilate newly arrived immigrant children into the American mainstream and to instill a sense of patriotism.

From John Dewey's democratic schooling crusade and George Counts's anti-capitalism pedagogy at Columbia's Teachers College in the 1930s, and the life adjustment movement of the 1940s and 1950s, to the character education movement of the 1980s and 1990s, the academic mission of schools has continued to compete for attention with other mandates. The character education movement itself was a conservative reaction to what some viewed as an excessive liberal fixation on the psychosocial needs of schoolchildren and the relaxation of standards of conduct in the name of diversity, inclusion, and other politically correct shibboleths.

The building of "self-esteem" and "community" has been part of the same progressive project, coalescing in today's dominant K-12 paradigm--constructivism--which combines the child-centered, non judgmental, nonhierarchical, teacher-as-facilitator classroom (rooted in the romantic tradition of Rousseau) with a cooperative learning regimen (rooted in Counts's vision of a New Social Man). The conjoining of seemingly paradoxical elements of independent and collaborative learning reflects the odd .juxtaposition of radical libertarianism and radical egalitarianism that defined the Woodstock generation now running America's schools.