Teachers’ Reflections on Critical Pedagogy in the Classroom

This article presents the results from a qualitative research study that explores the experiences of nine high school teachers with some of the common themes in critical pedagogy. The study considers teachers who may not have explicitly learned about or applied critical pedagogy in their teaching and investigates how feasible and desirable they find the common themes in critical pedagogy to be based on their teaching experiences. These teachers work in a school with a largely upper-middle class student body, so the issue of applying critical pedagogy with affluent students adds a dimension of interest to this study.Through the interviews, three themes emerge most strongly: power/authority among students and teachers, the political nature of education, and teaching about social issues in the classroom. Teachers reveal an unwillingness to share authority with students or make space for students to be experts in the classroom in a meaningful way. Some teachers are also opposed to leading the transformation from the status quo toward a more just society. Teachers demonstrate a desire to encourage students to improve society, but they believe the best way to achieve this is by teaching critical thinking skills and discussing social issues, allowing students to develop their own vision for an improved society.Most teachers reveal they do not think about how the classroom reproduces the power structure in society by reaffirming a certain set of beliefs and reinforcing the power of privileged students. Some teachers note that their students had not yet had a political awakening. The same might be said of the teachers who had not been exposed to many of the ideas in critical pedagogy. A certain level of comfort eliminates the spark that pushes one to seek social change – among both students and teachers. But a critical education must take place among both the oppressed and the oppressor if we hope to achieve a more compassionate and just society.