- Curriculum Theory and Critical Pedagogy in the 21st Century

In determining how a curriculum should be designed within Critical Pedagogy, one’s first consideration should be to the purpose of education. Critical Pedagogy have determined that the purpose of education is to enable students to become transformers of society - that is, the purpose of schooling is to enable students to be critical thinkers and critics of society who are able to make decisions and take actions which will better the society in which they live. Of course, this would include the abilities of reading, writing and mathematics as the bare minimum. In our society an illiterate person is virtually helpless to make contributions.

There are several major schools of thought within the philosophies which shape curriculum theory in the United States. One of these is the Essentialist Movement. Proponents of Essentialism profess that the purpose of schools is to teach children the basics, and that if enough time is devoted to that to teach it properly then there will be no time for “frills” such as considering the critiquing of society or social reform. The Essentialists believe that the schools are neutral agents transferring objective, neutral, universal knowledge to students and that the students should obtain their judgments and values someplace other than school. To the Essentialist there exists a body of knowledge, a large collection of facts and information, which the learned will absorb through the process of schooling.

 Essentialism is concerned with subject matter only. “Probably the most conspicuous connotation of the word knowledge for most persons today is just the body of facts and truths ascertained by others; the material found in the rows and rows of atlases, cyclopedias, histories, biographies, books of travel, scientific treatises, on the shelves of libraries. The imposing stupendous bulk of this material has unconsciously influenced men’s notions of the nature of knowledge itself. . . . it is not surprising that the same ideal has almost dominated instruction.”  The Essentialism described here has dominated education in the United States since 1957, that fateful year when Russia launched Sputnik and beat the United States to outer space. Suddenly, the American schools were not doing a good job - we had to get our students to learn more math and science, and quit fooling around with that Progressive Movement which had influenced education for a time. It was time to get serious, get down to business, stop “watering down” the curriculum and stuff lots of facts and figures into the heads of the students so that the United States could maintain world power, leadership and superiority.

William J. Bennett and Admiral Rickover have been very successful in selling this philosophy to the American public. As a result standardized testing has been increasing rapidly since that time. More and more testing and standards have been tacked onto schools, teachers and students. Now we have America 2000, a list of goals for American education. And we have national standards which define the facts to be memorized for each subject area of the curriculum. We have curriculum and textbooks selection legislated by non-educators. And in those past 40 years or so of increasing regulations, standards and testing, what has been the result? Vast illiteracy - students graduating from high school who are functionally illiterate; high drop out rates; poverty escalating; rampant drug abuse, violence, teen pregnancy, disease; burned out teachers; bored students; those students who are successful are able to memorize well and repeat back to the teachers what they have been asked to “learn” - but they can’t think critically, they don’t know anything about how our government functions, or what their roles and responsibilities could be; they don’t recognize their potential power to change things; they don’t vote - they can’t think. Is forty years of testing and standards really the answer? Is memorizing the chosen facts and knowledge of the dominant culture making America a better place to live for these students?

Critical Pedagogy says no. Critical Pedagogy stands on the belief that there is a better way to design a curriculum. Critical Pedagogy calls to us to stop, look and listen to what is in our society. American 2000 did not address the issues of poverty, drugs, violence, racism and disease. Schools face these problems every day. The students are living it. The problems cannot be ignored. This is not to say that it is the primary responsibility of the schools to fix society - one more burden placed upon schools in an ever-growing heap of “things to do today”. Yet, Critical Pedagogy recognizes the impact that education, the schooling process, does have on society, and notes that if we make some changes in how schooling is done, then society can change. What Critical Pedagogy is asking is that schools stop the maintenance of the status quo and allow change to take place, facilitating it not by telling students what to think, but by teaching them how to think and giving them the tools they need to make the necessary changes. It is our responsibility to enable them to be able to handle effectively as possible, the circumstances they will face in years to come, and to be able to deal with circumstances as they are more effectively.

One area of concern, then, is the curriculum design. The first question one must answer when designing a curriculum is, What knowledge is most important? Obviously, because of the vast amounts of knowledge existing today, it is impossible for a student to learn all of it. There is only so much time to spend in school - so how shall we focus during that time?

We can begin by analyzing what knowledge is included in the standard curriculum today. Whose knowledge is it? Who chose this? What is left out and why? Whose knowledge was left out? Which knowledge is most important for citizens today to have? We see that in schools the knowledge chosen is that selected by the society for the purpose of the continuation of that society. When the curriculum now being used was chosen, what was the society? Who was in power? Is it the same today? Have things changed? How? Yes, things have changed. The curriculum today is that of the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant male. Yet as our society has evolved, it has become increasingly diverse. The United States has the unique experience of being a very multi-cultural society. As the populations in the United States of those who are Hispanic, Black, Native American, Asian and so on, increase, what does this mean for our schools? It means that when we open the doors to our classroom and the students enter, we will have a wonderful variety of cultures in our classroom. What does it mean for these students? Will they have to “drop their culture at the door” and become “American”, or will they enter into a learning environment in which their voices are heard, their cultures respected, and in which the learning experiences which occur in that classroom with the teacher and the other students are ones with which that student can make connections in order for real learning to take place? Will this be a place where they can be proud of who they are instead of feeling left out, or wrong, or “the other”? Will each child be able to feel good about who he is, learn to respect who others are, and find ways to communicate with people who are different than he is with respect to experiences, language, culture, and beliefs? Will each child realize that he is a potential powerful contributor and shaper of the society in which he lives? Will each child be equipped to contribute successfully as an adult, and will these students when they are running this country, be able to search out and implement ways to improve this society based upon the needs at the time? Will each child be enthusiastic about school and learning? This is the hope of Critical Pedagogy.

If so, then when the knowledge to be learned is selected, we must be careful to select knowledge which is meaningful, important and respectful of a variety of cultures, not only one. We will have to take into consideration the fact that it is not possible, or necessary, for the student to learn all the information which exists, and focus on teaching the student how to locate, create, use and interpret information. This does not mean throwing away the needed skills at all. In fact, the skills of reading, writing, and speaking are going to be a vital part of the foundation upon which the schools will help the student build. John Dewey stated in 1916 that with the wide range of possible material to select from, “it is important that education should use a criterion of social worth. . . The scheme of a curriculum must take account of the adaptation of studies to the needs of the existing community life; it must select with the intention of improving the life we live in common so that the future shall be better than the past.

Moreover, the curriculum must be planned with reference to placing essentials first, and refinements second. The things which are socially most fundamental, that is, which have to do with the experiences in which the widest groups share, are the essentials. The things which represent the needs of specialized groups and technical pursuits are secondary. There is truth in the saying that education must first be human and only after that professional. But those who utter the saying frequently have in mind in the term human only a highly specialized class: the class of learned men who preserve the classic traditions of the past. They forget that material is humanized in the degree in which it connects with the common interests of men as men. . . . Democracy cannot flourish where the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses, and, for the higher education of the few, the traditions of a specialized cultivated class. The notion that the ‘essentials’ of elementary education are the three R’s mechanically treated, is based upon ignorance of the essentials needed for realization of democratic ideals. . . . A curriculum which acknowledges the social responsibilities of education must present situations where problems are relevant to the problems of living together, and where observation and information are calculated to develop social insight and interest.”