Our own experiences of education can have a significant bearing
on the way we view education. Indeed, teacher training involves a process of reflecting critically on our own experiences as students; on how and what we were taught, especially the taken for granted ‘common sense’ meanings which ended up providing us with a very particular view of the world.
We therefore seek to promote an educational process which is critically informed and engaging; an education that challenges taken for granted notions which restrict freedom and undermine social injustice. Being aware, we then strive to emancipate and transform.
You are therefore invited to:
a. Start off by choosing a topic within an area of the curriculum you intend to engage with. Reflect on how this was taught to you when you were at school, and how this links to your habitus (if you were not exposed to the topic at school, explain why. You can refer to the general approach in the subject or area instead).
b. Then reflect in detail on a critical approach to the topic chosen (this should be your main thrust in your work) that provides avenues to challenge ingrained inequalities and injustices. Feel free to suggest different possibilities for criticality that the topic you have chosen lends itself to. However, you should then discuss how you would implement aspects of these possibilities in a realistic programme of study.
The critical process should include:
1. ‘What is’ the situation like
2. In whose interest does this work
3. Whether this is fair
4. What ‘ought to be’
5. What can be done about it.
As you engage with this process, outline pedagogical approaches
you would use to complement this critical process.
Intersperse your discussion with reference to the relevant
literature and in particular the ideological standpoint underpinning critical theory.