Q.        How is Critical Praxis different from, say doing a practicum or a job placement?
A.        It's very different.

In these other situations the purpose of the work is not to try to change things, but just to exercise skills that one has learned or is learning. Critical Praxis is much more than just learning by doing,as, for instance in on-the-job training. In a Critical Praxis situation, there is a direct relationship between means and ends, between pedagogy and the actual content of learning. First of all, Critical praxis focuses on rearranging power relationships out in the world. In order to learn how to do this, it is crucial to have the experioence of reordering power relationships as part of the learning experience itself. This means that the pedagogy has to be different and that the student has to be an equal decision maker in the process of education. This is good critical praqxis in education in the classroom. But when this experience is then taken out into the world, it requires of the "student" a very different perspective on the issue expertise, of being an expert. It requires, in other words, that the student/teacher approach the world in a different way, as a participant in process with his or her client community. It is quite difficult to do this, and monitor the process and to manage the in-house education simultaneously.But the positive suie is that students given the opportunity to take control of their education become so enthusiastic and passionate, that they share the burden of responsibility of monitoring and managing the programme in both spheres.

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