Tony Ward Education - Critical Education Theory, Pedadogogy and Practice - Why is Critical Praxis so important in Education?

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Why is Critical Praxis so important in Education?

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Q. Why is Critical Praxis so important in Education?

A. Speaking truth to power is something that the mainstream education teaches us not to do.

From the time we are born, we are on a massive learning-curve. Nobody teaches us how to crawl, how to walk, how run, to talk, or to do the myriad kinds of everyday activities and skills that we take for granted. We learn these things through a combination of innate programming, coupled with a keen sense of observation and a built-in capacity for imitation and mimicry. We do this from the day we are born until, sometime around our fifth or sixth birthday, we go to school. Immediately, the rules change. We are no longer credited with an innate capacity to learn. Our trusted ability to imitate and mimic is branded “copying”. Punishment is instituted as a means of making sure that we adhere to the (new) rules and “copying is inaugurated as the most punishable offense. Our previous interests in co-operative creative play and invention are frowned upon, and we are instructed to keep to ourselves, to share none of our knowledge. All of the means that we have thus far employed to reach this remarkable stage of our personal development are now suddenly outlawed, and we are thrust into a brand new and unfathomable world in which we must bow to the will of the “teacher” who wields absolute power. Sometimes, in the early stages, this process assumes a benign face. Children are encouraged to “share” their personal space and toys, and sometimes their knowledge. As time progresses, however, the rules become more rigid, the penalties more draconian and the authority of the teacher more absolute. So intimidating is this system, that we are afraid to tell our parents of our experiences, our terror, our misdemeanors, for fear that they, too will side with the voice of authority against us.

As we “progress” we become less boisterous, less inquisitive, more intimidated, more fearful, Finally, we emerge into the world of “adulthood” as “well-adjusted” citizens, ready to take our place in society, to accept its rules and morés and to never again question the basis of the authority upon which we have been transformed.

This is what we call Education. It masquerades as education, but in reality, it is a system of imposed social, cultural, political and economic control which curbs the enthusiasm of the creative impulse and which has as its ultimate goal the maintenance and continuation of the existing structures and processes of power exercised by a very few powerful individuals in society.

Critical Education Theory challenges and interrogates how Education operates in support of this system, and poses alternative models of learning premised upon the realisation of personal and cultural potential in the creation of a more just and equitable society. Critical Education Theory involves the application of Critical Theory to educational theorizing. It interrogates the composition of what is taught and the way in which it is taught, viewing both as a medium of social control. It does this through different areas of investigation.