English 105H
Chad White
August 31, 2000
Mrs. Ewald
Conversation
(Giroux’s critical pedagogy #8)
“Conversation, kno-ver-sa’shon, n. Familiar intercourse; two-way easy talk.” –
Webster’s New Dictionary & Thesaurus. A conversation is a way of communicating
ideas and thoughts between two or more people; a way of exchanging ideas. This
principle is what Giroux thought was missing in the education system of his day. He did
not think that teachers and students communicated well enough with each other in the
education setting. He attempted to address this problem in his eighth critical pedagogy
statement stating that “Critical pedagogy needs to develop a theory of teachers as
transformative intellectuals who occupy specifiable political and social locations.” He
felt that “Critical pedagogy should represent itself as the active construction rather than
transmission of particular ways of life.”
Freire, a fellow Marxist, thought that the old fashioned way of narrative teaching
of his day did not allow students to think on their own and ponder the unexplored
knowledge of the world. He felt that young minds where converted into “containers [or]
receptacles to be filled” after they were instructed to “memorize mechanically the
narrated content” which was issued to them. He felt that there was too much
memorization being taught in schools and not enough theory. If students were taught
more theory, they would have the power to create new and more exciting knowledge.
For this same reason Giroux set forth nine principles of critical pedagogy. One of
these called teachers to be “transformative intellectuals who occupy specifiable political
and social locations.” Here he suggests that teachers no longer simply inform the
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students of the way he/she perceives a subject, but rather sets forth the guidelines and
asks the students to come up with their own thoughts on the subject. Instead of judging
the students’ answers as either correct or incorrect, the teachers would look at the
students’ responses subjectively. The teacher may give feedback and additional thoughts.
The teacher should become more like the students and the student should become more
like the teacher. If they do so, “they become jointly responsible for a process in which
[they] all grow.”
Another benefit of this type of education occurs when students and teachers build
their thoughts and ideas from one another. With this building circle of thoughts and
ideas, new ideas and new theories are often discovered and new points of view may be
taken. Students and teachers alike see subjects in light that would have never been shed
had they been subdued to this conventional ways of thinking. One class that this type of
learning would be especially benefital in could be a human development class where
students may tell about personal experiences that they may have had.
Without this two-way communication there stands a “lack of creativity”. Without
looking upon a subject from a different angle, better and more efficient methods could
never be heard. Creativity lies in the hands of those who look outside the realm of the
textbook world. Creativity cannot be taught; it must be discovered. This is very evident
in the fine arts. If every performer perceived the music in the very same way, there
would be no way to separate the mediocre from the great. No compositions would ever
stand out from the rest.
This intellectual intercourse between teacher and student also puts forth a new
concept of learning. Freire called this learning “Problem-posing education.” Problem-
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posing education teaches students to learn from their own thoughts and experiences rather
than “memorizing” the thoughts and experiences of another. Problem-posing education
helps to prepare students for the rest of their lives, where they will undoubtedly face
problems from day to day.
I believe that in a classroom of today, problem-based learning is more evident
than it was in Freire’s time. In my English 105H class, discussion occurs frequently and
students review each other’s work and learn from each other. In chemistry courses I have
taken in high school, laboratory experiments were conducted to test theories and actually
see how and why chemicals react to each other the way they do. Today, problem-based
learning has been rightfully injected into many levels of education. But at the same time,
there is room for improvement. More steps can be taken to improve our quality of
education using problem-based learning. New areas remain to be discovered and new
theories remain to be tested. I believe that all areas of knowledge can be explored further
with the help of more problem-based learning.
In conclusion, Giroux recognized a need for educational improvements and
offered his nine principles for critical pedagogy. His eighth principle dealt with
communication between teachers and their students. He called for a learning atmosphere
with more equality and respect for new ideas. He imagined a learning condition that
promoted creativity and evolution while preserving ethicacy and the well being of all
people. Being an optimist myself, I agree with these ideas and wish to promote them in
the future. As many steps have been taken in this direction, much new territory is left to
be discovered in this new frontier of “conversation.”
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