por We explain what critical didactics is, its characteristics, representative authors and we give an application example.
What is critical didactics?
The critical didactics It is a pedagogical current that understands teaching as an eminently political process. It is based on the ideas of critical theory, as well as theories drawn from fields such as education, sociology, and the study of culture.
Defenders of critical didactics reject the traditional idea that teaching should be a neutral act. On the contrary, they think that the acts of teaching and learning are closely related to other vital issues, such as democracy, social justice and political activism.
The main objective of critical pedagogy is the emancipation of citizens from oppression, through the awakening of what is known as «critical consciousness».
When achieved, critical consciousness encourages individuals to bring about change in their own lives through social criticism and political protest.
Characteristics of critical didactics
Critical didactics is a discipline that is still in development. Therefore, each of the authors who contribute to it have different theories about how it should be applied in the classroom.
However, there are a number of features on which most authors agree. Next we will see the most important of them.
Promotes critical thinking
Critical didactics tries to help students to reflect on the values, ideas and beliefs that they have acquired due to their development within a specific society.
This is especially important for the authors of the theory of critical pedagogy, since they think that the educational system helps to perpetuate this type of teaching.
For this reason, in a classroom that promotes a critical vision of education, students must learn to think for themselves and think about the knowledge and ideas they are acquiring.
This critique of the acquired knowledge is done with the hope that it will help students to live a freer life, in which they are not conditioned by the social teachings they have received or by ideas that they themselves have not determined to be valid.
Criticism of the prevailing ideology
One of the aspects that most worries the authors of critical pedagogy is the maintenance of ideologies that they consider to be erroneous. Thus, many of them are against concepts such as capitalism.
For this reason, a classroom in which the critical methodology of education is applied must serve as a platform for students to reflect on whether the prevailing model in society is the most appropriate or not.
Union of theory and practice
According to critical didactics, theory and practice in teaching are inseparable, because the knowledge that is acquired about an object is conditioned by the interaction that one has with it.
The most developed model in this sense is the one known as «research-action». In it, students have an active role in their own educational process, having to make decisions about what they want to learn and how they want to do it. The teacher, therefore, only has a role of facilitator of learning.
Rationality
Critical pedagogy tries to promote, above all things, rationality in students. To achieve this, the chosen method is to overcome the subjectivity of personal opinions by contrasting them with the experiences of others. In this way, the ideas of each student must be evaluated by the others.
Therefore, from this educational model, debates, discussions and exchanges of opinions become some of the most important tools to acquire knowledge.
This is very different from traditional education, in which students have to accept knowledge that comes from outside as valid without examining it.
Denial of the empirical method
From critical pedagogy, the belief that the world cannot be reduced to simple cause-effect relationships is promoted.
Therefore, for the defenders of this theory, the subjective experience of the world itself is more important than the experimental findings made by scientific research.
desire for social change
Finally, the main objective of critical didactics is to encourage students to question the social system in which they live, and achieve their freedom through political struggle and social activism.
Role of the student
In critical didactics the student has a reflective, participatory and critical role. He does not accept any position without delving into it or understanding it, but has an attitude of questioning ideas and the status quo.
featured authors
Although there are many authors who have worked to develop the discipline of critical didactics, we can highlight three main thinkers behind this ideology: Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Peter McLaren.
Paulo Freire
This Brazilian was the creator of the concept of critical didactics, in his 1968 book The pedagogy of the oppressed.
Freire, who at the time was a professor of history and philosophy of education at the University of Recife in Brazil, tried to create an educational model that would help the most disadvantaged in their fight for survival.
Henry Giroux
Giroux is an American thinker who helped bring critical pedagogy to his country. His work focuses on criticizing ideologies such as neoliberalism, religious fundamentalism or imperialism, and he defends a movement known as radical democracy.
His works are some of the most influential in this field; and today, she writes for a multitude of international media, having achieved great fame within educational circles and cultural critics.
Peter McLaren
This Canadian born in 1948 is considered one of the fathers of critical didactics. His fame is based above all on his extensive criticism of capitalism and neoliberalism, having been influenced by Marxist philosophy.
Today, he teaches Critical Studies classes at Chapman University in Los Angeles.
application example
Because critical didactics is based above all on the exchange of ideas between students, the main format of the classes is debate.
The operation of an educational session is as follows: the teacher proposes a question or points out an existing problem in the community, and the students must exchange ideas and opinions on the subject until they reach a consensus.
During this process, they are encouraged to seek information about what they are discussing, so that they learn while generating their own knowledge.