Critical Pedagogy:Where Are We Now? - A Book Review

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY: WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Introduction

Almost three years ago I agreed with publishers Peter Lang to write a review of their recently (2007) published book Critical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? edited by Peter McLaren and Joe Kincheloe. In those three years, much has happened. The world economy has all but collapsed, the US States hover on the brink of bankruptcy and (along with national governments throughout Europe) are slashing their education spending, moving ever closer to market-driven privatization. The conservatives, thought to have been vanquished in the national elections have risen, phoenix-like from the ashes of the post-Bush Democratic resurgence, ratcheting up the anti-democratic and hateful rhetoric employed by members of the conservative Tea Party (and their darling Sarah Palin). Anti-immigration legislation has been passed in Arizona and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been shot in Tucson, perhaps by someone incited by this same poisonous political vituperation. The witch-hunt of Julian Assange and Wikileaks in a crude attempt to stifle freedom of speech and the drive to render transparent the lies and secrets of undemocratic governments have all added to the rapid changes in the pedagogical landscape since that time.

Obama has been elected on a note of hope and proceeded to disappoint by appointing hawkish Bush advisors like Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense)  and Arne Duncan (as Secretary of Education) under the guise of bipartisanship. Obama came in on a promise of hope and change and has delivered only more of the same. The banks and insurance companies, saved by increasingly impoverished taxpayers, proceeded to reward themselves even more out of the public purse while the burgeoning ranks of the unemployed can only look on in frustrated wonder. And if that were not enough, in the field of critical pedagogy itself Joe Kincheloe, co-editor of the book helped to found the landmark The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy at McGill University, holding out the promise of adding the viral potential of the web to the project of transforming education and then sadly died at the premature age of 58.  So much in just three short years.

When I undertook to write the review I did so in the earnest belief that the time for such a book was right. Twenty years of Critical Pedagogy had elapsed and the hope of the movement that had started with such a flourish – with innumerable ground-breaking theories from the likes of Henry Giroux, Michael Apple, Peter McLaren, Ira Shor, Stanley Aronowitz, Philip Wexler, Paul Willis – all of whom had inspired me to take up my own PhD with a renewed intellectual vigor and excitement – had, it seemed, reached a crossroads. My own work with the Maori community in New Zealand had rekindled for me the old base-superstructure dilemma, as I became increasingly immersed in the struggles of my indigenous friends and colleagues for cultural and political identity, wondering if class was, after all, not an over-determined and over-indulged concept. Then too, there was the issue of spirituality. Working among indigenous pre-Enlightenment communities, it is impossible not to be confronted with the spiritual. My own experience with Maori, Lakota and Celtic cultures and spiritualities (not to say my own long-abandoned Catholicism) left large question marks in my mind regarding the abstract, technical rationality of much critical thinking. While still completely committed to issues of anti-racism, anti-colonialism and social equity and justice, I nevertheless began to sense a subtle unease with many of the later writings of my critical pedagogue colleagues. Not the least of my disquiets (while still holding to a Marxist analysis) was the failure of some of the Marxist systems that I had vigorously supported – like the Sandinistas – to deliver to the needs of their indigenous communities. Examples like this had started me to vaguely question the efficacy of an all-out anti-capitalist interpretation of cultural politics, suspecting some yet higher order of theory that might reconcile these and other contradictions.

And against all of this, there was the apparent increasing emasculation of critical theory and critical pedagogy in the Academy, vividly apparent in the numerous blog posts and course descriptions flooding in through the Google Alerts of my website and causing me to wonder if the struggle was already lost. Had the way ahead, that had seemed so clear twenty years earlier now been completely lost? Had the rallying paradigm of liberating the oppressed been forgotten? Had our theoretical language become so opaque and esoteric as to become irrelevant to the oppressed whom we so often and passionately cited? Looking back over my own last 20 years of struggle I tried to measure my successes and my failures – the elusiveness of tangible victories set against the seemingly inexorable advance of the Right and the descent into fear, alienation and, yes, seeming irrelevance.

After twenty years, it seemed right that Joe Kincheloe and Peter McLaren had decided to ask the question Critrical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? So I dutifully set about reading what they had to say and found, to my delight, that the authors of the anthology were addressing many of the questions that had been coursing through my own mind.

The book is in three parts although there is considerable overlap between them:

• The Theoretical Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy
• The Pedagogical Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy
• The Political Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy.

The book opens with an introduction by Henry Giroux. He begins by telling us that:

What makes critical pedagogy so dangerous to Christian evangelicals, neoconservatives and right wing nationalists in the United States and Canada today is that central to its very definition is the task of educating students to become critical agents who actively question and negotiate the relationship between theory and practice, critical analysis and common sense, and learning and social change.”

He then catalogues a number of the repressive actions that these conservatives have initiated to attack critical teachers and foreclose the opportunity for democratic dialogue in and about education, He takes issue with those who label critical pedagogy as “indoctrination” (no doubt a direct response to such accusations being aimed at both himself and Peter McLaren) and argues forcefully that on the contrary, critical pedagogy has as its primary goal the liberation of students from restricting dogma, mythologised theory and political inactivism, intending instead to have them become creative participant citizens in the democratic project. He notes the scale and seriousness of the attacks on education and laments the failure of the left to mount an effective response.

Part 1: The Theoretical Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy

·      This introduction is followed by the opening chapter by Kincheloe, who offers something of an historical overview of the field, together with ruminations about the future. He begins by acknowledging that critical pedagogy has grown into a diverse and complex field of study, incorporating many different strands – antiractism, anticolonialism antihomophobia, etc – and noting that such complexity cannot exist without internal contradictions and tensions. He extols his colleagues to avoid mutual criticism while at the same time engaging in a mutually supportive dialogue in the face of neoconsevative attacks.  He calls for a simplifying of the language, of incorporating and including the voices of non-academics and community groups. In particular he extols the uniqueness and importance of incorporating indigenous knowledge systems (something close to my own heart), writing of the difficulties of connecting the personal with the global, commenting on the unfolding complexity of the issues needing to be addressed at the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, class and describing the bricolage of theories and pedagogies that have and are evolving in response.  He tells us not to lose sight of the fact that the current problems with education are cause by the globalization of capital and of the market, and that we must consequently shape our pedagogies to address these issues, bringing them into the classroom to demystify the local through a critical appraisal of the global. Calling for an attentive inclusivity and mutuality of support he lays out the central and essential points that an evolving criticality might and should incorporate – a kind a checklist of theory and action.

·      Kincheloe’s essay is followed by Philip Wexler lamenting the omnipotence of rationalism and the loss of the spiritual in our critical teaching. Taking a Weberian position and unpacking the relevance of charismatic education –something largely omitted from the history, practice and theorizing of the field. Citing Durkheim, he suggests that the sacred is perhaps the energetic source, and can offer an alternative to the ideological functionalism and even perhaps a critical Marxism – that often poses serious dilemmas for critical indigenous scholars. Taking Weber’s notion of authority (as opposed to power), Wexler distinguishes between traditional, rational and charismatic forms and notes that charismatic authority is antithetical to the other two and operates “outside the realm of everyday routine and the profane sphere. He notes the particular antithesis between the rational and the charismatic, tracing their origins to Protestant asceticism and early Christian mysticism respectively. Having traced the genealogy of the types, Wexler notes that, in (Modernist) education, the mystical has almost but not entirely been eradicated and he points to emerging tendencies to reintegrate the spiritual back into its (Marxist-inspired) de-mystified theories. He concludes that charismatic teaching offers a viable way out of the philosophical and pedagogical cul-de-sac that has robbed critical pedagogy of its potential power to end the cycle of cultural reproduction, to transform the world and to heal. For those critical pedagogues, like myself, who exist mainly in the world of critical rationality, but who also struggle to make sense of the direct and often inexplicable events and experiences that emerge from and respond to the unconscious, Wexler’s analysis offers an affirmation, a permission, if you will to give more weight and credence to the mysterious.

·      Eric Weiner, to some extent echoing Wexler’s lament, reflecting on the loss of the imaginary in our utopia-visioning. notes critical pedagogy’s internal contradictions (the theorizing of universal emancipation set against a quest for identity and difference) he suggests that the field now suffers from what he calls a paralysis of “imaginative inertia”. He argues that what is needed is a re-imagining of basis of those aspects of our own theorizing that we collectively take to be real, challenging basic assumptions, and reinventing a new imaginary – that is, an image of that which does not yet exist, together with the means of attaining it.  He challenges the title of the book, “Where Are We Now?” and asks, instead “Where aren’t we?” – in other words he challenges the reader to abandon self-congratulatory and self-flagellating critiques and to imagine instead where critical pedagogy might be in order to be more effective, questioning in the process the causes of our failure to be effective.

He takes up the oft-repeated critique of opaque language and theories that distance us from the world of everyday action, citing our language as a key failure in our effectiveness to communicate with the oppressed.[1] He laments the isolation of critical pedagogy in the classroom and graduate seminar room, suggesting, again, a clinging to the trappings of White (academic) privilege that interrupt the need to ground our work and praxis in the everyday world. He points nostalgically to Miles Horton’s work at Highlander as a possible model to build upon. In trying to address diverse issues, he suggests that critical pedagogy (like Cultural Studies) has lost sense of its own boundaries and as a consequence has increasingly consolidated its theoretical base around a Marxist rhetoric. Against this, and criticizing what he calls the “hegemony of realism” he opts for the abandonment of theories that attempt to totalize, and instead (acknowledging Maxine Greene’s theories of imagination) calls for a re-imagining of our basic categories (freedom, class etc.) – that will take us beyond the known and familiar and into an expanded realm of possibility He goes on to offer Stanley Aronowitz’s radical historicised theory of class to show how this might be effective. Finally he concludes by suggesting that critical pedagogy’s currently projected future lies on the “withering paradigms of hope and possibility” and instead would be more productively employed in the artistic, inventive and speculative imagining of new (unlike the present) futures, but to do this in a dialogue that “touches the workers” – that is, that has meaning and relevance in everyday life. He suggests that public intellectuals, rather than academics  are perhaps better equipped for this task.

It appears to me that his notion of a new and radical re-imagining has some correspondence with the newly-integrated spirituality of Wexner’s charismatic education, moving as it does beyond the boundaries of stultifying rationalism and embracing instead, the radically unknown, not to say the mystical.

·      In contrast to the preceding abstract/theoretical chapters, Kathleen Berry takes a decidedly personal approach. Taking a wider European definition of “pedagogy” as “a relationship of responsibility to one another”, she frames her story as a theatrical performance seen from the position of both actor and audience, she relates aspects of her life story – her polio infliction as a child, her teacher experience in an urban elementary school, and her time as an undergraduate student reading Freire, and as a graduate student immersed in critical pedagogy – drawing out in the process insights into the ways in which institutional power shapes identity and frames the discourse of critical categories (oppression, social justice, etc). Taking these out of the classroom context and into the “real” world of everyday relationships she then contrasts the received notion of critical pedagogy thus institutionally framed against its counterpart in the community, built not upon grand unifying theories, but upon the immediacy of local environmental problems in her home community. Here, she describes the often messy and conflicted relationships between local fishers and First Nation communities and between local residents and the corporate power of very affluent polluting industrialists.

Unpacking the structures of power that operate to mediate the contrasting meanings and discourses in the real world, she sets the scene for the actual confrontation between the be-suited, laptop and leather briefcase-carrying, executives, consultants and “experts” and their homespun adversaries (mud-covered work-boots, hunting shirts, plastic rain hats, dog-eared file folders, dollar store notepads). High drama this, told colourfully:

“After overwhelming the crowd with statistics, charts of procedures, and reports stating “conclusive” evidence/proof and “global” success, a young local man at the back of the hall stood up. “Fuck your mighty scientists and engineers. What about the drilling and damming of the Chocolate River? It was known before building it all the damage it would cause. And today we’ll take your goddamn engineers and scientists and show and show you the fucking proof of the damage during and after the drilling”.

Her point is that the grand narratives of Universal Emancipation, Critical Theory, Marxism etc. have no meaning until they collide with real circumstances and that when they do, “reflexivity, informed by critical theories becomes the practice of articulating where and when changes are to be made.” It is here that we begin to understand that issues of social justice, equity, anti-racism, inclusion, plurality etc. are neither means nor ends, but rather, processes towards creating these conditions for everyone.

What distinguishes Berry’s perspective is that she embodies the personal/political ethic, drawing from her own experience of exclusion and oppression to understand that knowledge (and the social transformation it might engender) is above all about relationships.

·      One of the highlights of the book, for me, was the remarkable analysis by Pepi Leistyna reminding us with remarkable incisiveness, clarity and impeccable data of the utter perfidy of the Neoliberal assault on the State, and of the Bush dynastic regime, and its calculated rape of the education system’s economy. As I read, I felt an upwelling of righteous anger that reinvigorated my determination and passion for critical pedagogy. 

In a sweeping historical analysis, Leistyna strips away the smooth rhetoric of “efficiencies” and “market economy” to unmask the litany of corporate deceptions and thefts of the public sphere over the last twenty years – the profiteering of educational book publishing (supported by mandated high-stakes testing and evaluation); the legalised mandatory health screening of youth in schools, and the subsequent Ritalin-drugging of six million “misbehaving” or “unmanageable” children reputed to have ADD and the consequent neat and tidy creation and containment of an addicted, quiescent population of unemployed and unemployable poor; the incursion of the media (Channel 1, with all of its advertising power to a bored, captive audience and the massive monopolies of Time/Warner/AOL that shape public information and awareness in the interests of corporate Neoliberal interests), In this grand critical sweep no one is spared. Leistyna casts his spotlight on all of the major players in all of their nepotistic and “good old boy” relationships. What emerges is a vivid picture of a concerted grand theft from the pockets of every taxpayer (many of the culprits avoid paying tax on their ill-gotten profits) and the creation of a vastly unequal two-class society with education as one of its primary means of production.

Following this broad analysis there were informative pieces that told of critical pedagogy in specialist fields like my own field of Architecture, not normally considered as sites for critical engagement:

Part 2. The Pedagogical Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy

·      Part 2 begins with Norman Denzin writing about Performance Studies, reflecting that since 9/11 the neoconservatives through the Patriot Acts, Homeland Security and fear-mongering White House speeches, have successfully established new myths and narratives that destabilise and threaten to destroy the meaning of democracy and freedom. From within his own field he asks how it might be possible to revise our narratives, to reinvent new laws and to reclaim that which has been lost?

Without proposing any specific programme, Denzin explores the whole field of performance studies, seeking first to clarify the principles that a Critical Performance pedagogy might take. Taking as a starting point that “performance is always pedagogical” he establishes a baseline that critical performance pedagogy must at least challenge structures of power, education and oppression to critical scrutiny and also encourage resistance to privatization, consumerism, standardization, accountability and surveillance. Using as his model Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed he explores and compares the ethics of different ways of apprehending and developing a critical performance pedagogy in a Post 9/11 world. Interestingly, and like Kincheloe, he cites indigenous knowledge systems as an important source of inspiration. He situates the ethics of such critical performance pedagogy in the discourses of indigenous peoples whose “theories of ritual performance blend and blur with performative acts that critique, transgress and bring dignity to human practices”. Recognising that indigenous theatre disrupts colonial models of race, culture, class, civilization while at the same time exploring diasporic issues of identity loss, disorientation, violence, exploitation and resistance he frames the performer as researcher, with all of the ethical pitfalls that indigenous peoples know only too well.

He notes, for instance, the different normative Western academic modes of research and their fallibility in the face of the dignity, rights and privacy of the researched. Following Dwight Conquergood, he defines four problematic, though sometimes well-intentioned research models

·      The cultural imperialist, exploiting and ransacking of personal biographies for profit that is not returned to the subjects (cultural theft)

·      The superficialist, who fails to engage with the cultural setting involved and who therefore trivializes the other

·      The skeptic who values detachment and cynically refuses to recognize the moral ambiguities of working in culturally sensitive areas

·      The sensationalist who sensationalises the cultural differences that supposedly define the world of the other.

Together these raise the question of how and how far can one engage in the performance of another’s world?  His answer, taken from an indigenous-ethical point of view – is that the other’s world must always be respected. This presumes a well-intentioned researcher who is aware of his or her duty to uphold the dignity of the subject. But framing this ethical issue in the context of the Academy and its ubiquitous Ethics Committees and Human Subjects Review Boards, he notes that “good intentions” are not enough, but that a cost-benefit utilitarian model which asks how the results of the research will benefit society. This model, which presumes that means are justified by ends raises the further problematic of who defines “cost” and “benefit”, and which society it is intended to benefit?

Indigenous communities have a long and painful experience of all of these research models, and instead advocate action or participatory research (also sometimes called “feminist research”) where the researchers are drawn from within the research community and where the analysis if conducted with, not for or on the community involved.[2] Taking this model as a basis for a critical performance pedagogy as well as for critical performance studies, Denzin calls for a critical pedagogy of hope based upon a reframed democratic critical imagination and describes what forms and functions this might take, suggesting that it will be political, that it will “build on local knowledge and experience developed at the bottom of the social hierarchies, will be participatory, will respect local knowledge and customs and practices and (of course) will protect and sustain the dignity of the communities in question. From all of this there is an implication that the counter-narrative needed to reclaim our understanding of freedom and democracy will emerge not as a given doctrine but as a product of a public imagination engaged in the co-operative reclaiming of the public spafce through performance.

·      Juha Suoranta and Tere Vaden, two Finish specialists in Adult Education and Hypermedia respectively, turn their attention to the possible pitfalls and potential of Wikimedia as an expression of and a medium for critical pedagogy. Their chapter was written well before the drama surrounding Julian Assange and Wikileaks, and to some extent prefigures the issues that this controversy has sparked. They begin by framing the issue through a general overview of the history of critical concerns about the use and control of technology and (citing Marcuse) of its capacity for alienation or emancipation – of the dialectic of what technology does to us and what we can do with technology.  Following this they turn to the issue of control, drawing digital technology into focus as a means of production and hence having its potential for emancipation dependent upon issues of ownership. They take the emergence of Wikis as a case in point and as a radical departure from previous forms of technological precisely around the issue of control, taking Wikipedia.org as an example.

They begin with the basic question about who controls the information in Wikipedia, noting its inherent ideological position of having a “Neutral Point of View” (NVOP) in which articles “must represent all significant views fairly and without bias” - which they rightly point out is not the absence of a view but a very specific view. They compare Wikipedia with the Enlightenment Encyclopedia which promised universal emancipation but in reality was systemically unable to avoid suppressing some rationalities and colonising others. This they see as a function of the means of production and the inherent gate-keeping function of its writers and publishers and their inherent cultural biases. They suggest that a similar form of suppression of certain types of communal rationalities is inevitable also in Wikipedia, but that this may be mitigated by its capacity for “forking” – that is in developing unique branches of knowledge that autonomous groups can develop and manage themselves. In addition, they posit the proliferation of other forms and styles of Wikimedia as a further mitigating factor in the capacity for centralized control. Wikis and limitless forks will not of themselves bring about a radical transformation in public awareness (note the trivia and “noise” that permeates the digital environment at present) but they do offer significant potential to organized and committed groups with that intent.

Taking a Habermasian position that universal freedom of access to communication they compare the emergence and development of Wikipedia and other wikis to the evolution of newspaper publishing which initially operated as a medium for radical worker communication and the “rise of a public” before its corporatisation. Now, the power of the news media is in widespread decline as ownership concentration increases and loss of advertising revenues (due largely to the Internet) decline. and as the public space once occupied by newspapers is being recreated in wikis and social media. One effect of this shift has been the relative delegitimation of the credentialed viewpoint and authorship in favour historicity of discourse in wikis brought about by the existence of the “edit”, “history” and “discuss” buttons that are a prominent feature of every wiki page and that allow the reader to view the history of a particular discourse and to judge the veracity and validity of diverse arguments for him or herself, being able to see how an argument was developed and what kind of challenges it has been able to withstand. As they note:

“This widely distributed peer review gives wiki content a reliability that is different from that guaranteed by authors with institutional credentials.”

This, of course, has immense ramifications for the Academy which relies for its legitimacy on just such credentialism. It raises the point about the future relevance of universities, academic structures and professorial authority that centralize the ownership of knowledge in the interests of power. What is interesting to me here is (once again) the congruence of this perspective with the indigenous view of knowledge as relationships rather than power, something that Suoranta and Vadén hint at when they ask, in view of the emergence of collaborative literary practices, “In a few decades there will be no need to lecture in order to transfer information….What is the role of the teacher or any other expert in such a situation?”. Wikis, it seems undermine the given authority of the institution. What then of the future of the Academy, of its buildings and infrastructure? If the universal peer review system has the potential to outstrip and outpace the old forms of institutionalised legitimacy, what of credentials themselves? With employers at present despairing of finding credentialed graduates who know or can do anything, what future is there for the old system in the face of a universally-informed and savvy youth schooled in that old cliché The University of Life, now become an operating reality.

Having established the structural significance of wikis, Suoranta and Vadén briefly summarise the history of utopian notions of liberating technologies of this kind, from Dewey, through Illich to Lyotard, concluding that the leaderless, rhizome-like nature of the social media, networking everywhere, offers an unparalleled potential for social change. Here, once again, they see the issue of control as the main obstacle, noting that the ownership of the ultimately critical means of production – energy, and more specifically electricity remains in mostly private, corporate hands. While this is an important point, it misses an even more critical obstacle to the emancipatory potential of the Web, and of social media – the owners of the channels of communication. The so-called “digital divide” is often used to describe the serious issues of access to computer technologies between the West (OECD Countries), the “Developing” Countries (DCs) and “Least Developed Countries” (LDCs), As international commerce becomes increasingly digitised, and as time and space accordingly shrink, it is precisely the most digitally-capable economies and peoples that are best placed to exploit the flow of capital, and to access company information that can only be accessed through digital technology. Those (Least Developed) countries in what used to be called the Third World who lack access to the digital world stand to once again be the object of economic exploitation. Looking at the cost of fixed Broadband services across different national economies, for instance, we find that:

“The Least Developed Country (LCD) users are asked to pay extortionate rates for relatively low-speed broadband access – over US$2,000 per 100kbits/ per month in Cape Verde, for instance, and over US$199 per 100 kbits/ per month in at least 12 other LCDs where broadband is available, compared to below 10 US cents per 100 kbits/ per month in Japan and the Republic of Korea…. A broadband connection in a high-income economy (like the OECD countries) costs, on average, about US$16 per 100 kbits/ per month… The average price in low-income economies is more than US$186 per month – almost 12 times more. Furthermore, in terms of affordability (or price relative to monthly income), the gap between high-income and low-income economies is a staggering ratio of 432. Consumers in a high-income economy spend only 2% of their average monthly income on broadband connectivity, whereas in a low-income economy, even the cheapest broadband offering costs more than 900 times the average income….”[3]

Given such discrepancies (and the fact that the manufactured scarcity of any commodity is used to establish and maintain its value) it seems unlikely that the idealised picture of digital democracy presented here has much chance of happening easily or soon.

·      It was both informative and interesting to find a story of the struggles of a critical pedagogue in a relatively unfamiliar cultural context. Kiwan Sung, describes the process of trying to establish Critical English Language Teaching in Korea, concerned about the continuing use of decontextualised, positivistic and reductionist ESL and ELT (English Language Teaching) practices. The existing teaching/learning practices in that country emphasise English for communication, social mobility and job acquisition, not recognizing the culturally hegemonic Trojan Horse that has been taken in. Many teachers and institutions fail to recognize that their teaching practices are neither culturally neutral but shaped and influenced by an ongoing history of colonization and imperialism and carry along with them a depoliticized (not to say racist) view of the subject.. Against this background, the author describes his attempts, over a six-year period, to embed critical theory and critical pedagogy into an MA graduate programme (CELT).

A doctoral graduate of Penn State, where he discovered the works of Giroux, Kincheloe, McLaren, Steinberg et al., he returned to Korea to establish a successful Critical English Language Teaching programme at a small and relatively new university that specialized mainly in Engineering. Aided by visiting critical scholars (many his ex-colleagues and mentors) from the US, the programme developed a series of innovative courses through which it was possible to extend the normally standardised ELT programme into a robust curriculum with a major critical content: Courses included:

·      Design and Development of Interactive Multimedia

·      Reading Other Ways

·      Multiple America(s)

·      A Critical Look at American Schools

·      Teaching of Writing

·      Quantitative Research

·      Qualitative Research

·      Media Literacy and Cross-cultural communication

·      Whole Language.

The individual courses produced outstanding papers from the students, covering a wide range of socio/cultural/political topics – all pertinent to the Korean context:

·      The reunification of North and South Korea

·      The environmental issue of saving the Dong River

·      The influence of the Japanese media in Korea

and many more. Over the six years the programme expanded greatly and interest in CELT programmes has continued to steadily increase nationwide over succeeding years. This example offers a useful documentation of the need to consider critical English Language teaching in non-English contexts, and offers useful pointers to the ways in which colonial history can be unpacked in an ELT classroom.

·      Closer to home, there were essays more pertinent to some of my own experiences: Jeff Duncan-Andrade and Ernest Morrell writing a terrific article about teaching English in an urban high-school and going into the fine details of their pedagogy - mixing and interspersing canonical Shakespearian texts with hip-hop and rap and seeking liberatory commonalities with their students. This offered an inspiring blow-by-blow of “how to” in an urban classroom – giving the lie to those who see high school education as mainly an issue of classroom management and custodial care. The authors go into fine detail about how and why they ran their programme - the sequencing and relationship between components, the issue of evaluation, the establishment of respect and dialogue. A model for all of us who have ever had to face the poverty, institutional racism and denial in an urban school setting.

·      Another chapter that describes the process of using a range of media dealing to develop critical literacies in a culturally diverse urban environment – but this time with young children - was offered by Elizabeth Quintero. She demonstrates that critical pedagogy is not only the reserve of high-school and tertiary students and detailing her conscientising work with young children. Working with student teachers in an early childhood teacher education programme and drawing from her student-teacher reports she recounts instances of using a variety of media – play, dress-ups, drawing etc. to elicit the stories of young, culturally diverse immigrant children.

·      Among the most exciting offerings in the book was the chapter by Gustavo F. Fischman and Luis A. Gandin. who describe the Escola Cidadã in Porto Alegre, in Southern Brazil. At a time when other education systems worldwide (and elsewhere in Brazil) are floundering in a fiscal and ideological mire Escola Cidadã stands as a beacon to critical pedagogues struggling to stem the tide of fiscal and political conservatism. Set in an urban population of almost 1.5 million, the City of Porto Alegre has, over the last twenty years, increased the number of schools from 29 to 92, has increased the number of teachers from 1,700 to 4,000 and has increased its student population from 17,000 to more than 60,000, including thousands of previously excluded children of migrant families. At the same time it has cut the drop-out rates from almost 10% down to 2%. It has done all of this through a radical reform programme that includes and is supported by a system of municipal government that is inclusive and fully participatory. One of the salient successes of Escola Cidadã has involved the transformation of the curriculum:

“Curricular transformation is more than making sure that students are going to be offered access to traditional knowledge required for an educated and enlightened citizenry. The Citizen School Project goes beyond the incorporation of new knowledge within the margins of an intact “core of humankind’s wisdom”. It is a radical transformation aimed at constructing a new epistemological understanding about what counts as knowledge… (it) goes beyond the mere episodic mentioning of the structural and cultural manifestations of class, racial, sexual and gender-based oppression. It includes these themes as an essential part of the process of construction of knowledge.”[4]

Working in ways reminiscent of Freire’s earlier culture circles, teachers conduct participatory socio-anthropological studies within their communities before developing thematic study units for their students – ensuring that issues that are pertinent to the community have a central place in the curriculum and pedagogical practice of the school.[5] The results of these curricular and administrative initiatives that have a greater democratic utopian ideal as their goal contribute significantly to the political, social and economic discourse in the community at large. As Gustavo Fischman and Luis Gandin make clear:

“Perhaps the most relevant lesson from the Citizen School is that another type of schooling is possible; and to obtain it, a critical discourse of educational hope is necessary. This new alternative school i s a conflictive construction, a new institution in which students, teachers, principals, families and communities have no other possibility but to struggle to affirm themselves by increasing the opportunities for democratic dialogue and participation; be accountable for the success of everybody involved in teaching and learning; and establish common pedagogical and political goals, including the goals of accepting diversity and conflictive dialogue as intrinsic to the construction of a more efficient and democratic educational experience.”[6]

The extraordinary success of Escola Cidadã stands as a shining example of what can be accomplished, even in the face of unrelenting oppression when communities come together to transform their lives by transforming their education.

·      Frank Abrahams describes the need for critical work in the field of Music. He cites the numerous instances where music is being squeezed out of the curriculum in the face of an imposed national curriculum and high-stakes testing in math, literacy etc. He also describes a movement of resistance by musician educators, particularly the formation of MayDay, in 1992. MayDay is an international think-tank of music educators, philosophers, theorists and practitioners who are committed to applying “critical theory and critical thinking to the purposes and practices of music education and to affirm the central importance of musical participation in human life, and thus the value of music in the genera education of all people.” Recognising that music and music education has an important part to play in cultural change (and in improving the general education of all students), Abrahams points to the importance of music as an instrument in the formation and development of personal, social and political identity, as critical pedagogues honour and respect the experiences that students bring to the learning situation. Combining music education with literacy education, students are encouraged to engage in a conversation in which music plays an important role in the imaginative and expressive life of the child. These critical practices are seen against a background of and in contrast and resistance to the use of music as a form of cultural imposition and hegemony, where western cultural and mainstream styles, tastes and content form the basis of mainstream music education. Music teachers themselves are implicated in this process by failing to reflexively apprehend and challenge the conservative values that they bring to the classroom. There is an interesting overlap here with the work of Jeff Duncan-Andrade and Ernest Morrell, noted earlier, who use the cultural milieu of their students - rap and hip-hop – in an urban school. Abrahams concludes his analysis with an example of critical pedagogy in a music classroom, working withy young children to connect their diverse cultural experiences, connecting lyrics to forms of cultural literacy and synthesizing these into a rap that the children perform for each other.

·      Valerie Janesick takes the issue of High States Testing head-on, and describes grassroots movements that resist its introduction and development, giving hope for a possible critical evaluation process. She begins by suggesting that we have all become so inured to violence on the News, in rap lyrics, in the streets and elsewhere that we fail to recognise it when it is in front of our noses. Citing the dictionary definition of violence as: “injury by distortion, infringement or profanation”, she suggests that  we have missed the actual violence implicit in NCLB and high-stakes testing, suggesting that this description neatly fits the reality NCLB legislation and its concomitant high stakes testing.

”Distortion of the reporting of scores to9 secure money from the government, the infringement on class time and curriculum for study and the profanation of and arrogance about the use of class time for drilling for the test all converge to elucidate the violence of high stakes testing.”

She argues that he introduction of profiteering models in education, supporting the test-publishing fortunes made my members of the Reagan and Bush administrations is a form of violence that has degraded learning, discriminated against minority students and those for whom English is not their first language and created a two-tier society. Yet despite all of the evidence of this, the popular media continues to promulgate the ideology of the marketeers.

There is hope to be found, however in the numerous grassroots resistance groups across the country who advocate what they call “authentic assessment”. In contrast to high-stakes testing assessments which usually have:

·      One right answer,

·      Are disconnected from the learner’s experience, are

·      Are constructed by a bureaucrat,

·      Are measured by someone ignorant of the field,

·      Are simplified to make scoring easier

·      Provide a one-shot score

Authentic assessment by comparison (according to Janesick) offers:

·      Realistic assessment, mirroring real world applications of knowledge

·      Requires judgement and innovation

·      Requires the performance or application of the skill or knowledge

·      Replicates or simulates actual “tests” in the real world

·      Assesses the person’s ability to integrate and use multiple skills

·      Allows many opportunities to practice and rehearse, acquire feedback and build upon emerging skills.

She maintains that critical pedagogues almost invariably use techniques of authentic assessment and that critical pedagogy itself offers a powerful tool to contest the violence of NCLB and High Stakes testing. While supporting her passionate antipathy for both of these I was left disappointed by the implicit insistence of Janesick’s argument that the issue of assessment remains largely the province of the teacher (as opposed to the bureaucrat). What for me was lacking in her perspective was the issue of power in the classroom that remains unaddressed – the right of students to self-assessment and the pedagogical power and real authenticity of intrinsic, rather than extrinsic judgement and evaluation. To be fair, she does fleetingly mention peer-assessment, but the issue remains that the best judge of the quality of a student’s work and knowledge remains someone other than the student him or herself. I have written extensively on the importance of self-assessment as an ongoing part and reflective consolidation of the learning experience itself. It is tragic that someone who clearly sees the violence of High-Stakes testing and who so cogently deconstructs it fails to take that next stem in questioning the ultimate and basic violence of the classroom interaction that fails to make the student the centre of their own self-knowledge and understanding.

·      Having said this, I found it interesting that in the next essay, Luis Huerta-Charles, ponders the failure of students to understand critical pedagogy coursework and the failure of their teachers to listen to the testimonies of their students – Luis offering his own, intimate pedagogical testimony to this effect. His argument bears directly upon the contradictions in Janesick’s own perspective. He begins by noting that modern capitalism is a new form of totalitarianism that has simultaneously dehumanised and degraded life and work while manufacturing a public consent for itself and its acceptance as the only normal form of social and economic relationship. He argues forcefully that precisely because of this it is important for teachers to unpack for their students the underlying structural causes that make their lives difficult so that they can “fight back” against neo-liberal policies. This, he suggests, is why critical pedagogy is so important at this point in time. How to deal, then, with the dilemma (evidenced in several research studies) that shows students in teacher education programmes where critical pedagogy had been practiced  remained confused and uncertain about its role and meaning, thinking of it as “another course to be taught”, rather than an instrument for conscientisation and social and political resistance?

In answer, he suggests that critical pedagogues all too often fail to engage in true dialogue with their students which, he adds, amounts to a further form of totalitarianism. Extending this, he suggests that critical pedagogy is becoming increasingly an exclusory tool that separates its proponents from those it purports to serve and “keeps teachers distanced from the possibility of having real experiences with real practices. In this he is reflecting the critique of critical pedagogy language offered earlier in the book by Eric Weiner and elsewhere by Michael Apple. Ironic then, that in his own testimony of student incomprehension of the language, it is Mike Apple’s book The Subaltern Speaks that is the source of the student’s confusion. Using this example he lays out a story of his own use of testimony – his technique of making his own beliefs vulnerable to student critique and of consistently refusing to abuse their dignity and experience by failing to listen openly to their criticisms and concerns. To one student who accused him of trying to indoctrinate and who believed that education was not political, he listened patiently to her explanation of why – learning in the process about this student’s (and her silent supporters in the classroom) notion of politics. From this he was able to share stories taken from a classroom context in which the teacher’s preconceptions, and actions had indeed been politically driven. From this he was able to open up a dialogue and a sharing of experiences that allowed the students to advance their understanding. He concludes his essay by suggesting that the simplification of the language, concepts and practice of critical pedagogy is the most important task that lies ahead, if we are to counter the simplistic sloganeering of the Right and its hegemony in the classroom and in public life.

·      Lilia Bartolomé is also engaged in Teacher Education. Taking as a starting point the sharp and escalating difference in cultural background and experience between the teachers (90% White, female and middle class) and their students (40% minority with almost half living in poverty) she points out that the majority of Teacher Education programmes fail to prepare would-be teachers to examine their own cultural and ideological assumptions that might bear negatively upon their teaching practice in multicultural settings. She calls for these programmes to incorporate reflective courses in critical pedagogy through which neophyte teachers can become agents for improving the education of their charges while at the same time exposing their students to critical analysis and teaching them to understand and combat elements of injustice in their own lives. As a way of conveying how these processes might unfold she uses the stories (from interviews) of four exemplary teachers from a particular high school – all of whom have been fingered by their colleagues as being particularly effective. She draws from her interviews a set of characteristics that seem to be connected to their effectiveness:

·      Awareness of asymmetrical power arrangements

·      Questioning meritocratic explanations of the social order

·      Rejecting deficit views of minority students

·      Interrogating romanticised views of the dominant culture

·      Witnesses of cultural subordination and Border Crossers

·      Dedicated cultural brokers

Collectively, these character traits point to a keen awareness of the political nature of education by each of the interviewees., and their success indicates a clear correlation between this awareness and their effectiveness as teachers. The implications for teacher education is profound and suggest a real need to introduce explicit courses for trainee teachers that require them to question their own ideologies and to develop a capacity for critical analysis and awareness that they can pass on th their students.

What struck me about this essay was the way in which it connected to the example provided by Huerta-Charles’ student, who accused him of political indoctrination. It is one of the main weapons of the neo-Conservatives to portray critical pedagogy as political indoctrination while simultaneously presenting this critique (and their own ideology) as non-political. It is also what leads Mclaren, in the next essay, to speak of the difficulties and dangers faced by critical pedagogues like himself who try to expose the actual political agenda of the Right. The ideological myth of political neutrality is so engrained in the education system that it can be very difficult for critical pedagogues to counter without at the same time reinforcing the accusations of political indoctrination that are aimed at them. Huerta-Charles’ model of testimony, while seeming an over-simple counter-hegemonic strategy in fact offers an important pointer to the form that critical pedagogy might take in the practice of teacher-education.

Part 3. The Political Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy

·      All of this is reinforced further by Peter McLaren, who reflects incisively upon his own struggle as a Marxist Humanist working inside the present neo-Fascist regime. McLaren’s essay, The Future of the Past, is undoubtedly the pivotal chapter in the whole book. While many of his co-writers engage with diverse aspects of critical pedagogy practice – offering classroom examples or theorising about how to critically engage with various disciplinary subject areas (Denzin, Kiwan Sung, Abrahams), offering reflective autobiographical examples of critical pedagogy-in-action (Berry, Kiwan Sung, Duncan-Andrade and Morrell, Huerta-Charles, Quintero), offering blistering critiques of Neo-conservative influences in education (Leistyna, Bartolomé, Grande, Martin), theorising on what is missing from current practice (Kincheloe, Wexler, Weiner, Martin) or offering an overview of the history of critical pedagogy, of “where we are now” and what needs to be done in the future (Kincheloe, Martin), McLaren does all of this and more. He extends his critique well beyond the boundary of the present Neoconservative resurgence, beyond the educational impact of 9/11, beyond an incisive critique of postmodernism’s infatuation with difference, beyond even a reflective demolition of (failed) doctrinaire, dogmatic orthodox Marxism. He does all of this with consummate skill and eloquence. But the significance of his piece rests in his compelling analysis of first causes – of the central role of capital as the foundation upon which all of this rests. He unapologetically drags the discourse relentlessly back it to the Modernist tradition of Marxist Humanism, offering very convincing analysis of the broad sweep of recent history, of American (capitalist) imperialism, and of the scale and scope of the struggle and why there is no alternative than for critical pedagogues to stay focused and remain committed to the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with humanist socialism. McLaren is inspirational and unambiguous.

He begins by showing how the capitalist states have used 9/11 to construct a War on Terror that has given them the opportunity to initiate antidemocratic and totalitarian laws, policies and actions that have impacted directly on education. He shows also how education is one of the main battlefields in the struggle for social equity and justice and how it has been targeted by the Right as one of the decisive instruments in their push for complete hegemony. This process, aimed at the universal omnipotence of the market has been mythologised as offering an opportunity for “levelling the playing field, a means of achieving freedom and democracy”, while instead it has created and fed upon a dramatic escalation of the gap between rich and poor, in the curtailment of democratic rights, the creation of scarcity and the promulgation of universal and constant conflict.

He then turns his attention specifically to education, beginning with Governor Jeb Bush (George’s brother) and his attempt to legislate against “revisionist” history in Florida schools – erasing indigenous, slave and other minority histories and supplanting them with “the universal principles stated inn the declaration of Independence” eliding from the curriculum any sense of social struggle or emancipatory imperative. Cataloguing similar efforts by his President brother, using the complicity of the mass media, McLaren shows how the recent history of American imperialism  enacted by a succession of Presidents has remained largely unspoken or acknowledged. He sees this suppression as a direct response to and an attempt to co-opt the burgeoning multiculturalism in schools and to the desire by capital mask its underlying responsibility. Taking up the twin banners of respect for cultural difference and antiracism, as markers of democracy and emancipation, critical pedagogues have been seduced into mistaken amnesia of first causes. They have failed to recognise or remember that the material circumstances that cause the conditions upon which racism, and sexism flourish:

“A deepening understanding of the impact of global capitalism on aggrieved communities is essential for understanding the emergence of acutely polarised labour market and the fact that disproportionately high percentages of people of colour are trapped in the lower rungs of domestic and global labour markets.”

And here we come to the nub of his argument:

“Severing issues of difference from class analysis therefore conveniently draws attention away from the crucially important ways in which people of colour (and more specifically women of colour) provide capital with its superexploited labour pools – a phenomenon that is on the rise all over the world with internationalised migrant labour.”

McLaren reincribes the embarrassing category of class firmly back on the ideological agenda, noting how ironic it is that issues of class, labour exploitation and socialist struggle have been elided from contemporary social theorising at precisely this time when colonialism is reasserting itself and labour movements are being crushed. He follows this up with a powerful analysis of the interrelationship of the Gender-Class-Race triptych. This, for me was the most significant part of his theorising, and one that addresses perhaps the largest dilemma that has faced critical pedagogues over the last twenty years. He suggests that while it is sometimes necessary to first confront the repressions of global capitalism through race or gender struggles, we must never lose sight of the fact that the underlying category of class difference arising out of the ownership of the means of production is the ultimately clarifying (and unifying) issue. This, he makes clear, is the message that critical pedagogues should be taking into and practicing in their classrooms – exemplifying democracy-in-action and modelling the world that they would create:

“Revolutionary classrooms are prefigurative of socialism in the sense that they are connected to social relations that we want to create as revolutionary socialists. The organisation of the classroom generally tries to mirror what students and teachers would like to see in the world outside of schools – respect for everyone’s ideas, tolerance of differences, a commitment to creativity and social and educational justice, the importance of working collectively, a willingness and desire to work hard for the betterment of humanity, and a commitment to antiraciust, antisexist and antihomophobic practices… students can – and should - become resolute, intransigent adversaries of the values that lie at the heart of commodity capitalism”

Instead, what he sees is that critical pedagogy has, to a large extent been “domesticated” that stresses engaging student histories and experiences, that valorise cultural difference but leaves untouched a critical analysis of the political and economic nature of suffering and exploitation, that fail to reflect on or to address the appalling statistics that mark the subjugation of millions of minority American youth or between issues of identity-formation and its relationship to the ownership of the means of production. This reluctance is seen not as coincidental, but as a direct and fearful response to the current moves by a coalition of Bible-wielding fundamentalists and corporate and political conservatives to suppress critical thought and political theorising in the Academy. Taking his own experience as an example, he points to the attempt by the Right to introduce the Academic Bill of Rights that would effectively make it illegal for teachers from using the classroom to supposedly “propagandise” their views. Taking up the challenge, he argues that the aim of the Neocons to render education politically neutral is not itself a politically neutral act:

“Pressuring professors to be silent about politics in their classrooms by threat of legal action is itself an abridgement of academic freedom; it is an attempt to remove politics from the classroom by means of imposing politics … on the education process itself.”

In response, her turns to the writings and theories of Freire, whom he suggests has been accepted into academia an emasculated form. His mission is to resuscitate Freire and his penetrating Marxist-Humanism and to offer, via Freire’s theories a mission and strategy of hope. For examples, he turns his attention to the model provided by the transformations under way in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, showing the linkage between education, social conditions and a Marxist Humanism that takes seriously the issue of a socialist future which moves beyond outmoded versions of socialism involving state-ownership.

Ironically, McLaren concludes his piece by attacking those who criticise the abstract rhetoric of much critical theorising – including his own; ironic, because there are some parts of his essay that, for all of their power and passion are nevertheless unfortunately abstract and impenetrable. In particular (and while sympathetic to his argument and cause) I found his analysis of human capital, education and the labour market difficult to translate into everyday terms and understandings. Having said this, there is no doubt that this essay sets a benchmark in the field.

·      Following directly on from McLaren’s piece, I found Sandy Grande’s critical analysis of the Red Lake (Native American) high school shooting equally compelling if at a somewhat different scale. Taking up the issue of critical pedagogy as a potential for neo-colonialism, she seeks to find commonalities from both indigenous perspectives and critical theory that can offer a more powerful model for us all. Her article had direct relevance to my own dilemmas in teaching critical theory to indigenous students.  She begins by noting the increasing relevance of Critical Pedagogy and Critical Theory since the passing of Paulo Freire in 1997. She affirms the works of Apple, Allen, Chomsky, Giroux, Mclaren and others as Freire’s heirs, and echoing McLaren she asserts that their theories have stood the test of time:

“Thus, contrary to the proclamations that Marxism is dead, in this time of globalisation and empire-building, the voices of critical theorists have only become more relevant…”

Given this relevance she wonders how it is that indigenous scholars have been reluctant to embrace critical theory despite its undoubted importance in their struggles. She concludes that its abstraction has seemed an indulgence in the pressing circumstances that they confront, and that their reluctance has limited the opportunity for broad-based coalitions that might support their cause. She calls for the construction of a middle-ground, between wholesale dependency on western rationalities and isolationist models of self-determination – a meeting of critical indigenous and western perspectives. Her ultimate aim is to construct what she calls a Red Pedagogy[7]that examines the points of intersection between critical theory and indigenous knowledge – much as imagined by Kincheloe earlier.

She opens her analysis by framing schools as sites where broader relations of power, domination and authority are played out, but also as sites of youth violence. She chooses as her vehicle an indigenous (rather than critical theory) perspective on the Red Lake Ojibwe community in Minnesota, and in particular the shooting that took place there. Shooting in 2005.[8] Her intention is to contextualise the events at and history of Red Lake as a function of colonisation rather than the criticalist attribution to capitalism. This is a brave move, because on the one side, Marxist scholars (like Mclaren) have, as we have seen, criticised those who have reduced critical pedagogy to a mere antipolitical postmodern emphasis on difference and identity. On the other hand it has been precisely those theorists who valorise difference and sovereignty that have been most attractive to previously colonised indigenous groups.  In situating herself exterior to both streams and in attempting to forge a uniquely Red Pedagogy she risks the ire of both. Nevertheless, she proceeds by listing the commonly accepted attributes of a revolutionary critical pedagogy:

·      It must be collective

·      It must be critical, exposing underlying forms of injustice and oppression

·      It must be systemic – that is, guided by an overarching unifying (Marxist) theory

·      It must be participatory involving coalitions with grassroots communities

·      It must be creative – incorporating elements of popular culture as educational tools.

·      It must involve principles of mutual respect, humility, openness, trust and co-operation

She notes that there is a great deal of correspondence between these principles and the needs and aspirations of indigenous students and teachers. In addition, for indigenous scholars, there is an imperative that such a pedagogy must be unashamedly political, and anti-colonial, creating the conditions for community building and spiritual solidarity. Having said this, Grande cautions that tensions still remain for indigenous scholars, since key operative concepts like democracy, identity, subjectivity, citizenship are still defined in western (colonial) epistemological terms. Having said this, she notes that a red pedagogy will remain unique and distinctive, with a decentred capitalism replaced by the problematic of colonialism. “profoundly multidimensional and intersectional; underwritten by Christian fundamentalism, defined by White supremacy and fuelled by global capitalism”. She builds on this colonialist theme and focuses it on the school as a site of violence, pointing g out that:

“In the end all students sense the fundamental contradictions of conquest. How is it possible for democracy to grow from the seeds of tyranny? For the good life can be built upon the deaths of thousands? They rage against the machine, searching for answers, and when they don’t get them they submit to the anaesthetising accoutrements of capital.”

It is here that she begins her interrogation of Red lake, pointing out that commentators and analysts continually fail back on models of individualised deviance in their explanations, in aversion to any thought that these horrific incidents might be pervasive or endemic to society at large. Taking up the critical theorist position that asserts profound alienation as a major causative factor, Alienation (from Freire) is here taken to mean “the negation of subjectivity… the separation of  the subject from their ontological vocation of active human participation in the world.” This, she asserts, is precisely the conditions existing for the unfortunate 16 year old Ojibwe youth who, finding no other outlet for his colonised existence and rebellion gunned down his grandfather and eight other people. She then unpack the colonised history of the Red Lake Ojibwe community to situate the dreadful occurrence of 2005.

There is not room here to detail Grande’s analysis of the internal cultural politics of the Red Lake community. Save to say that the ongoing destruction and erasure of indigenous culture through Christianisation, the replacement of indigenous cultural, family structures with patriarchal structures related to private property, the destruction of extended-family structures through forced education at remote boarding schools, the theft and alienation of land over two centuries through racist legislation and through the imposition of private property structures, The attempted imposition of an Allotment system that individualised and reduced ownership, the setting up of intra-tribal antagonisms through the introduction of blood-quantum, the introduction of Termination (the termination of Indian identity determined by blood quantum to reduce the budget of the BIA) all had a major deleterious impact upon the community, upon its sense of identity and upon the ability of the youth to imagine a future role for themselves in putting right the circumstances created by this history. The history of the Red lake Ojibwe is a history common to colonised indigenous peoples the world over – America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Zimbabwe etc.  The irony is that the Red lake Ojibwe community was legendary in its ability to resist these colonising impositions and had survived better than most tribes. How was it then, that it was the Red lake community through which the effects of these impositions were finally expressed? The answer is clear:

“ While Red Lake was strong enough to resist Allotment what they are left with is “common land”, held in trust by the US Government, which doesn’t have the same (or any) value in the eyes of lending institutions (ie. Collateral). This condition leaves individual tribal members little access to capital and therefore wholly dependent on Federal subsidies. Such dependency, compounded over 200 years of whitestream domination, has left tribal peoples exhausted, dispirited, miseducated and therefore vulnerable to the modes and desires of the “outside” world. Those stripped of the benefits of their traditional ways – language, stories, cultural knowledge, memories – have few resources to resist the current onslaught of slogans, jingles and signs that assert the (White) supremacy of everything they are not and don’t have.. Thus, while the vast “commonly held” lands that once protected the Ojibwes from White encroachment and against cultural invasion, the 20^th Century influx of satellite television, cell phones, the Internet and other accoutrements of spectacle capitalism has rendered the community isolated but not insulated.. .Hence the legacy of colonisation is felt most acutely among Indian youth, caught at the crossroads of colonialism in this supposedly postcolonial time. Consider that one out of six American Indian teens attempt suicide, 54% o0f American Indian youth live below the poverty line, and 70% of American Indian children in Minnesota live with a single parent or other relative.”

Faced with this overwhelming history and reality and the clear and obvious conclusion that colonialism is the root cause, Grande asks the fundamental question for indigenous scholars. Is it possible for them to embrace western critical theory without also entering some Faustian contract that will ultimately reproduce and advance the very circumstances they are fighting. Is it possible to use the Master’s tools to dismantle the Master’s house? Or, “Is it possible to engage the grammar of empire without replicating its effects?” She concludes once again that there is a third way – Red Pedagogy, operating at the crossroads of indigenous knowledge and critical pedagogy, challenging the ways in which critical concepts are themselves the products of colonialism and White supremacy, but at the same time seeking dialogue and mutuality of transformative effect. She suggests that indigenous sovereignty must in these circumstances be viewed not as a separatist issue, but as a restorative process – a move towards restoring the dignity and capacity for self-determined subjectivity that once was, directed by the people themselves and supported by the State.

All of this resonates very forcefully with my own experience of working among the indigenous Maori of New Zealand.[9] As she finally puts it:

“The imperative before us as citizens is to engage in a process of unthinking our colonial roots and rethinking the relationship between indigenous sovereignty and radical democracy.”

Good stuff!

·      Like several other of the authors in this volume (Mclaren and Grande particularly Kincheloe and McLaren), Gregory Martin maintains that critical pedagogy is in crisis, having been emasculated from the inside-out by the penetration of depoliticized postmodernism. As a result critical pedagogy has lost its capacity as an agent for social transformation, operating instead as yet another commodified component in capital’s arsenal of reproductive weaponry. How, then, he asks, might critical pedagogy be reclaimed and reinstated in its former radical capacity. The answer, he suggests, is in the form of what Paula Allman has termed Revolutionary Critical pedagogy – a term also used by McLaren, Rikowski and others for a particular Marxist reconceptiualisation that emerged from a disillusionment with its emasculated parent. What distinguishes the two forms, is a return to a Marxist Humanist theoretical base which reinstates class as a meaningful analytical category. However, what distinguishes Martin’s analysis from that of other contributors is his insistence that taking up the theoretical analysis of Marx  - even a reconfigured theory - is not enough to ensure its effectiveness in countering the successes of a resurgent Right:

“Although ideological critique plays a crucial role in the development of revolutionary thought, a danger exists in emphasising this form of social investigation if it becomes the object and not the subject of knowledge. It is a classic case of the divorce of thought from action, which leads to an ending that is a forgone conclusion: idealism.”

He suggests that much of the theoretical Marxist discourse has become bogged down in “the language games of bourgeois academia”. Recognising that knowledge is not an innate psychological attribute of individuals (with all of the potential for cultism or academic ladder-climbing that that implies), but rather a collective social relation. This being the case, he suggests, that what revolutionary critical pedagogy most requires is a politics of engagement through which Marxist academics work alongside the exploited and oppressed, the working class.[10] He further suggests that it is incumbent upon revolutionary critical pedagogues to “find positions for themselves within the various radical social movements that have arisen as a defensive reflex against the horrors of capitalism.

As an example he cites the work of Eric Mann, Lian Hurst-Mann and others at the Labour/Community Strategy Centre in Los Angeles, and in particular their work in organizing the Bus Riders Union – an intergenerational, multiracial, multilingual, gendered political working class movement that was able to completely transform the discriminatory policies of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority.[11]

All of this amounts to a call for a new form of praxis by Marxist academics – a willingness to abandon the safety of the academy, a willingness to engage with and to listen openly and respectfully to the disenfranchised and oppressed, a commitment to work towards mutually coherent models, theories and explanations of the underlying global-structural causes of local, situated problems, and a willingness to create together and in solidarity, forms of action that have as their aim the economic transformation of society.

·      The problematic of determining the ultimate determinant in the tripartite relationship of class, race and gender referred to earlier and interrogated vigorously by McLaren (a white Canadian) and Grande (the daughter of a Quechua, Peruvian, immigrant) is highlighted once again in the essay by Noah de Lissovoy. He adds another dimension and sheds light on the issue. We will remember that, from an indigenous perspective, Grande contested the primacy of class (as proposed by Mclaren) as the determining variable in matters concerning indigenes, substituting colonalism in its place. Her argument is forcefully supported here, as de Lissovoy resurrects the theories of the late Frantz Fanon and applies them to the needs of a radicalized critical pedagogy.

Fanon, born in Martinique, thoroughly schooled in Marxism and working as a psychiatrist in the French colony of Algeria witnessed first-hand the brutal reality of colonialism as well as (and participating in) the anticolonial independence movement. His reading of the social relations of colonialism differs significantly from that which forms the accepted understanding of the base-superstructure model:

“When you examine at close quarters the colonial context it is evident that what parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging to or not belonging to a given race, a given species. In the colonies the economic substructure is also superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem."

What is operating in the colonial context is a dynamic of domination rather than merely a social dynamic shaped by the ownership of the means of production – a “natural” consequence of the tension and struggle between capitalist and worker. This colonial domination begins and ends with the issue of race or “species”. This, according to Lissovoy, constitutes a displacement of the class contradiction, but also expresses a relationship based upon violence rather than incorporation that is the theoretical norm in western capitalist analyses. In a colonial society, race determines everything, and Fanon’s “stretched dialectic” can, he suggests, go some way to making more sense of many issues in education that currently defy easy analysis. Looking at the ways in which power is used, effected and distributed in schools it is clear that its purpose is not just to organize and regulate, but also to “violate, refuse and expel”. To anyone who has studied the education of indigenous peoples in (supposedly post-) colonial societies, this point is axiomatic.[12] The examples given in the classroom – different socialising for differently raced students, zero-tolerance, retention schemes and exit exam policies applied racially are paralleled in the system at large - the implementation of NCLB which marginalises minority youth, and the increased militarization of schooling, with escalating recruitment on campus of poor white students and students of colour (and the furnishing of the names of high school students to recruiters). In just such ways does race take a predominant role in the life in schools.

These and other examples suggest that Marxists can learn much from a revisiting of Fanon’s work. To ignore it is to either “discount the salience of his account or to restrict the frame of reference of socialist theory to a  Eurocentric framework”. It is here, I believe, that de Lissovoy makes his strongest point, and one that resonates with Sandy Grande’s (indigenous/colonial) caution about critical theory. For within the colonial framework, everything is commodified, and commodities become not a medium of exchange, but weapons for the humiliation and domination of the coloured other. Within the context of schools, the remnants of colonial past are to be found even the much-vaunted multiculturalism of our own time. What de Lissovoy calls “the economy of caring” infects the relationships between the teacher and the pupils and is expressed through the differentiated distribution of attention and care which hugely favours the dominant groups.[13] Nor can matters be corrected only by changing the attitudes of individual teachers, since the problem is systemic, it is:

 “…already crucially determined by the differential valuation of students in the discursive practice that is schooling, and within which pedagogy is made coherent.”

In the critical apprehension of colonized schooling it is important to remember that teacher expectations are shaped by this discursive practice, and that these expectations become self-fulfilling prophesies as the practices themselves are differentially played out in the power relationships of the classroom. Students of colour are trapped within their racial stereotyping. No wonder that American Indian youth frequently refer to themselves as “Skins”. The predicted and therefore predictable “failure” of minority or “different” students (operating as they are within a system in which all of the signs, symbols, and referents as well as the values, assessment criteria and definitions of “success” all are those of the dominant culture) is therefore not a matter of individualized lack of competence, but rather as a form of induced deviance. As Fanon puts is:

“For colonized people, every abnormal manifestation… is the product of (their) cultural situation.”

In this situation, “difference” and “identity” are no longer a matter of choice, but are determined by the historical material conditions that have evolved from and sustained themselves through an ongoing process of brutalization. It is in this context, perhaps, that we can better understand the actions of the 16 year old Red Lake Ojibwe, Jeffrey Weise. Deviance, in this context, becomes the expression of an internalized brutality that (acting as it does on living bodies) becomes itself embodied in what, echoing the theories of Wilelm Reich, Fanon refers to as “muscular tension”.[14]

This embodied brutality cannot be separated from the existentially constructed self-identity of the “failing” minority student. Indeed, as Paul Willis demonstrated more than thirty years ago, the capacity of young working class boys to orchestrate their own counter-meaning of “success” (which ultimately dooms them to “failure” in dominant cultural terms) is almost limitless.[15]

In these circumstances, the meanings of “success”, (and its necessary counterpart “failure”) are themselves weapons in the ongoing system of domination, where “achievement”:  “is constructed as the property of a particular class and colour”. “  And while, under capitalism, the success of the few as de Lissovoy puts it is:

 “predicated on the immiseration of the majority… At the same time, the success/failure couple is fundamentally tied to the logic of racism, and the material and symbolic privileges of “achievement” are awarded on this basis. The only analysis that is adequate is one that can encompass the relationship between these two systems, as Fanon’s does”.

But there is a further possibility that I believe de Lissovoy (and critics of High Stakes testing as well as advocated for “authentic assessment” like Janesick) have failed to identify. Grande touches on it briefly. It is the issue of sovereignty – not the cultural sovereignty of the tribe (although in post-colonial situations this is crucial) but the sovereignty of the individual. 

In many pre-colonised indigenous cultures, the sovereignty of the individual’s perspective was sacrosanct, unassailable, In our own, western capitalist system this is certainly not the case. Evaluations and assessments of the individual student are the sine qua non of the education process. To think of education without assessment would be unthinkable, and in almost all cases, the assessment that is meant and accepted is extrinsic assessment – that is, assessment or evaluation by another, usually in a position of power or authority and usually a member of the dominant culture. Under the circumstances that de Lissovoy (and Fanon) describe, the very act of evaluation stands as an extension of historical abuse and domination, irrespective of the quality attributed to the student. To congratulate is as abusive as to criticize in the context of oppression simply because it reinforces the dependency that stands in colonial counterpoint to an identity that is ontologically and culturally secure. Both are a form of judgment, and judgment lies at the heart of the colonial project – the judgment of the White supremacist. In the colonial situation where one’s sense of self-worth is dependent entirely upon the good offices of an authority-other who exists in a milieu of racist discursive practices the only salvation, as Fanon points out. In the context of colonial domination, the identity of the colonized is that prescribed by the oppressor, or to put it more clearly, it is the internalized identification with the oppressor. The process of liberation for the oppressed, therefore requires the exorcism of the oppressor in oneself – the realization of and exclusion of that which one has internalized:

“…the colonized person must assert his or her absolute difference; to do so is to discover that this difference is empty and immediately recuperated in the logic of domination; against this recuperation, the self must be asserted again, not as a simple negation of the oppressor but as something new; But with what resources can this be imagined?”

As de Lissovoy suggests, there is no solution outside of the active working through of the problem. However, part of that working through, in an anticolonial context, often if not usually involves a co-operative praxis with other oppressed members of the community, [16]

Taking all of this into account explains the continuing failure of critical pedagogues to effect substantial transformations in their subordinated students. The ongoing rhetoric about “transforming schools”, “raising achievement levels”, “improving classroom interactions”, seem, in this context to be futile and empty words evading the central issue – the shoe that never hits the floor- institutional racism. To attempt to improve  the success and achievement of students of colour in a social environment that is designed to exclude them amounts to a further masking of the underlying structural reality. One has to ask, what kind of pedagogy would it take to cut through the racially infected education system? Some answers are provided in this volume by other writers. Huerta-Charles and Grande both give useful pointers, and there is a general theme elsewhere that bears on a partial answer – listening, and through listening, building trust leading eventually to dialogue.  Yet there is a danger in imagining that a critical or liberatory educational experience can liberate the student from the consequences of colonialism, can lead him or her to discover their true (uncolonised or decolonized) self. Indeed, as de Lissovoy correctly notes, the implication of such an attitude towards the student may imply an original lack, inadvertently reinforcing the deficit thinking that is part of the problem one is attempting to solve. It is therefore incumbent upon the critical pedagogue to develop a continual critical reflectivity about his or her own attitudes and practices, and to combine this with a large dose of empathy – an ability to see the world through the eyes of the oppressed.  Freire called this committing “class suicide”.[17] The British Marxist William Morris called it, “crossing the river of fire.”[18] It amounts to a form of cultural death and rebirth, a self-transformation which is the indispensable component in the development of trust and eventual dialogue.

In addition to establishing dialogue, there is also a real need to recognize that these practices will not succeed in transforming the school environment unless the underlying structures and practices of racism are exposed and countered.  This suggests that the politicization of the curriculum  - that is, the inclusion of students in developing a curriculum in practice that addresses their concerns about the oppressive nature of the system is essential. Beyond even this, a transformative critical pedagogy may also require an engagement beyond the confines of the classroom and in the “outside” world where the manifestations of colonialism are writ large and where models for democratic educational engagement may be found and where the power and influence of “the teacher” may be substantially diminished or negated by what Rosa Luxemburg referred to as the “mass ego”.

Concluding, de Lissovoy suggests that:

“Fanon’s challenge presses European left  traditions to recognize their own myopias, which have often pressed the violence of colonialism, slavery and racism into the background.”

The tendency of critical pedagogues, steeped in the logic of the Western tradition and the colonialism that has produced it, to prioritise class to the exclusion of race and gender (since the same attributes that attend colonialism also attend patriarchy) may represent  an ongoing colonial imposition rather than a moment for liberation.

·      The final chapter of the book by William B. Stanley is a provocative challenge to critical pedagogues to understand the theoretical works in political science and political philosophy that stand behind the Neoconservative and Neoliberal ideologies. In particular he presents Walter Lippmann’s Democratic Realism, Frederick Hayek’s theoretical foundation of Neoliberalism and Leo Strauss’s Neoconservatism, in the process outlining their relevance and philosophical objections to critical pedagogy. His point is that unless the Left understand the basis of these conservative philosophies and their perspective on education, they are ill-equipped to counter develop a counter-hegemony.  He also suggests that there are elements of these works from which Critical Pedagogues can learn and from which they can refine their own positions.

He begins by noting that very few of the Marxist critical pedagogues take these works seriously and many have not even read them. In contrast they themselves lament the failure of their conservative counterparts to do justice to Marx. He suggests that in our ignorance, critical theorists may be attacking self-created caricatures of the Right and missing an opportunity to develop theories and practices that address and answer the substantial philosophical theories upon which their positions are based. He notes that Lippmann was a former socialist, that Hayeck rejected Conservatism and that Strauss taught for a decade at the New School – the American haven of critical theorists fleeing Hitler’s fascism. All three were concerned that with advancing modernist developments the possibility for direct democracy had been lost, and their work aimed to establish a philosophical basis for a continuing political stability.

He show’s how Lippmann’s Democratic realism was based on a belief that industrialization and urbanization had fragmented and altered the natural social order and with it the basis for small-scale self-governing democratic communities. In its place he suggested that social science could provide the information necessary for rational political decisions, but that this knowledge was only available to an elite few.

Hayeck went even further, maintaining that the knowledge for rational decision-making was unattainable, even to experts, and that therefore centralized (Governmental) successful planning was impossible without some regulating market to price capital goods. He predicted the failure of socialism, and the collapse of centralized Soviet communism and the move to a market economy in China seemed to confirm his theories. They were seen as providing a basis for the belief in the superiority of the market system. Yet he still endorsed the need for an economic safety net for all citizens (minimum wage, maximum working hours, antitrust laws, decent food, clothing and shelter etc,) Yet as Stanley notes:

“Hayeck’s views are in direct conflict with the “critical theory” so central to critical pedagogy. For example, the Frankfurt School viewed social institutions as original sources of oppression and saw the task of philosophy as freeing us from the constraints and distortions of dominant social forces. In contrast, Hayeck’s view was that “reason” being the outcome of social institutions and embedded in them, cannot, without absurdity, be conceived in opposition to them””.

Leo Strauss’s Neoconservatism on the other hand was based not upon an analysis of social institutions, but on the question of how one should live. In re-Modern times philosophy and religion both had competing answers to this question. Strauss delved into the competing roles of philosophy and religion, between the “natural rights” theories of Greek philosophy and the Early Christian and Talmudic traditions. These twin traditions had guided social intercourse until the Enlightenment, providing a moral and spiritual base for decision-making. With the Enlightenment the separation of Church and State created the conditions for the emergence of relativism, nihilism and a loss of moral principle, posing a danger to society.

Strauss’s philosophies, central to his teachings at Chicago have had an enormous impact on generations of political scientists and have influenced many of the theorists of the Reagan and Bush administrations – although Stanley is at pains to point out that the way the theories of all three have been taken up remains superficial and ideologically motivated. He goes on to suggest that despite this oversimplification they have important revelations about the limits of human cognition and action, suggesting that the “optimistic” beliefs of Liberals and left progressives may be misplaced. He contrasts these conservative theories with what he calls the “tragic view of education” that “emphasizes the inherent limits of human agency, cognition and social reform” He concludes by noting that:

“A genuine critical perspective is only possible within a theretical framework that acknowledges the reality of theoretical plurallismm and both intrinsic and structural constraints on human agency. To accomplish this shift in emphasis, critical pedagogy will need to replace its current focus on countersocialisation based on an assumed theoretical superiority with a more modest conception of “socialization” to maximize the potential for human agency and competence to work for a democratic social order… We must constantly bear in in that we ae teaching “other people’s children.” We need to resist the progressive tendency to act as if we alone know what is best for the masses, what must be done, while simultaneously preaching about the value of participatory democracy. As humans, we simply do not have access to this kind of knowledge, and to assume that we do can quickly become just another form of elite dogmatism.”

Stanley’s cautionary admonition is well-placed. The theoretical literature of critical pedagogy is laced with righteous assumptions of moral and political superiority, and there is no doubt that a myopia does exist among critical pedagogues concerning the solid philosophical base of the conservative position. Having said that, we should remember that Stanley’s analysis and the political scientists and philosophers whom he cites exist within the Western (and dare I say it?) colonial tradition which itself is grounded on notions of moral, not to say racial superiority. The contradictions and dilemmas inherent within these theoretical works emerge from and express, as we have seen, the material history of its colonial past . As Sandy Grande asked, “How is it possible for democracy to grow from the seeds of tyranny? For the good life can be built upon the deaths of thousands?”

Perhaps the way forward for critical pedagogy in the 21^st century is to lead the way in the anticolonial struggle to reassert lost and silenced knowledges, to reawaken the imperative of personal and cultural sovereignty and to really embrace Stanley’s “theoretical pluralism” – but way, way beyond the boundaries of the Western tradition.

·      The book concludes with a brief Afterword by Donaldo Macedo in which he suggests that the timing of the book is very important and that there has never been a greater need for critical pedagogy than the present moment. He catalogues, yet again and in more detail the Neoconservative assault on education, the “whitewashing of language”, and the emasculation of Freirian theories and practices in the academy. In particular he finds the reduction of Freire’s work to a methodology to be particularly offensive – what he calls the “fetish for methods”. In this, he is repeating what other authors have assert several times throughout the book.  Yet without abandoning the need for a truly critical, democratic, participatory activism, we must not forget that Freire himself had a “method” – one that was successful and that inspired a whole generation of critical pedagogues to do good work.[19]

Summary

Critical pedagogy: Where Are We Now? Is a complex and thought-provoking book. It has been three years since it was published, but its messages are as relevant today as they were then, perhaps more so since the conservative assault on education has continued unabated. On top of the ideological battles that bear down on the field, there is another, perhaps even more pressing reason why critical pedagogy is now even more necessary. We are facing a dramatic global crisis of unprecedented and probably uncontrollable dimensions for which neither we nor our students are prepared – global climate change. Never mind the finer points of issues of method, understanding neoconservatism, High-Stakes testing, the marginalization of students of colour – not that all of these are not of crucial importance and have consumed my academic life and political activism for the last forty years. While I write this, the Australian State of Queensland is about to be battered by its second hurricane (category 5 – the highest) in a week, after a month of previous storm-induced flooding. The American North East is about to be buried under its second immobilizing blanket of snow in a month, Northern Europe has experienced catastrophic and deadly temperatures for three months while two thousand miles north, Spring-like conditions prevail. Add to this that:

§       World population continues to increase

§       Supplies of oil have reached their peak, while demand is rising

§       Without oil, fertiliser and pesticide production will perhaps cease

§       Enormous and more frequent storms have already cut food production

§       We may be facing potentially catastrophic food shortages

§       Sea levels are rising[i]

§       These combined factors will likely cause mass migrations

§       This will bring increased social conflict for diminishing resources

§       Distribution of food and resources to suburbia will be unsustainable.

§       The majority of the world’s populations live in presently unsustainable cities

and we may be able to imagine the urgency with which the call for a critical pedagogy may resound. The problems we face cannot (demonstrably) be solved by government or industry – which have been the main cause of their creation. It will require a broad-based movement involving all of the world’s citizenry to address these issue collectively. At the present moment, this citizenry has neither the inclination nor the skill to act, and only a critical education, coupled with on-the-ground activism offers even the slightest potential for success.

Tony Ward

February 1^st 2011.

---

[1]         He notes particularly the conflictive discourse between Michael Apple and Henry Giroux in this matter. See also: "Walking Our Talk: The Mystification of Critical Language", Peters, M., and Hope, W., (eds.) Critical Theory, Post-Structuralism and the Social Context, Dunmore Press, Auckland, 1996, pp. 160-186, and: Tony Ward, The Social Construction and Mystification of Critical Language,

(http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/158/123/)

[2]         See for instance: Linda, Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Zed Books, London, 1999.

[3]          World Information Society Report 2007, Chapter 2: Bridging the Digital Divide, pp. 25-7. (http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2007/report.html) (Data valid at August 2006). See also: Tony Ward, “Hegemony and the Web”, in: Rikowski, R., (Ed.) Digitisation Perspectives, Sense publishers, London, 2011, pp. 147 - 166

[4]         Ibid. p.216.

[5]         Freire, P., Education for Critical Consciousness, Continuum, New York, 1969, p. 24.

[6]         Gustavo F. Fischman and Luis A. Gandin, op. cit.. p.2169

[7]         Sandy Grande, Red Pedagogy, Rowman and Littlefield Pub., 2004

[8]         The Red Lake incident occurred in two places on the Red Lake reservation The first murders began on the morning of March 21, 2005, when 16-year-old Jeffrey Weise, a suspended high school student, killed his grandfather and his grandfather's girlfriend. He later drove his grandfather's police vehicle to Red Lake Senior High School, where he shot and killed seven people on the school campus, comprising five students, one teacher and an unarmed security guard, and wounded five others before committing suicide.

[9]         Tony Ward, The Transformative, http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/422/40/

[10]      In my own writings I have recently distinguished between a politics of engagement and a politics of transformation – suggesting that the former facilitates the continuing distancing of the academy from the street, while the latter requires an active participation alongside the oppressed. See again: Tony Ward, The Transformative, http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/422/40/

[11]       The Labor/Community Strategy Center: http://www.thestrategycenter.org/

[12]      See, for instance, Tony Ward, “Hegemony and Education in New Zealand: The Suppression of Maori Leadership.”, World Indigenous Peoples Conference in Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, 2005.

http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/152/40/

See also: Tony Ward, High School Confidential,

http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/278/40/

[13]       Berryman, M, and Bishop, R. Culture Speaks, Cultural Relationships and Classroom Learning. Huia Publications, NZ.2007.

[14]       Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1972.  See also: Tony Ward, “The Body of Knowledge”, World Indigenous Peoples Conference in Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, at: http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/334/123/

[15]       Willis, P., Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, Saxon House, Farnborough, 1977.

[16]       Tony Ward, Evaluation and Grading at: http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/374/40/. See also:

Tony Ward, Engagement and Evaluation at: http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/415/40/

[17]       Freire, P., Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1972, p. 25.

[18]       Morris, W. “The Prospects of Architecture”, Collected Works, Vol. XXII , Longman, London, 1910-1915, p. 131.

[19]       Tony Ward, In Support of Critical pedagogical Method,

http://www.tonywardedu.com/content/view/355/40/

---

[i]        Atolls in the Pacific are already being affected. Wells are increasingly salinated and shores eroding and disappearing as the inhabitants raise sea walls to try to keep the rising ocean at bay. See: Charles C, Hanley, “If an island state vanishes, is it still a nation?” New Zealand Herald, Dec. 7^th, 2010. To be found at: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10692700