For me, one of the most important pedagogical theories is Freire’s idea of “education as liberation.” Because of my identity and my strong beliefs in organizing against oppression, Freire's model appeals to me because it seeks to question the status quo and provide students with ways to address their own situations. In his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed and later Pedagogy of Freedom, he provides a larger conversation around the idea that “the purpose of education should be the liberation of the ‘oppressed’” (Developing a Philosophy, 223) (See Image). As such, “education can help the oppressed overcome their status as long as they play a role in their own education” (223). This means that students are provided the tools to critically analyze their situations within larger societal structures and institutions and imagine solutions beyond the ones that currently exist as a way to move toward liberation. An example of this would be, when learning about the civil war and slavery, continuing the conversation to understand current manifestations of colonialism, slavery, and racism as structural problems to critically analyze rather than specific moments in our history. This view of education is a move “toward teaching and learning that seeks to ‘cultivate in students a healthy skepticism about power, a willingness to temper any reverence for authority with a sense of critical awareness’ (Giroux, 2010)” (223). As an overarching framework to think about learning, this model is incredibly useful in comparison to dominant and traditional models of education such as the banking models of education where students are the receivers of knowledge and teachers are the givers and the idea that education is supposed to produce pliant and complacent members of society. While not heavily emphasized within the model (as far as I am aware), the idea of vision and hope should also be heavily incorporated into this model. Often pro-justice and anti-racist work can be tiring for those who are marginalized who must both live and learn about their oppression. Because of this, it is important to provide, within this teaching, ways for students to take care of themselves and their communities as they engage in this work and instill a strong sense of hope and intrinsic motivation to prevent burn out or negative emotional impacts like depression.

 

Other more specific pedagogical models to draw from include the pedagogy of understanding, the idea of not knowing/the having of wonderful ideas, and (very loosely) the pedagogy of caring. In the pedagogy of understanding, students are taught knowledge for them to understand, rather than teaching for content, course tests, or standardized tests. The goal is for students to understand larger concepts and ideas that they can later demonstrate their learning through applying the concepts they are learning about. “A person who understands something seems to be able to teach it to another person; can relate it to something else - another topic, another set of ideas, another environment; can draw a form of it; can manipulate it within a different context; has confidence about it and possess a personal attachment to it; and can speak of things he or she is still not clear about and has questions about” (Perrone, 105). By utilizing big ideas and generative topics, the learning here can be “something students can hold on to and use productively again and again in new settings as well as in familiar settings and beyond the Friday test the end of the unit exam, and the school itself” (Perrone, 105). More information regarding this specific model will be included in later sections with more specific details on what this would look like, however for now, this model is useful because it prioritizes long-term learning of information that will be useful for students in the long term rather than short-term retention.

 

The pedagogy of not knowing or having of wonderful ideas in response to traditional ideas of knowing in the classroom where “the quick answer that is appreciated [and] knowledge of the answer ahead of time is, on the whole, more valued than ways of figuring it out” (Duckworth, 1987, 64). This pedagogical philosophy emphasizes allowing students to try rather than simply just know with the idea that “what you do about what you don't know is, in the final analysis, what determines what you will ultimately know (Duckworth, 1987, 68). By promoting the courage to try in the classroom, educators are also able to facilitate the “having of wonderful ideas” where students are willing to try out their own novel ideas. The purpose of this is to “to catch their interest, to let them raise and answer their own questions, to let them realize that their ideas are significant - so that they have the interest, the ability, and the self confidence to go on by themselves” which is an incredibly useful concept of learning to have as a learner because it promotes further learning (Duckworth, 1987, 8). Although this model doesn’t focus on how the learning happens specifically, there is a place for knowledge absorption. “Making new connections depends on knowing enough about something in the first place to provide a basis for thinking of other things to do - of other questions to ask - that demand more complex connections in order to make sense” (Duckworth, 1987, 14). This model logically follows the pedagogy of understanding because being able to understand content allows students to think beyond the current manifestations of the information and apply their knowledge in other ways.

 

Finally, the pedagogy of caring, though slightly dated, is still an important framework to keep in mind. This is the idea that “a school can be deliberately designed to support caring and caring individuals” (Noddings, 1960, 476). Although this model frames the teacher as having a more motherly and nurturing role in the classroom which may not be as useful to consider in today’s classroom, the idea of “caring” and developing empathy are still important skills and understandings to develop at any age.