Introduction to January 2009 Issue of Nelta Choutari
Critical Pedagogy is a term that refers to a whole range of educational theories that emphasize the need for the learner to be critically conscious about the process, purpose, and relevance of learning. Many of the key concepts of critical pedagogy are derived from a few major educational philosophers like Paulo Friere, John Dewey, and Lev Vygotsky. In this column, we are presenting a reading from the famous book Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Freire in which he critiqued traditional systems of education as mainly an act of ‘banking’ or depositing of information by teachers into the heads of students as passive learners. As a more progressive, humanitarian, and democratic alternative, Freire proposed the idea of what he called the ‘problem-posing’ model of education, a process that involves learners in the understanding, application, and production of knowledge as it matters to their…
View original post 270 more words