New definitions of pedagogy

I recently read an article by Henry Giroux titled, “Cultural Studies, Public Pedagogy, and the Responsibility of Intellectuals”, which proposed the idea of reinventing the term pedagogy to one that encompasses the learning processes that also take place outside of the classroom. Instead of looking at the pedagogical practices that occurs between teachers and students within the power structure of educational institutions, it also encourages us to see the lived interactions across all social spectrums as a form of pedagogy. This really helped to open up my eyes to the processes that educate students in all areas of life, by providing me with a new term to see these through. The shift in language from using the term “socialization” to “pedagogy” allowed me to think critically, and with a new light, across these practices and the power structures they define, shape, and are shaped by.

When reading these articles on needs of high-achieving African- American students, I was less able to think about the cultural contexts that these high-achieving students must perform within, and more thinking about the methodological processes of the researchers. I can understand the concepts of needing culturally and pedagogically engaged teachers to effectively reach African-American students, but the processes and mind-sets of the researchers were the most interesting aspects of their research projects. When I was looking at the methodologies of gathering information, I was thinking about how the researchers were, themselves, enacting the solutions to the problems that most of the high-achieving African- American students were facing. Most specifically, the problems of needing teachers who went “above and beyond” inside and outside the classroom were something that the researchers were trying to provide while they were seeking explanations of the learning environments of these students. This relationship between the researchers and the students and the methodologies they were employing can be related to Giroux’s conception of pedagogy existing between all forms of social interactions. The researcher was trying to achieve specific objectives in searching for a specific kind of students and in engaging them with the focus group method of interviewing, he created a new pedagogical situation for these subjects to learn from. Through this he not only engaged these students in a variety of ways to interact with each other, but also provided them with opportunities to express, and bring forth information about their environment in new ways that they might not have before, as shown by his intentions of “the possibility that what one member says could spur memories of the other memebers” (705). He also provides the subjects with new opportunities to engage with their surrounding by being a white researcher in this context, and therefore pushing students to reassess their roles in engaging with someone who they would traditionally not. I just think that they layout of reading articles that are based and organized in the structure of social sciences allows greater insight into evaluating the pedagogical techniques present in the research of these people. Even when these pedagogical techniques are not ones that we would traditionally see in this manner, but instead must define by Giroux’s insight into the learning processes present at all times.