rituals and critical pedagogy

The classroom that the authors describe in the article “Before the Bleach Gets Us All” is a great example of critical pedagogy put into practice. From what I have read, I think that Freire would approve of this project. Their class was a reaction to the tracking system that is common in American high schools as well as the “standpoint theory” which criticizes the tendency of teachers to positively evaluate students who hold the hegemonic perspective. In this model, there are three classrooms of different academic level, and the presence of winners always requires the presence of losers.

In response to this model, the teacher, Michelle, attempted to create a classroom in which every students’ voice could be heard and all could succeed together. The most significant outcome of the experiment was that students began to develop an understanding of perspectives other than their own. They began to develop empathy. The choice of texts contributed to this effort; the novels they used all included events that could be interpreted differently from the eyes of different characters. I also really supported the practice of having students write a response from Lenny’s point of view in the novel, Of Mice and Men.

These practices helped students learn to see problems from various perspectives. One question I had was: in this model, how are students evaluated? If teachers evaluate their positions/perspectives, isn’t this a judgment coming from their own point of view? Perhaps students should be evaluated on the ability to cogently express their own opinions, their openness to engage with those of others, and their growth in this process.

In the second article, McClaren argues that rituals aren’t simply religious practices of antiquity, but secular behaviors that humans engage in all the time. His argument related a lot to the other work we have read from Bergman, Luckman, and Vygotsky. McClaren contends that rituals have the ability to transmit hidden curriculum and dominant ideologies. And as Bergman, Luckman, and Vygotsky argue, humans internalize repeated patterns of social action to form their attitudes and beliefs about the world and what is natural. The ritual is a perfect example of this repeated action. Rituals not only reflect reality, but they create reality by influencing the development of the human psyche. McClaren also brings up the interesting point that in the teaching of hidden curriculum, students may not even be aware of what they are learning. The content and method of instruction often developes attitudes of which the subject was no conscious awareness.