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"There is a serious crisis in education. Students often do not want to learn and teachers do not want to teach. More than ever before in the recent history of this nation, educators are compelled to confront the biases that have shaped teaching practices in our society and to create new ways of knowing, different strategies for the sharing of knowledge. ... I add my voice to the collective call for renewal and rejuvenation in our teaching practices. Urging all of us to open our mind and hearts so that we can know beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, so that we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions, I celebrate teaching that enables transgressions--a movement against and beyond boundaries. It is that movement which makes education the practice of freedom."
bell hooks
Do we have an obligation beyond the transmittal of our subject matter? Do we have an obligation to teach not only mathematics or history or english but also to teach the skills learners need in a democratic society? Do we have an obligation to question the assumptions inherent in our teaching style and those inherent in our field of study? I don't know the answers to these questions. I have never before considered the idea that mathematics instruction might be considered political. I haven't looked beyond the teaching objectives to critically evaluate my curriculum. This page is a series of excerpts gleaned from the works of educators who have tried to find a way to engage the mind, heart, and soul of the learner. It is unlike the previous tipsheets in that it offers no solutions, only questions. It is a mass of contradictions and incomplete thoughts set forth in linear form. I invite you to join me as I wrestle with the idea of a curriculum which reaches beyond content to concepts--a transformative curriculum that enables transgressions.
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John Dewey and Socrates would agree that to question well is to teach well. But, what does it mean to question well? How do we frame questions which require thought and interaction on the part of our students? In our individual practices, are we currently questioning well or do we question only superficially. Do we simply decide in advance that students will not respond to complex questions? If we do ask the tough questions, do we then take the time to listen deeply to the responses? When we evaluate the response, do we consider the level of development of our students? Do we consider whether we have taken the time to create a "safe" environment that allows for open responses? Perhaps we haven't stopped and considered the power structure inherent in our classrooms--a structure which makes response difficult. These are questions we must answer before we can expect to question well. When working with adults, we should consider working with the class as a group to address these questions. As a group we can establish rules which allow and encourage everyone to participate. Will Evans , an instructor at Payne College in Savannah, uses sports analogies to create a learning environment where all involved understand the rules. In his class, students can receive a "flag" for unsportsmanlike conduct and even face expulsion from the current "game". The metaphor recognizes that sometimes people are caught up in the heat of the moment. Unsportsmanlike conduct is not acceptable but expulsion is temporary. Warming the bench comes with penalties as well. The use of shared metaphor can be a powerful way to help students understand the import of their conduct. It can also lead to interesting discussions about balance of power and about our assumptions of what indeed are our shared cultural metaphors.
What we should be endeavoring to create in our college classrooms is an environment of collegiality. Peter MacLaren defines this term in a 1994 syllabus. "Collegiality is a form of social organization based on shared and equal participation of all its members. It constrasts with a hierarchical, pyramidical structure, and is represented by a series of concentric circles. Authority resides in the center-most circle, not over the others, but equidistant from each, so that authority can listen and reflect the consensus of the whole..." One of the basic tenets of adult education is that adult students are not (if they ever were!) blank slates. They bring with them a wealth of experience which can enliven and enrich any learning experience. The collegial format allows for the sharing of expertise. In the concentric circle model, the teacher is represented as knowledgeable in this realm but not as the only or ultimate source of knowledge.
It should be noted that this emphasis on learning enviroment is itself an assumption. It is embedded in a modern view of communicative rationality. Communicative rationality refers to an environment where participants share common experience and socialization oriented toward social integration and consensus. The emphasis is on the rules of mutual understanding, clarity, consensus, and the force of argument. (Giroux, p189) A postmodern view might hold that consensus is not necessary since all viewpoints are equally valid. One person's argument may mean nothing to another person because it is based on ways of knowing which are not recognized by the other. Because of this view, consensus is neither useful nor possible. However, if our goal is democracy and the building of skills needed in a democratic society, concensus-building seems to be a valid goal.
Learning climate and learning culture are two aspects of the learning environment. The learning climate is the current perceptions, attitudes, and expectations that define the institution and its members. Learning culture is something different. It is less transitory and more deeply embedded. It takes a holistic view while climate focuses on specific parts. (Bauer, p2) If the institution is a learning institution as described by people like Peter Senge, we may be able to affect the learning culture. If it is not, we can still have an impact on the learning climate. We can create an environment in our classes and among students which is conducive to active learning.
Howe and Lisi state that our strategies for incorporating change must exist on three levels--individual, cultural, and institutional. These levels help us to understand the multiple dimensions of the challenges that regularly face educators in creating a curriculum that is multicultural. (Howe, et al., 19) We must examine the culture of our students and the culture of the institution. We must also understand our individual placement within that culture. When checking that the environment you have created is inclusive, it is imperative to look at your characteristics as a facilitator. Are you, in the words of Georgia educator Neil Saye, a balcony teacher or a basement teacher? A balcony teacher encourages us from overhead, exhorting us to effort of which we didn't know we were capable. A basement teacher, on the other hand, pulls us down into the dank, dark, and depressing. If we remember that each and every person we meet knows more than we do about at least one thing, we can keep the respect that we must have in order to continue to be balcony teachers. We can adopt the concentric circle model and reject the tyranny of the hierarchical one. We can begin to adopt a democratic process in our teaching.
Critical pedagogy is one of the names given to the topic we are discussing. It might also be referred to as emancipatory, liberatory, or radical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy is what some people mean by active learning. It is a pedagogy which empowers students to be agents of change. It is a pedagogy which moves learners from students of history to makers of history. It teaches the necessary skills for citizens of a democratic society. Students learn what holds them back and begin to envision a social order that supports them. (Shor, 48-49) Learners are encouraged to challenge and change the world, not merely adapt themselves to it. In true democratic style, it is the collective responsibility of the group, not just the instructor, to determine the content and purpose. (McLaren, p)
Carlson was speaking of public school when he wrote the following but the questions he asks about curriculum and course content apply equally well to those of us in higher education. "In professional educational discourse the public school curriculum often is viewed as a collection of 'basic skills' or 'essential knowledge' that everyone needs to know. Broad consensus is presumed to exist about the goals of education and even the specific 'learning objectives' that should be targeted in each subject area. Within this taken-for-granted discursive framework, much energy is devoted to discussion of how to more effectively and efficiently deliver the prescribed curriculum and evaluate the extent to which students have 'mastered' it . This treatment of knowledge in a reified and structural manner has the effect of depoliticizing decisions about what is taught in the schools since it explicitly directs our attention away from the recognition that knowledge is socially constructed. Knowledge does not exist in some abstract, 'objective' form but rather emerges out of cultural struggle, serves some groups more than others, and is deployed within a dynamic field of action to either affirm or challenge dominant power relations." (Carlson, P58). As Carlson states, we spend considerable amounts of time deciding HOW best to teach the material. Shouldn't we spend at least equal time deciding WHAT best to teach? And doesn't it make sense to involve the adult learner in determining the necessary skills and knowledge?
Habermas describes three kinds of knowledge: instrumental (causal law), communicative (practical), and emancipatory (empowering). We tend to concentrate on instrumental knowledge but transformative learning does not occur in this environment. Transformative learning requires a "trigger event" which follows most often from critical discourse and reflection. (Sokol, p14-16) This is not to say that no students are served by instrumental knowledge. In fact, some students may be at a developmental level that allows for no other type. What I am saying is simply that instrumental is not the ONLY knowledge despite the fact that we often teach as if it were. When we begin to recognize and plan for these other types of knowledge, we allow for the opportunity to engage in higher learning.
In mathematics, we often become bogged down in content, in instrumental knowledge. We believe if we stand in front of the room and say the facts we have taught the material. Too often we refuse to acknowledge the fact that if we don't involve the learner, nothing has been taught. Imagine instead of a traditional math class a course where students determine the content. Imagine a course where the ccurrent knowledge of each student is revealed and where the holes or misconceptions are determined. As Dewey says, "If education is growth, it must progressively realize present possibilities, and thus make individuals better fitted to cope with later requiremnts." (Dewey, Chapter 5, p2) Imagine that students are involved in determining the process by which their knowledge will be modified. Suddenly students are actively involved in the process of their learning. If we decide that only we, as educators, are in a position to determine the needs of our students, we are in danger of causing a revolution not unlike the own fought over 200 hundred years ago against King George. Its rallying cry might be (if you will pardon the levity), "There can be no cognation without representation."
Now, some would argue that the material which should be taught in mathematics courses was delineated a long time ago and none of it is up for discussion. However, does teaching to the objectives actually teach the subject? "But in an advanced culture much which has to be learned is stored in symbols. It is far from translation into familiar acts and objects. ...Such material exists in a world by itself, unassimilated to ordinary customs of thought and expression. There is the standing danger that the material of formal instruction will be merely the subject matter of the schools, isolated from the subject matter of life-experience." (Dewey, Chapter 1, p4) If we do not recognize this world separate from the lives of students in which our fields reside, we cannot connect the material to the student and help them to attain the prescribed objectives. More importantly, if students cannot connect the subject to their own lives, they cannot affect change. The topic becomes an alien one with no democratic elements. The material is simply imposed on them.
I would argue that students should not simply be taught the dominant objectives, they should also be taught the battle that made the objectives dominant. William Cain summarizes the feelings of Gerald Graff (and my own feelings) on this issue as follows: "Expose students to what their elders are squabbling about, and empower them to grasp and articulate why these issues matter so they can gauge where they stand themselves. Make education truly democratic, based on free exchange of ideas, and recognize that the alternative is an impasse. And a strange impasse,too, in that each side is avowedly fighting on behalf of democratic values that, if it were somehow to gain victory, it would deny to others." (Cain, xix-xx) He makes it so obvious that if we want to TEACH democracy we have to BE democratic. Graff's argument summarized here refers to the fight over the Western Canon but this is not the only pedagogical argument on the scene. We could and should teach the battles in mathematics. Currently, the math wars are raging but how many of our students know of its existance? What a missed opportunity to show the human side to mathematics, the side that is alive and active and reflects our society. The side that involves wrestling with ideas and understanding and one that reflects the growing pains of a dynamic subject. Instead, we teach a canned and linear mathematics which appears to students to have been borne full-blown from the minds of its creators/discoverers.
The benefit of sharing the battles behind the scenes extends past the school experience. Employers, as well as teachers, often withhold key information. If we allow students to see and to criticize this information, they may gain skills which can also be used in their places of business. Students must be given access to organizations, sources and modes of thinking that empower them to gain control of their work lives. (Lake, p1) The ability to question and to look beyond the surface is the first step to gaining that control.
In addition to teaching the battles of our fields, we also need to teach the roots and histories of our fields. Abalos tells us that all teaching, whether math, literature, biology, politics, art, or chemistry, is an invitation not only to the knowledge of a particular science but to return to the sacred origins of that science. It is a call to return to the creativity and imagination that produced all fields of human knowing.(Abalos, p122) How many of us can say that our curriculum includes this kind of examination? Do we look at these fields of human knowing and discuss their backgrounds and their biases? Wouldn't our students benefit by understanding what it is that we are expecting them to know? Shouldn't we be modeling the very sort of critical thinking that we should be espousing?
If we must look at the histories of a subject in order to understand it, it would seem to be a given that we must look at our own histories in order to understand ourselves. There are two core elements to adult education for social change. First, the education must be grounded in real and realizable struggles for democratic control. Its programs are both a product of those struggles and a critical factor in defining and giving shape to the strategies by which the struggles are advanced. Second, it does not perpetuate the status quo. Instead, it challenges the learner to move forward, to look through a different lens, to rethink the goals. This grounding in democratic control and challenge to the status quo is the basis for our discussion thus far. However, it is not easy to achieve and the reason lies with the instructor. The challenge for the educator is that such change "emanates from the convictions of the educator and requires political clarity about the vision upon which the program is built." (Heaney, P54)
bell hooks exhorts us to be self-actualized. We cannot challenge students to open up and take risks if we are not risk-takers. (hooks, 18-22) She argues that we are in no condition to lead until we are right with ourselves. "Good teaching depends less on technique than it does on the human condition of the teacher, and only by knowing the truth of our own condition can we hope to know the true condition of our students." Honest and open colleagues can help us find the truth in ourselves. (Palmer, p6-7) Ira Shor, Paulo Freire, and Henry Giroux argue that transformation can only occur through dialogue. However, Graff asks the question, "Is dialogue transformative if it is a monologue?" If only one viewpoint is shared, dialogue cannot occur. There are always mutliple facets, multiple veiwpoints, and multiple lenses. But how do we find them? By carrying the debate from course to course, the viewpoint of several professors can be contrasted. Information, opinion, and knowledge are no longer "privatized"; they are no longer confinded to a single classroom with the resulting fragmentation of knowledge. (Cain, p34-37)
Moving from privatization of our teaching into team teaching, or at least collegial relations with out colleagues, may help us to find the keys to ourselves. Others are standing outside of our skins and can tell us that which we cannot see. Transformation is not easy. It involves looking at our underlying patterns, our sacred sources which Abalos calls "archetypes". These underlying models are the place from which our concrete relationships and stories derive their deeeper origin, meaning, and significance. (Abalos, 5) It is necessary for us to help our students find these underlying assumptions in themselves but first we must root out our own. Our colleagues can help us with this but only if we leave the security of our cloistered classrooms and open ourselves to critique.
Ira Shor says "The teacher's own critical learning prefigures the knowledge the class as a whole will gain." (Shor, p47). For all of us, such a process is ongoing. We must continually work to deepen our understanding of the multiple facets of our subject and of our world. We might do this by expanding our knowledge base of other cultures and especially our response to those cultures. For example, if we have been raised in a culture which highly values punctuality, we may find that we have a deep response to tardiness. This response can be so primal that we have difficulty repressing it. The recipient of our disapproval cannot help but respond to our reactions. Thus, when we discuss multiculturalism, we need to consider it on two levels. We need to consider other cultures and we need to be sure we have clearly defined our own. (Ricard, p30) Before we can expect our students to develop the viewpoints amd lenses they will need in a democratic society, we must make sure we are developing them in ourselves.
We must employ liberatory and emancipatory pedagogies in schools and other learning institutions in order to provide students with other lenses in which to view, perceive, and understand reality and, subsequently, to produce social change. Perceptions change when viewed through the lens of the "other". (Gordon, p58) Any experiences which can provide students access to these other lenses will be valuable. The most obvious is to travel to another country. However, nothing so drastic is required since other worlds exist as close as the next desk. One obvious source is the African-American beliefs, values, perspective, and worldview found within intellectual and artistic materials. (Gordon, P64) As we all know, the dominant culture writes the history. By looking for the alternative writings of history, we discover another lens for seeing the world.
We must find these alternate lenses. Sharing cultures can be a way to help students begin to see their own embedded assumptions and to recognize the lens through which they see. Sharing pieces of our stories is not only a way to find lenses (our own and others), it is also a minimum essential for creating communities. (Palmer, p9) In mathematics, discussing the various student views of the subject could be very illuminating. I spend the first day of class sharing my definition of mathematics and my assumptions about mathematics. What I have never done is to first ask the learners in my courses to share THEIR definition of mathematics. What insight it would give me, and other members of the class, to see mathematics through other lenses.
We must stand outside of our culture in order to truly see it. Looking at the cultural artifacts ot the "other" can help us to do this. Minority students are constantly asked to stand outside of their culture. We have an obligation to ask the same of our majority students. We can do this by exposing them to alternate points of view.
"Black people have created a body of knowledge, cultural knowledge (cultural meaning across the disciplines in science, social theory, art philoshophy etc.) The marginalizing of its substance--theoretical constructs, paradigms, and models of viewing and seeing the world--in the dominant body of knowledge is troublesome." (Gordon, P73) When we examine our culture, we should also acknowledge that the formation of that culture is ongoing. It extends beyond inherited elements such as race or ethnicity, age, or gender. It includes language, personality, education or socioeconomic level, customs or practices, relitgion or spirituality, values, attitudes, knowledge, understanding, and skillls. (Ricard, p31) The sum of our experiences defines our culture. What is not known cannot affect the culture. In a democratic society it is our responsibility to make sure that all voices are heard and have an equal opportunity to impact the culture.
We have the opportunity to ask what in our past is fruitful and what is destructive but before we can do this, we need to look at the stories we have learned and determine which are (as Giroux would say) patriotism only . That is, we need to know which stories are partial and truncated. Above all, we have to be prepared to critique all cultures in our society. We need to recognize all Americans as full human beings. (Abalos, xv)
As an instructor, we have the opportunity to affect the learner's culture. By recognizing that culture extends beyond the physical, we begin to look beyond the surface. By seeing the sameness within differences, we see the connections between superficially different cultures. For example, in the American history text "A Different Mirror" the author discusses the parallels in the treatment of the English of various indigenous cultures. He looks at English treatment of the Irish in Ireland and subsequent dealings with "Indians" in America. Each was described by the English as primitive, tribal, and violent. As an example of their barbarity, it was pointed out that each wore animal skins. Most of us probably do not think of the Irish and Native Americans as sharing a common experience. Similarly, we do not see the parallels in the early experiences of Irish-Americans and African-Americans or of Chinese-Americans and African-Americans. It is because we do not see these parallels that we can think of groups as "other". We share common lenses but do not recognize them as such. Just as Joseph Campbell sought to find in religion the parallels and commonalities rather than the differences, we need to help our students find parallels and commonalities in their cultures and their histories.
A well-educated person is someone who is well-informed, acts wisely, and continues to learn. But being well-educated also means going beyond facts. It means placing knowledge in its larger context and discovering the connectedness of things. (Boyer, p2) It means respecting life, being empowered in the use of language, responding to the aesthetic, understanding our membership in groups and institutioons, having reverence for the natural world, affirming the dignity of work, and being guided by values and beliefs. The lessons of the classroom must be connected to the realities of life. (Boyer, p11) Do students in our courses see these aspects as the definition of a well-educated person? Or do our actions shout that to be well-educated means the ability to regurgitate "banked" knowledge? How is "well-educated" defined in our classrooms?
The critical-anaylytic approach to learning from experience begins with the current understanding, reflects on concrete experiences, and uses dialogue to derive meaning and possibility from these experiences. The content is provided by the learners. (Heaney 2, P34) By sharing these concrete experiences, the learners as a group acquire a more complete picture and better understanding of the entire concept. Through shared understanding, they find appropriate stragegies to solve problems and resolve issues. Transformative learning requires this group approach because of the need for support and reinforcement in the encounter with power. Reflection is critical in order to identify barriers and effective means for resistance and victory over the barriers. It is also critical to stand back from daily experience. The familiar needs to be looked at with criticism instead of acceptance. Seeing the viewpoint of others can help. Rosa Parks experienced such an approach and the result was the Montgomery bus boycott. (Heaney 2, P35)
"Students do not learn to read and write; they read and write in order to learn. Liberatory education provides them with the heuristic tools and skills to critique ideas. They learn how to make problematic common sense understandings and to question what is not being said as well as what is stated. (Gordon, P65) I love Gordon's use of the word problematic in this quote. It shows that such knowledge is not necessarily a fun experience and can, in fact, be quite painful. Gordon goes on to say that liberatory education goes beyond the reductionist and reverse racist arguments that oversimplify and vulgarize its potential and purpose and also limit or marginalize liberatory discourses. (Gordon P65) Giroux would certainly agree with this statement. One way to counter such oversimplifications is to respond with facts. Books like "Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation about African-Americans" by Farai Chideya can provide the necessary facts. When scholarship has a liberatory intent, it seeks to inform and reeducate the community for understanding itself. (Gordon, p67)
If we help each student find his/her own authentic voice through emancipatory work eduction, we alert students to the social purposes of education. We no longer sanitize cultural problems. (Lakes, p1) We quit pretending that all learners have been part of the knowledge production. In math, knowledge production of the dominant objectives has been primarily male. Some would argue that this will affect the ability of female students to assimilate that knowledge. If a subject is perceived to be exclusive, it is exclusive. Until women feel that mathematics is their own and until we as educators quit pretending that mathematics, as currently presented, is somehow gender neutral we do not have the possibility of recreating and re-arranging it into a subject that truly IS gender neutral. Change is occurring; there is hope for the future. Our assumptions about the teaching of mathematics are slowly chnaging. The histories are slowly being shared. The metaphors we use to envision mathematics are beginning to change. More and more often, we see mathematics described as a language. Since our current perception is that women have a reputation for gifts with language, this metaphor makes mathematics attainable for women. A female colleague describes mathematics as a quilt. We are given a set of basic cutouts which we piece together and see what we can create. Sometimes moving or removing a single piece can change the entire composition. These metaphors of languages and quilts, in our current culture, are inclusive metaphors and signal the possibility for change.
"A critical classroom pushes against the conditioned boundaries of consciousness. The enveloping realm of the routine is extracted from its habitual foundations. When the class examines familiar situations in an unfamiliar way, transcendent changes become possible. Such an animation of consciousness can be formulated as extraordinarily re-experiencing the ordinary. This key rubric locates an empowering theory of knowledge in the re-perception of reality." (Shor, 93) When we call assumptions into question we begin to re-experience the ordinary. It is this challenging of assumptions that we want our students to experience. Ultimately, we want them to learn to do such questioning on their own. "One goal of liberatory learning is for the teacher to become expendable." (Shor, pg 98)
I was able to experience the feeling of being expendable as a teacher when I class-tested an alternate text. Students in the course learned, slowly, that they had the power to find answers for themselves and that the instructor was not the only "expert." Slowly I became, like the textbook, just another resource. The experience was both humbling and powerful. It was a moment that changed forever my assumptions about teaching. How rarely we have the opportunity to share the experience of empowerment.
In my own mathematics education, I experienced the frustration and anger which can come from an education which seeks to dominate and not to empower. Anger can be a driving force for change and we should recognize its power. bell hooks recognizes this power in a recent book called "Killing Rage." However, frustration is not the only cause of anger. Anger can also be a consequence "shifting perceptions, dislodged ideologies, and new ways of seeing and understanding through which we might reclaim both the collective and the individual self." (Lewis, p67) The anger can then linger after the learner leaves a liberatory classroom because of a tranformed consciousness which recognizes the previously unrecognized division of power in the classroom. (Lewis, 67) Once a student has gained the power to know, s/he may be unwilling to give that power up. That unwillingness can manifest itself in anger. If we can learn to recognize this anger, we will have gained an invaluable gauge of our own liberatory practice, or lack there of!
Radical pedagogy is not just for college students. It is also for technical school students. Lakes, with Dewey, argues that critical work education requires sociocultural studies--not skill-based instruction--because it provides vocationally-bound students the analytical tools they need to understand and act upon the socal, economic, and historical conditions that create workplace inequities and employer injustices. Vocational students especially need this type of education in order to recognize oppressions in their own and others working-class lives. Enlightened students use a critical education to challenge the conventional wisdom of dominant society. They rethink the assumptions of the power struggle and are less likely to reproduce a labor class that lacks social vision, personal agency, and civic responsibility. (Lake, p1) These days, most of our college students are vocation-bound since the majority of students, whether in vocational school or seeking a 4-year degree, see education as the path to a job and not as a goal in its own right. Therefore, the need to learn to see the environment, be it a learning or working environment, applies to ALL students.
It is ironic that the apparent differentiation between the knowledge important for vocational vs. academic students is in itself a perpetuation of a power structure. In this time of huge technological growth, we continue to inappropriately separate these two knowledge bases. Why? This is one of the questions we must teach our students to ask. Currently in Georgia, there is a movement to separate students into two groups, college-bound and vocational. This decision made in high school is a decision which follows a Georgia citizen for the next 5 years. The anger generated by students who find they have been cut out of the college loop may ultimately change this practice. Without a change in this practice, we cannot lay claim to democratic process.
There is a temptation to postpone the shift to a democratic style of thinking and teaching. Perhaps we have not yet devised and implemented perfect strategies. Perhaps we are unsure of ourselves and are tentative. bell hooks would say that we must "...commit ourselves to the work of transforming the academy so that it will be a place where cultural diversity informs every aspect of our learning..." (hooks, p21) She reminds us of a Biblical quotation often repeated by Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. "Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewal of your minds." We have the power, the ability, and the obligation to be transformative educators.
When I applied to the graduate adult education program at Florida State University, I was interviewed by my original directing professor (since retired.) He asked me why I wanted to attend FSU's program. I told him that I had some questions I wanted answered. He responded that it was not an educator's job to answer questions; his role was to ask them. With my educational background in a traditional mathematics curriculum, I did not have the experiences to understand his statement. I couldn't understand how any satisfaction could come from simply framing questions and not providing a way of following them to their correct and verifiable solution. I am sure that Dr. Jahns will be relieved that now, on the eve of completion of my program, I finally get it. I have learned that teaching the answers is not teaching. I've learned to ask questions.
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Bibliography (References for this page only.)
Combined reference list for other pages
Abalos, David T. (1996). Strategies of Transformaation Toward a Multicultural Society: Fulfilling the Story of Democracy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
This interesting book by a hispanic man trained in Catholic theology explores and describes a journey of spiritual transformative learning.
Bauer, Karen W., ed (1998 Summer). Campus Climate: Understanding the Critical Components of Today's College and Universities. New Directions for Institutional Research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
This collection of articles starts with defining climate (vs. culture) and ends with a suggested list of instruments for measuring the climate. In between, it looks at climate from the perspective of both the student and the instructor.
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This book, written in 1986 and recently re-released by a division of Harper Collins, is a classic on knowledge construction as applied to women.
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This book gives a black feminist perspective on the fight to be a transformative educator.
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Lake, Richard D. (1996) If Vocational Education Became Critical Work Education. Philosophy of Education Society: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/pes/93_docs/Lakes.HTM, accessed 4/15/99.
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Shor, Ira. (1987). Critical Teaching & Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Three Graff essays are presented; critiques follow. The essays are extremely thought provoking. I especially recommend the third which is of more general curricular interest.
The author looks at the recent past and future of multicultural education.
Whether you are teaching history, journalism, statistics, psychology, or education, this book will have something you can use.
The impact of Dewey can only now, years later, truly be understood.
Guiroux is a staunch advocate of radical pedagogy and argues that we have an obligation to teach the skills necessary for citizens of a democratic society.
Though this book is in some ways dated, his discussion of patriotism vs. democracy is extremely relevant.
This collection of essays is a response and rebuttal to the criticisms leveled at "Women's Ways of Knowing."
This chapter addresses strategies for looking beyond curriculum to content.
A more complete discussion may be found in the following text.
Adult Education has a history of working for social change, or does it? This article looks back at the recent history of Adult Ed.
This excellent short article argues that the workers of today (and of tomorrow) need to be taught more than work skills.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the challenges to AI but it contains some intesting explanations of the interpretivist viewpoint.
Peter McLaren is an example of an educator practicing what he preaches.
The author uses dialogue and shared experience to critically analyze practice in an educator's workshop.
Originally published in 1980, this book is still a useful guide to appying critical pedagogy and Freirean methods.
Last edited: 4/25/99
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