A Critical Pedagogue and Her Students
Hello. My name is Billie, and I'm a critical pedagogue. Admitting it is the first step in recovery, right? However, I'm not sure I'm the one needing "recovery." I need something else.
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By this point in almost any semester, we are all tired, the students and me. Three weeks left, maybe four, until the end. We all get a little testy, as we all want the semester to be over. It is in the fatigue and stress that students want shortcuts, to get the easy way out. It is in the fatigue and stress that I want to relax standards, to just get to the end.
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But I know better.
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Critical pedagogy is hard work, and the majority of students I have had over the years have responded favorably to this approach . . . they might not respond favorably at the end-of-semester teaching evaluations (which is another post for another day), but later, when they've had time to reflect and consider and have had other types of professors, they thank me for the uniqueness of my courses, for challenging their sense of what is "appropriate" for a college classroom, and for making them consider perspectives outside their own. My unorthodox techniques can be unsettling to some students. But later on, they get it. I get a lot of "thank yous" from former students.
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But at this point of the semester, I'm tired and the energy it takes to be a critical pedagogue is energy I don't often think I have.
To be clear, critical pedagogy does not have to be teaching students to overthrow their government and riot in the streets for change (ok, slight exaggeration); critical pedagogy can be a little more subtle. In the critical pedagogical model I use-- particularly with the students I have this term, for example-- it can become something as obvious as challenging them to THINK about what they are reading, what they are being asked to read by their professors, and not accepting at face-value what they hear or read by someone in "authority." (Isn't that the purpose of any kind of higher education, you might ask? Why yes, yes it it.)
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And they whine. And roll their eyes. And they sigh. They tell me-- nonverbally-- that they are not the slightest bit interested in questioning anything. They want me to tell them what to do and they'll do it-- no questions asked-- because they want a grade and they want to move on to whatever it is that they'll move on to.
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The process of critical pedagogy exhausts everyone.
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Without infantilizing college students, an analogy: When the Bundle was little, she would just wear me down with requests for toys or fast food or to stay up late, or whatever. She behaved as just about any child behaves. She tested her limits; she certainly tested mine. Well, like most parents, I suppose, I often got tired of hearing her whine, so I would give in . . . it was just easier for that moment. What I was doing, though, was rewarding her whiny behavior. She learned very quickly that if she whined long enough, I'd give in. That didn't last long as I developed an ability to ignore her whines and ultimately she stopped that behavior. I also picked my battles with her. I didn't have to win all the time.
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Teaching with critical pedagogy is like that. It's hard, and the students whine and cry and moan (figuratively). We all get tired. But I must hold steady to my belief that this is the best approach for these particular students. It's good for them to be challenged and stretched and pushed. That's why they are in a university classroom.
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If I don't challenge, stretch, and push them, I'm not doing my job. And it doesn't much matter how tired I am. Or how tired they are. We push on.
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