Education 212: Critical Pedagogy and School Reform

Grinnell College
Spring 2015
Instructor: Kathryn Wegner
E-mail: wegnerka@grinnell.edu
Office: 641-269-4479
Office: Steiner 301
Website: kathrynwegner.org
Twitter: @kathrynwegner

Class Times: Tues. & Thurs. 10:0011:50

Class Location: Bucksbaum 161
Office Hours: Wednesday, 11:0012:00; Friday, 2:15-3:15; No
appointment needed during these
hours; to meet other times, just
ask

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of

the
younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity
or it becomes
the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and
creatively
with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
Richard Shaull in the forward to Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970
Course Description:
This course will explore critical pedagogy as educational theory and practice. We will
begin with an investigation of critical pedagogys origins in critical theory. We will
then study critical pedagogys foundational text, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
written by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire in the late-1960s. Freires vision of
education for the freedom and humanization of oppressed peoples has influenced
educators around the world. Finally, we will delve into the relevance and application
of critical pedagogy in todays schools, culminating in the implementation of
student-designed Critical Pedagogy Action Projects.
Course Objectives
Students will:
1. understand contradictions in U.S. education from multi- and inter-disciplinary
perspectives.
2. make arguments in written and verbal form that engage ideas from the
assigned reading.
3. connect theoretical discussions with contemporary realities in schools.
4. dialogue and collaborate with fellow classmates and instructor to produce
shared knowledge and demonstrate inclusiveness of diverse opinions.
5. Design, implement, and analyze the results of a critical pedagogy educational
project
Required Texts

1. Antonia Darder, Marta P. Baltondano, and Rodolfo D. Torres, The Critical

Pedagogy Reader, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2009). $52
2. Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade, The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for
Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Schools (New York: Peter Lang,
2008). $31
3. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 3rd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2003).
$15 [OR downloadable for free at:
http://flanneryogonner.tumblr.com/post/40237682151/free-pdf-books-on-racegender-sexuality-class]

Assessment Summary
Freire Fest Exhibit

Percent
of Total
30%

Critical Pedagogy Action Project

40%

Participation

30%

Due Dates
Proposal: Feb. 3
Exhibit (in class): Mar. 3
Exhibit for Freire Fest: Mar. 5
Proposal: Feb. 19
Project Goals and Daily Agendas:
Mar. 12
Final Analysis and Reflection: May
14
-----

Grading Scale
100-92 A; 91-90 A-; 89-88 B+; 87-82 B; 81-80 B-; 79-78 C+; 77-72 C; 71-70 CAssessment Details
1. Freire Fest Exhibit: We will host a Freire Fest on March 5th in the JRC that is
open to the public. This event, part tribute and part critique, will hopefully
generate wider interest in critical pedagogy. Each student will prepare an
exhibit based on an exploration into the critical pedagogy literature. Topics on
Freire might include: his Brazilian context, critical pedagogy as revolutionary
politics, race or feminist critiques, Freirean pedagogy and power and authority
in the school classroom, students fear and resistance, critical literacy, Freires
global reception, Freires connections to Myles Horton & Am. Civil Rights, his
connections to other intellectuals, etc. Your exhibit should be visually pleased
and invite passersby to engage with the concepts, contradictions, and
dilemmas within Freires work and critical pedagogy at large. Your exhibit may
take the form of a poster, slide show, i-movie, tumblr, theatrical performance,
art installation, staged dialogue, interactive experience, game, etc.
2. Critical Pedagogy Action Project/ Final Exam (40%): You will create and
implement an educational action project that draws on the goals and tenets of
critical pedagogy. You will work with a group of youth in a setting you arrange
or at the Meskwaki Indian Settlement after-school program, at the Newton
Correctional Facility (through the Liberal Arts in Prison program), or at the
Grinnell Middle School (through Susan Sanning and the math tutoring and

enrichment project). Details on sites forthcoming. You will be assessed on the

following (detailed rubrics to follow):
a. Proposal (2-3 pages)
b. Field experience: minimum of 6 hours
c. Project Goals and Daily Agendas (5-6 pages)
d. Final Analysis and Reflection (5-6 pages)
3. Participation: The instructor will keep a journal documenting student
participation. Your grade will be based on your attendance (see attendance
policy below) as well as the quantity and quality of your comments in class
discussion along with your ability to name, respond, reframe, connect,
question, and synthesize strands of class dialogue. Your participation grade
will also include your work as a peer reviewer and as an assessment of any
other in-class assignments not otherwise formally evaluated.

Teacher Certification Students

EDU 212 is a course that counts towards state teacher certification. This course addresses the
following performance assessment (PA) standards. Students pursuing teacher certification must
demonstrate competency at the end of their second year in a conference with faculty members.
1-1 Explains how social identities (e.g. race, class, gender, sexuality, ability) impact schoolbased academic achievement and the school experience.
1-2 Uses evidence to demonstrate to what degree classroom and school-wide practices
acknowledge and use student diversity to enhance learning.
1-2 Explains how philosophical perspectives influence schools and teaching.
1-8 Describes how schools have reflected and continue to reflect historical and cultural forces
that affect student learning.
Class Expectations:
Class Format: We will use a variety of formats in class for dialogue and
discussion. The first half of the class will focus on the theory of critical
pedagogy, culminating in the Freire Fest, and the second half will emphasize
the relevance and practicality of critical pedagogy with todays youth. The
final exam will be a written reflective analysis of your Critical Pedagogy Action
Project.
Readings and Note-taking: Please bring the assigned reading (book or printed
articles) to class. As you read, annotate the text. You might also want to take
notes on main concepts, people, and ideas.
Required texts will be on reserve at the Burling Library and in the Careers in
Education Professions office in Steiner 204. The readings listed on the syllabus
have been posted to p-web (click on e-reserve) or will be distributed in class
(when noted).

Written Assignments: All written assignments should be printed and

submitted in class on the due date. Assignments should utilize standard font
(12 pt.) and margins, double-spaced text, and a consistent and standard
format for citations when necessary.
Communication: Communication is essential. E-mail is the best way to reach
me. I will generally respond to e-mail messages within 24 hours, but may take
longer during weekends or breaks.
Office Hours: Please take advantage of my office hours, and drop in anytime.
Coming to my office hours is not a sign of weakness but a sign of
engagement.
Individual Accommodations and Support:
I encourage students with documented disabilities, including invisible disabilities
such as chronic illness, learning disabilities, and psychiatric disabilities, to discuss
appropriate accommodations with me. You will also need to have a conversation
about and provide documentation of your disability to the Dean for Student Success
and Academic Advising, Joyce Stern, located on the 3 rd floor of the Joe Rosenfield
Center (x3702).
As your instructor I want you to be successful and comfortable in this class and in
the college at large. If at any time your ability to fully participate in the class or
college life is limited by past trauma or an event that occurred here at Grinnell,
including sexual harassment or misconduct, please let me know how I can help.
There are many resources on campus that I can connect you to. I also want you to
know that I recognize that each of you comes to this class with lives before and
outside of this classroom, often having had experiences I may not expect or
understand. If for whatever reason, there is a time when class participation is
difficult, please know that I welcome you to speak with me instead.
Finally, if you have difficulty purchasing the textbooks, do let me know, as some
funds may be available to help students with documented financial difficulties.
Citations and Academic Honesty:
You may cite your sources using any recognized citation style. Given my background
as a historian, I use Chicago documentation style with footnotes. If you prefer APA or
MLA, styles used in the social sciences and language arts, which utilize parenthetical
citations, those are also fine. You will find guides describing these styles in detail at
the Grinnell College Bookstore, online, and in a detailed handbook on academic
honesty on blackboard. Please be consistent, and take great care to cite the origin of
the direct quotes, ideas, phrasing, terminology, and statistics used in your essays.
Citing is an active responsibility and forgetting is not a sufficient excuse. We will
discuss citation styles and academic honesty in more detail before the first essay is
due.
Class Policies:

1. Civil Dialogue: We must respect each other, value each others experiences,
and respond with civility, compassion, and humility while avoiding hostility
and unproductive antagonism. Class dialogue is an exercise in inclusion. Invite
others into the conversation. Listen. Respond to each other. Care.
2. Attendance: Regular classroom attendance is essential. You are allowed to
miss two classes without explanation or penalty. For each additional absence
(beyond the two) your participation grade will be lowered one half -letter
grade. Absences due to religious holidays or college-sponsored
extracurriculars will not count towards this total. Finally, if you are absent, it is
your responsibility to collect missed handouts, notes, or readings from a
classmate, pweb, or your professor.
3. Late assignments and extensions: Assignments are due in class. If they are
turned in late but within 48 hours of the due date they will receive a grade no
higher than a B+. If you are unable to submit an assignment within this 48hour grace period, you must contact me within this period or you may fail the
assignment. An extension for one assignment without grade penalty may be
made, but must be approved by the instructor before expiration of the 48hour extension policy.
4. Use of electronic devices: Effective dialogue is crucial to the success of this
class, and for this reason, I would like to minimize the use of laptops and
other electronic devices. If you feel you need technology to meet your
individual learning needs, I encourage you to come talk with me.

Course Outline (*subject to change)

Week 1: Introductions
Jan. 20
Introduction

Jan. 22

What is
Critical
Pedagogy?

Introductions
Evaluation of Syllabus [distribute in class]
Special Projects: Freire Fest (?) and Critical
Pedagogy Project
Reading Due: ----Assignment(s) Due: ----Henry Giroux on Foundations of Critical Pedagogy
Mini-lecture on critical pedagogues
Critical Pedagogy library
Critical Pedagogy Action Project- Initial Site Ideas/
Questions/ Requests
Reading Due:
1. Editors, Critical Pedagogy: An Introduction, In
The Critical Pedagogy Reader, pgs.1-20.
Assignment(s) Due: -----

Week 2: Genealogies
Jan. 27
Frankfurt
School and
Critical
Theory

Jan. 29

Concepts of
Critical
Pedagogy

Interview with Henry Giroux (film clip)

Mini-lecture: Critical Theory
Frankfurt School: quote analysis and concept
mapping the genealogy of critical pedagogy
Assign Proposal for Freire Fest
Reading Due:
1. Henry Giroux, Critical Theory and Educational
Practice in Critical Pedagogy Reader, pgs. 27-51.
Assignment(s) Due: ----Reading Due:
1. Peter McLaren, Critical Pedagogy: A Look at Major
Concepts, The Critical Pedagogy Reader, pgs. 6183.
Assignment(s) Due: ------

Week 3: Paolo Freire and the Brazilian Context

Feb. 3
Paulo
Paulo Freires life and the Brazilian context
Freire: The
Reading Due:
Man
1. Peter McLaren, The Man with the Grey Beard
Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of
Revolution (New York: Rowman & Littlefield,
2000), pgs. 140-182. [e-reserves]
Assignment(s) Due: Proposal for Freire Fest
Feb. 5

The
Pedagogy
of the
Oppressed

Reading Due:
1. Paulo Freire, Introduction, Forward, Preface,
and Chapter 1 In Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
3rd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2003). pgs. 11-69.
Assignment(s) Due: -----

Week 4: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Feb. 10
The
Reading Due:
Pedagogy
1. Paulo Freire, Chapter 2 In Pedagogy of the
of the
Oppressed, 3rd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2003).
Oppressed
pgs. 71-86.
Assignment(s) Due: ----Feb. 12

Pedagogy
of the
Oppressed

Reading Due:
1. Paulo Freire, Introduction, Forward, Preface,
and Chapter 3 In Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
3rd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2003). pgs. 87-124.
Assignment(s) Due: -----

Week 5: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Feb. 17
Pedagogy
Reading Due:
of the
1. Paulo Freire, Chapter 4 In Pedagogy of the

Feb. 19

Oppressed

Oppressed, 3rd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2003).

pgs. 125-183.
Assignment(s) Due: -----

Planning for
Freire Fest
and Critical
Pedagogy
Action
Project

Each student will describe in an informal 5-minute

presentation his/her/zer plan for the Freire Fest.
Collaborative and constructive feedback will be
provided by classmates and instructor.
Reading Due: ----Assignments Due: Critical Pedagogy Action Project
Proposal

Week 6: Challenges to Critical Pedagogy

Feb. 24
Freire and
Jig saw activity
Race
Reading Due:
READ ONE OF THE FOLLOWING (ASSIGNED IN
CLASS)
1. Stephen Nathan Haymes, Race, Pedagogy, and
Paulo Freire, Philosophy of Education (2002):
Available at:
http://ojs.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/pes/article/viewFil
e/1807/517
2. Peter McLaren, Looking Back, Looking Forward,
and Unthinking Whiteness, Rethinking Cultural
Contact as Interculturality, In Life in Schools: An
Introduction to Critical Pedagogy, 6th ed. (New
York: Paradigm, 2015), pgs. 193-230. [e-reserves]
Assignment(s) Due: -----

Feb. 26

Feminist
critiques

Reading Due:
READ ONE OF THE FOLLOWING (ASSIGNED IN
CLASS)
1. Eliabeth Ellsworth, Why Doesnt This Feel
Empowering? Working through the Repressive
Myths of Critical Pedagogy, Harvard Educational
Review (Aug, 1989). Available at:
http://pedsub.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/ellswo
rth-1989.pdf
2. Kathleen Weiler, Feminist Analysis of Gender and
Schooling, In Antonia Darder, Marta P.
Baltondano, and Rodolfo D. Torres (Eds.), The
Critical Pedagogy Reader, 2nd ed. (New York:
Routledge, 2009), pgs. 217-239.
Assignment(s) Due: -----

Week 7: Freire Fest

Mar. 3
Freire Fest

Mar. 5

Final logistics for Freire Fest

Talk through Presentations
Reading Due: ----Assignment(s) Due: Freire Fest Exhibit
Freire Fest
10:00-1:00 p.m.
JRC 101 (TBC)

Week 8: Critical Pedagogy in Practice

Mar. 10
Critical
Reading Due:
Pedagogy
READ ONE OF THE FOLLOWING (ASSIGNED IN
with Youth
CLASS).
1. Robert E. Peterson, Teaching How to Read the
World and Change It: Critical Pedagogy in the
Intermediate Grades, In The Critical Pedagogy
Reader, pgs. 305-323. [e-reserves]
2. Peter McLaren, Teachers and Students, In Life in
Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy, 6th
ed. (New York: Paradigm, 2015), pgs. 177-186. [ereserves]
3. Ira Shor, Ch.2: Problem-Posing: Situated and
Multicultural Learning, In Empowering Education:
Critical Teaching for Social Change (University of
Chicago Press, 1992), pgs. Ch.2. [e-reserves]
Assignment(s) Due: ----Mar. 12

Dilemmas
in Teaching
Critically

Lessons from Qualititative Researchers [Kathryn]

Peer Review of Project Goals and Daily Agendas
Reading Due: ----Assignment(s) Due: Project Goals and Daily Agendas

Spring Break
Week 9: Critical Pedagogy: Youth Participatory Action Research
Mar. 31
Students
Reading Due:
as Colla1. Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade, The Art of Critical
borators
Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to
Practice in Urban Schools (New York: Peter Lang,
2008), pgs. 105-132.
Assignment(s) Due: ----Apr. 2

Critical
Pedagogy
Action
Project

NO REGULAR CLASS
Critical Pedagogy Field Experience
Periodic individual Meetings with Kathryn

Week 10: Critical Pedagogy and Youth Development

Apr. 7
Mentoring
Reading Due:
and Ethnic
1. Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade, The Art of Critical
Alliances
Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to
Practice in Urban Schools (New York: Peter Lang,
2008), pgs. TBA
Assignment(s) Due: ----Apr. 9

Critical
Pedagogy
Action
Project

NO REGULAR CLASS
Critical Pedagogy Field Experience
Meetings with Kathryn

Week 11: Resistance Theory

Apr. 14
Working
through
Reading Due:
student
1. Peter McLaren, Life in Schools: An Introduction to
resistance
Critical Pedagogy, 6th ed. (New York: Paradigm,
2015), pgs. TBA [distributed in previous class]
2. Henry Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Education
(2nd ed.) (Praeger, 2001), pgs. TBA
Assignment(s) Due: ----Apr. 16

Critical
Pedagogy
Action
Project

NO REGULAR CLASS
Critical Pedagogy Field Experience
Meetings with Kathryn

Week 12: Critical Pedagogy in Schools

Apr. 21
School Sites Reading Due:
1. Mariana Souto-Manning, Ch.3: Culture Circles in
an American First-Grade Classroom In Freire,
Teaching, and Learning: Culture Circles Across
Contexts (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), pgs. 4974. [e-reserves]
2. Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade, Critical Pedagogy
in an Urban High School Classroom, In The Art of
Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from
Theory to Practice in Urban Schools (New York:
Peter Lang, 2008), pgs. 49-68.
3. Ira Shor (Ed.), Freire in the Classroom
(Heinemann, 1987), pgs. TBA [e-reserves]
Assignment(s) Due: -----

Apr. 23

Critical
Pedagogy
Action
Project

NO REGULAR CLASS
Critical Pedagogy Field Experience
Meetings with Kathryn

Week 13 Critical Pedagogy in Age of Standards

Apr. 28
Common
Reading Due:
Core and
1. Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade, The Art of Critical
Critical
Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to
Pedagogy?
Practice in Urban Schools (New York: Peter Lang,
2008), pgs. 157-170.
2. Linda McNeil, Standardization, Defensive
Teaching, and the Problems of Control, In The
Critical Pedagogy Reader, pgs. 384-396.
Apr. 30

Critical
Pedagogy
Action
Project

Assignment(s) Due: ----NO REGULAR CLASS

Critical Pedagogy Field Experience
Meetings with Kathryn

Week 14: Reflection and Wrap-up

May 5
Final Class
Course evaluations
Student presentations on Critical Pedagogy Action
Projects
Reading Due: ----Assignment(s) Due: ----May 7

Critical
Pedagogy
Action
Project

NO REGULAR CLASS
Critical Pedagogy Field Experience
Meetings with Kathryn

FINAL EXAM
Critical Pedagogy Action Project (Analysis and Reflection) Due: May 14 th
at 5:00 p.m.
Students must submit their final project via e-mail to wegnerka@grinnell.edu by
5:00 p.m. Late papers will not be accepted under any circumstances (unless
approved by the Dean).

10