December 8

I have read Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed in an EAF class here at ISU, and once getting past the very complicated language, I am struck again and again by the powerfulness of this work. Critical pedagogy may be the most important thing we learn about as teacher education majors. Oppression is really never-ending. Across time, borders, and oceans - oppression is found everywhere. One place we can vow to end it is in the classroom. Fundamental societal changes need to occur in order to end oppression anywhere, and the classroom can be a great starting point for that change. Freire quotes, " The awakening of critical consciousness leads the way to expression of social discontents precisely because these discontents are real components of an oppressive situation" (36). Critical consciousness is the way!