Cultural AwarenessAn essential skill in the provision of culturally appropriate services, cultural awareness entails an understanding of how a person's culture may inform their values, behaviour, beliefs and basic assumptions.

Cultural awareness recognises that we are all shaped by our cultural background, which influences how we interpret the world around us, perceive ourselves and relate to other people. You don't need to be an expert in every culture or have all the answers to be culturally aware; rather, cultural awareness helps you to explore cultural issues with your care recipients more sensitively.

Information about specific cultural practices will help to increase your cultural knowledge by providing an overview of cultural characteristics and issues. However, it is always important to identify individual needs and preferences and remember that no individual can be reduced to a set of cultural norms.

Within any culture, peoples' values, behaviour and beliefs can vary enormously. Differences may occur due to time of arrival in Australia, length of settlement, socio-economic background, level of education, rural or urban residence, identification with cultural and religious background, and different life experiences - including the experience of migration.

Cultural awareness entails an understanding of the migration process itself. Migration is a key influence on a person's life, with differing effects due to the different experiences of pre-migration, migration and resettlement.

While some migrants undergo a relatively easy transition, most migrants will undergo some - if not many - challenges in adjusting to life in a new country.

Some of the many post-migration stressors include: the stress of separation from homeland, family members, friends and support networks; racial discrimination; changes in lifestyle and socio-economic status; culture shock; language barriers; and the ongoing trauma of pre-migration experiences, which may have included war and political instability, physical and psychological abuse, and travelling as a refugee or living in a refugee camp.

Key Considerations Be aware of your own cultural influences. Be aware of judging other people's behaviour and beliefs according to the standards of your own culture. Be aware of making assumptions about cultural influences and applying generalisations to individuals. Understand that the behaviour and beliefs of people within each culture can vary considerably. Understand that the extent to which people adopt practices of their new country and retain those from their cultural

background can vary within communities, even within families. Understand that not all people identify with their cultural or religious background. Understand that culture itself is a fluid entity, undergoing transformations as a result of globalisation, migration and

the diaspora influence. Increase your knowledge about different cultural practices and issues through cultural background information

sessions and/or resources and cultural awareness training. Understand the importance of appropriate communication.

What is Cultural Awareness, anyway? How do I build it?

“A fish only discovers its need for water when it is no longer in it. Our own culture is like water for the fish. It sustains us.

We live and breathe through it.” by Stephanie Quappe and Giovanna Cantatore

Cultural Awareness is the foundation of communication and it involves the ability of standing back from ourselves and becoming aware of our cultural values, beliefs and perceptions. Why do we do things in that way? How do we see the world? Why do we react in that particular way?

Cultural awareness becomes central when we have to interact with people from other cultures. People see, interpret and evaluate things in a different ways. What is considered an appropriate behavior in one culture is frequently inappropriate in another one. Misunderstandings arise when I use my meanings to make sense of your reality.

As an Italian it is almost automatic to perceive US Americans as people who always work, talk about business over lunch and drink their coffee running in the street instead of enjoying it in a bar. What does it mean? Italians are lazy and American hyperactive? No, it means that the meaning that people give to certain activities, like having lunch or dinner could be different according to certain cultures. In Italy, where relationships are highly valued, lunch, dinner or the simple pauses for coffee have a social connotation: people get together to talk and relax, and to get to know each other better. In the USA, where time is money, lunches can be part of closing a deal where people discuss the outcomes and sign a contract over coffee.

Misinterpretations occur primarily when we lack awareness of our own behavioral rules and project them on others. In absence of better knowledge we tend to assume, instead of finding out what a behavior means to the person involved, e.g. a straight look into your face is regarded as disrespectful in Japan.

Becoming aware of our cultural dynamics is a difficult task because culture is not conscious to us. Since we are born we have learned to see and do things at an unconscious level. Our experiences, our values and our cultural background lead us to see and do things in a certain way. Sometimes we have to step outside of our cultural boundaries in order to realize the impact that our culture has on our behavior. It is very helpful to gather feedback from foreign colleagues on our behavior to get more clarity on our cultural traits.

Projected similarities could lead to misinterpretation as well. When we assume that people are similar to us, we might incur the risk that they are not. If we project similarities where there are not, we might act inappropriately. It is safer to assume differences until similarity is proven.[1]

Degrees of Cultural Awareness There are several levels of cultural awareness that

reflect how people grow to perceive cultural differences.

My way is the only way - At the first level, people are aware of their way of doing things, and their way is the only way. At this stage, they ignore the impact of cultural differences. (Parochial stage)

I know their way, but my way is better - At the second level, people are aware of other ways of doing things, but still consider their way as the best one. In this stage, cultural differences are perceived as source of problems and people tend to ignore them or reduce their significance. (Ethnocentric stage)

My Way and Their Way - At this level people are aware of their own way of doing things and others’ ways of doing things, and they chose the best way according to the situation. At this stage people realize that cultural differences can lead both to problems and benefits and are willing to use cultural diversity to create new solutions and alternatives. (Synergistic stage)

Our Way - This fourth and final stage brings people from different cultural background together for the creation of a culture of shared meanings. People dialogue repeatedly with others, create new meanings, new rules to meet the needs of a particular situation. (Participatory Third culture stage)

Increasing cultural awareness means to see both the positive and negative aspects of cultural differences. Cultural diversity could be a source of problems, in particular when the organization needs people to think or act in a similar way. Diversity increases the level of complexity and confusion and makes agreement difficult to reach. On the other hand, cultural diversity becomes an advantage when the organization expands its solutions and its sense of identity, and begins to

take different approaches to problem solving. Diversity in this case creates valuable new skills and behaviors.

  In becoming culturally aware, people realize that:  We are not all the same

Similarities and differences are both important

There are multiple ways to reach the same goal and to live life The best way depends on the cultural contingency. Each situation is different and may require a

different solution.

How Do I Manage Cultural Diversity? We are generally aware that the first step in managing diversity is recognize it and learning not to

fear it. Since everyone is the product of their own culture, we need to increase both self-awareness and

cross-cultural awareness. There is no book of instructions to deal with cultural diversity, no recipe to follow. But certain attitudes help to bridge cultures.

Admit that you don’t know. Knowing that we don’t know everything, that a situation does not make sense, that our assumptions may be wrong is part of the process of becoming culturally aware. Assume differences, not similarities.

Suspend judgments. Collect as much information as possible so you can describe the situation accurately before evaluating it.

Empathy. In order to understand another person, we need to try standing in his/her shoes. Through empathy we learn of how other people would like to be treated by us.

Systematically check your assumptions. Ask your colleagues for feedback and constantly check your assumptions to make sure that you clearly understand the situation.

Become comfortable with ambiguity. The more complicated and uncertain life is, the more we tend to seek control. Assume that other people are as resourceful as we are and that their way will add to what we know. “If we always do, what we’ve always done, we will always get, what we always got.”

Celebrate diversity. As a company find ways of sharing the cultures of your diverse workforce, i.e., in 2002 Deutsche Bank carried out multiple initiatives around the theme of “tolerance: diversity, identity, recognition” which they called “Initiative Plus 2002.” They encouraged employee projects and organized an annual colloquium of global experts.

http://www.culturosity.com/articles/whatisculturalawareness.htm

                                                                 

Critical Language Awareness

What and why?

In language teaching, we now recognise that language is not simply grammar, but also a system of 'communication'. For this reason, we often involve students in sharing information, using language for special purposes, expressing opinions and so on. One result of a view of language as 'communicating', however, is that it ignores the fact that people do not use language neutrally. Language is used not only as a means of sharing ideas, but also as a way of controlling people and influencing what they think and do. Language use involves making choices about lexis, grammar, register, discourse structure, etc., and these choices are often made for particular reasons. For example, a choice of words may be important Ð an armed group, for instance, might be called 'terrorists' or 'freedom fighters' depending on whose side you are on. Similarly, the passive voice, for example, might be used to hide facts or give authority to a statement as in, for instance, 'Ten million pounds were lost last year.' (We could ask: 'Who lost them? Why? How? "Lost" means what?' and so on.) Register might be used to encourage people to act in certain ways. Advertisements, for example, often use a friendly, familiar tone of voice ('We care for you') to make people feel that a product is important to them personally. Discourse structure can also determine what your 'rights' are in a conversation - as, for example, in a job interview where only one person might have the 'right' to ask questions.

Critical Language Aw areness

In recent years, this way of looking at language has developed into what is now called 'critical language analysis' and, in schools, many teachers now try to raise the students' awareness of how language is used, so they are not so easily influenced by others. The word 'critical', here, does not mean 'negative' but 'careful, thoughtful'. (See also CRITICAL PEDAGOGY.)

Practical ideas

• If you start from the assumption that language use involves making choices, you can ask students 'Why did they say that?', 'Why did they use that word rather than another word?', 'Why did they use that tense?', 'What are they not saying?' and so on.

• There are many words in English that are typically only used when talking about women, or about men or about children, and this may affect the way we think about people. For example, 'gossip' is typically associated with women, while men might 'talk'. You can give the students a list of words and ask them to categorise them and then discuss why they have categorised them that way. For example, they could try to categorise the following words into 'About women', 'About men', 'About boys', 'About girls': beautiful, strong, trustworthy, silly, pretty, mature, gossip, weak, handsome, rough, ambitious. If they put some words in two or more categories, you can discuss how the word changes its meaning.

• You can encourage students to think about statements about things and ask if they are 'negative', 'positive' or 'neutral'.

• If the students read a news story, you can ask how the story would change if someone else was reporting it. For example, if the story is about a strike in a factory, how would the story change if the strikers reported it, or the employers, or the government, or customers?

• You can encourage students to think about what the writer thinks about the reader. For example, if you look at an advertisement, what type of people is it appealing to? Does the advertisement suggest (even implicitly) that certain things are desirable? How does the advertisement do this?

• If there are words in English in public places in your country or if English is creeping into the students' mother tongue, you could ask students to consider why, in each case, English is used. Some writers talk about 'linguistic imperialism' to describe how English is entering into other languages.

• You can ask students to think about mother tongue language use too: which words are used mainly by young people? Which words are more 'official'? Can they think of any English equivalents?

• You can ask the students to look at the conversations in the Out and about sections and to choose one of the characters. If that character changed to, for example, 'head teacher' how would the language change?

http://www.cambridge.org.br/for-teachers/teaching-tips/a-z-of-methodology?critical-language-awareness&id=186

It's 1994 in Long Beach, California. Idealistic Erin Gruwell is just starting her first teaching job, that as freshman and sophomore English teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School, which, two years earlier, implemented a voluntary integration program. For many of the existing teachers, the integration has ruined the school, whose previously stellar academic standing has been replaced with many students who will be lucky to graduate or even be literate. Despite choosing the school on purpose because of its integration program, Erin is unprepared for the nature of her classroom, whose students live by generations of strict moral codes of protecting their own at all cost. Many are in gangs and almost all know somebody that has been killed by gang violence. The Latinos hate the Cambodians who hate the

blacks and so on. The only person the students hate more is Ms. Gruwell. It isn't until Erin holds an unsanctioned discussion about a recent drive-by shooting death that she fully begins to understand what she's up against. And it isn't until she provides an assignment of writing a daily journal - which will be not graded, and will remain unread by her unless they so choose - that the students begin to open up to her. As Erin tries harder and harder to have resources provided to teach properly (which often results in her needing to pay for them herself through working second and third jobs), she seems to face greater resistance, especially from her colleagues, such as Margaret Campbell, her section head, who lives by regulations and sees such resources as a waste, and Brian Gelford, who will protect his "priviledged" position of teaching the senior honors classes at all cost. Erin also finds that her teaching job is placing a strain on her marriage to Scott Casey, a man who seems to have lost his own idealistic way in life.Written by Huggo

Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy:Relations, Differences, and Limits

Nicholas C. Burbules and Rupert BerkDepartment of Educational Policy Studies

Published in Critical Theories in Education, Thomas S. Popkewitz and Lynn Fendler, eds. (NY: Routledge, 1999).

Two literatures have shaped much of the writing in the educational foundations over the past two decades: Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy. Each has its textual reference points, its favored authors, and its desired audiences. Each invokes the term "critical" as a valued educational goal: urging teachers to help students become more skeptical toward commonly accepted truisms. Each says, in its own way, "Do not let yourself be deceived." And each has sought to reach and influence particular groups of educators, at all levels of schooling, through workshops, lectures, and pedagogical texts. They share a passion and sense of urgency about the need for more critically oriented classrooms. Yet with very few exceptions these literatures do not discuss one another. Is this because they propose conflicting visions of what "critical" thought entails? Are their approaches to pedagogy incompatible? Might there be moments of insight that each can offer the other? Do they perhaps share common limitations, which through comparison become more apparent? Are there other ways to think about becoming "critical" that stand outside these traditions, but which

hold educational significance? These are the questions motivating this essay.

We will begin by contrasting Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy in terms of their conception of what it means to be "critical." We will suggest some important similarities, and differences, in how they frame this topic. Each tradition has to some extent criticized the other; and each has been criticized, sometimes along similar lines, by other perspectives, especially feminist and poststructural perspectives. These lines of reciprocal and external criticism, in turn, lead us to suggest some different ways to think about "criticality."

At a broad level, Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy share some common concerns. They both imagine a general population in society who are to some extent deficient in the abilities or dispositions that would allow them to discern certain kinds of inaccuracies, distortions, and even falsehoods. They share a concern with how these inaccuracies, distortions, and falsehoods limit freedom, though this concern is more explicit in the Critical Pedagogy tradition, which sees society as fundamentally divided by relations of unequal power. Critical Pedagogues are specifically concerned with the influences of educational knowledge, and of cultural formations generally, that perpetuate or legitimate an unjust status quo; fostering a critical capacity in citizens is a way of enabling them to resist such power effects. Critical Pedagogues take sides, on behalf of those groups who are disenfranchised from social, economic, and political possibilities. Many Critical Thinking authors would cite similar concerns, but regard them as subsidiary to the more inclusive problem of people basing their life choices on unsubstantiated truth claims — a problem that is nonpartisan in its nature or effects. For Critical Thinking advocates, all of us need to be better critical thinkers, and there is often an implicit hope that enhanced critical thinking could have a general humanizing effect, across all social groups and classes. In this sense, both Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy authors would argue that by helping to make people more critical in thought and action, progressively minded educators can help to free learners to see the world as it is and to act accordingly; critical education can increase freedom and enlarge the scope of human possibilities.

Yet, as one zooms in, further differences appear. The Critical Thinking tradition concerns itself primarily with criteria of epistemic adequacy: to be "critical" basically means to be more discerning in recognizing faulty arguments, hasty generalizations, assertions lacking evidence, truth claims based on unreliable authority, ambiguous or obscure concepts, and so forth. For the Critical Thinker, people do not sufficiently analyze the reasons by which they live, do not examine the assumptions, commitments, and logic of daily life. As Richard Paul puts it, the basic problem is irrational, illogical, and unexamined living. He believes that people need to learn how to express and criticize the logic of arguments that underpin our everyday activity: "The art of explicating, analyzing, and assessing these ‘arguments’ and ‘logic’ is essential to leading an examined life" (Paul 1990, 66). The prime tools of Critical Thinking are the skills of formal and informal logic, conceptual analysis, and epistemology. The primary preoccupation of Critical Thinking is to supplant sloppy or distorted thinking with thinking based upon reliable procedures of inquiry. Where our beliefs remain unexamined, we are not free; we act without thinking about why we act, and thus do not exercise control over our own destinies. For the Critical Thinking tradition, as Harvey Siegel states, critical thinking aims at self-sufficiency, and "a self-sufficient person is a liberated person...free from the unwarranted and undesirable control of unjustified beliefs" (Siegel, 1988, 58).

The Critical Pedagogy tradition begins from a very different starting point. It regards specific belief claims, not primarily as propositions to be assessed for their truth content, but as parts of systems of belief and action that have aggregate effects within the power structures of society. It asks first about these systems of belief and action, who benefits? The primary preoccupation of Critical Pedagogy is with social injustice and how to transform inequitable, undemocratic, or oppressive institutions and social relations. At some point, assessments of truth or conceptual slipperiness might come into the discussion (different writers in the Critical Pedagogy tradition differ in this respect), but they are in the service of demonstrating how certain power effects occur, not in the service of pursuing Truth in some dispassioned sense (Burbules 1992/1995). Indeed, a crucial dimension of this approach is that certain claims, even if they might be "true" or substantiated within particular confines and assumptions, might nevertheless be

partisan in their effects. Assertions that African-Americans score lower on IQ tests, for example, even if it is a "fact" that this particular population does on average score lower on this particular set of tests, leaves significant larger questions unaddressed, not the least of which is what effect such assertions have on a general population that is not aware of the important limits of these tests or the tenuous relation, at best, between "what IQ tests measure" and "intelligence." Other important questions, from this standpoint, include: Who is making these assertions? Why are they being made at this point in time? Who funds such research? Who promulgates these "findings"? Are they being raised to question African-American intelligence or to demonstrate the bias of IQ tests? Such questions, from the Critical Pedagogy perspective, are not external to, or separable from, the import of also weighing the evidentiary base for such claims.

Now, the Critical Thinking response to this approach will be that these are simply two different, perhaps both valuable, endeavors. It is one thing to question the evidentiary base (or logic, or clarity, or coherence) of a particular claim, and to find it wanting. This is one kind of critique, adequate and worthwhile on its own terms. It is something else, something separate, to question the motivation behind those who propound certain views, their group interests, the effects of their claims on society, and so forth. That sort of critique might also be worthwhile (we suspect that most Critical Thinking authors would say that it is worthwhile), but it depends on a different sort of analysis, with a different burden of argument — one that philosophers may have less to contribute to than would historians or sociologists, for example.

The response, in turn, from the Critical Pedagogy point of view is that the two levels cannot be kept separate because the standards of epistemic adequacy themselves (valid argument, supporting evidence, conceptual clarity, and so on) and the particular ways in which these standards are invoked and interpreted in particular settings inevitably involve the very same considerations of who, where, when, and why that any other social belief claims raise. Moreover, such considerations inevitably blur into and influence epistemic matters in a narrower sense, such as how research questions are defined, the methods of such research, and the

qualifications of the researchers and writers who produce such writings for public attention.

But neither the Critical Thinking nor the Critical Pedagogy tradition is monolithic or homogeneous, and a closer examination of each reveals further dimensions of these similarities and differences.

Critical Thinking

A concern with critical thinking in education, in the broad sense of teaching students the rules of logic or how to assess evidence, is hardly new: it is woven throughout the Western tradition of education, from the Greeks to the Scholastics to the present day. Separate segments of the curriculum have often been dedicated to such studies, especially at higher levels of schooling. What the Critical Thinking movement has emphasized is the idea that specific reasoning skills undergird the curriculum as a whole; that the purpose of education generally is to foster critical thinking; and that the skills and dispositions of critical thinking can and should infuse teaching and learning at all levels of schooling. Critical thinking is linked to the idea of rationality itself, and developing rationality is seen as a prime, if not the prime, aim of education (see, for example, Siegel 1988).

The names most frequently associated with this tradition, at least in the United States, include Robert Ennis, John McPeck, Richard Paul, Israel Scheffler, and Harvey Siegel. While a detailed survey of their respective views, and the significant differences among their outlooks, is outside our scope here, a few key themes and debates have emerged in recent years within this field of inquiry.

To Critical Thinking, the critical person is something like a critical consumer of information; he or she is driven to seek reasons and evidence. Part of this is a matter of mastering certain skills of thought: learning to diagnose invalid forms of argument, knowing how to make and defend distinctions, and so on. Much of the literature in this area, especially early on, seemed to be devoted to lists and taxonomies of what a "critical thinker" should know and be able to do (Ennis 1962, 1980). More recently, however, various authors in this tradition have come to recognize that teaching

content and skills is of minor import if learners do not also develop the dispositions or inclination to look at the world through a critical lens. By this, Critical Thinking means that the critical person has not only the capacity (the skills) to seek reasons, truth, and evidence, but also that he or she has the drive (disposition) to seek them. For instance, Ennis claims that a critical person not only should seek reasons and try to be well informed, but that he or she should have a tendency to do such things (Ennis 1987, 1996). Siegel criticizes Ennis somewhat for seeing dispositions simply as what animates the skills of critical thinking, because this fails to distinguish sufficiently the critical thinker from critical thinking. For Siegel, a cluster of dispositions (the "critical spirit") is more like a deep-seated character trait, something like Scheffler’s notion of "a love of truth and a contempt of lying" (Siegel 1988; Scheffler 1991). It is part of critical thinking itself. Paul also stresses this distinction between skills and dispositions in his distinction between "weak-sense" and "strong-sense" critical thinking. For Paul, the "weak-sense" means that one has learned the skills and can demonstrate them when asked to do so; the "strong-sense" means that one has incorporated these skills into a way of living in which one’s own assumptions are re-examined and questioned as well. According to Paul, a critical thinker in the "strong sense" has a passionate drive for "clarity, accuracy, and fairmindedness" (Paul 1983, 23; see also Paul 1994).

This dispositional view of critical thinking has real advantages over the skills-only view. But in important respects it is still limited. First, it is not clear exactly what is entailed by making such dispositions part of critical thinking. In our view it not only broadens the notion of criticality beyond mere "logicality," but it necessarily requires a greater attention to institutional contexts and social relations than Critical Thinking authors have provided. Both the skills-based view and the skills-plus-dispositions view are still focused on the individual person. But it is only in the context of social relations that these dispositions or character traits can be formed or expressed, and for this reason the practices of critical thinking inherently involve bringing about certain social conditions. Part of what it is to be a critical thinker is to be engaged in certain kinds of conversations and relations with others; and the kinds of social circumstances that promote or inhibit that must therefore be

part of the examination of what Critical Thinking is trying to achieve.

A second theme in the Critical Thinking literature has been the extent to which critical thinking can be characterized as a set of generalized abilities and dispositions, as opposed to content-specific abilities and dispositions that are learned and expressed differently in different areas of investigation. Can a general "Critical Thinking" course develop abilities and dispositions that will then be applied in any of a range of fields; or should such material be presented specifically in connection to the questions and content of particular fields of study? Is a scientist who is a critical thinker doing the same things as an historian who is a critical thinker? When each evaluates "good evidence," are they truly thinking about problems in similar ways, or are the differences in interpretation and application dominant? This debate has set John McPeck, the chief advocate of content-specificity, in opposition to a number of other theorists in this area (Norris 1992; Talaska 1992). This issue relates not only to the question of how we might teach critical thinking, but also to how and whether one can test for a general facility in critical thinking (Ennis 1984).

A third debate has addressed the question of the degree to which the standards of critical thinking, and the conception of rationality that underlies them, are culturally biased in favor of a particular masculine and/or Western mode of thinking, one that implicitly devalues other "ways of knowing." Theories of education that stress the primary importance of logic, conceptual clarity, and rigorous adherence to scientific evidence have been challenged by various advocates of cultural and gender diversity who emphasize respect for alternative world views and styles of reasoning. Partly in response to such criticisms, Richard Paul has developed a conception of critical thinking that regards "sociocentrism" as itself a sign of flawed thinking (Paul 1994). Paul believes that, because critical thinking allows us to overcome the sway of our egocentric and sociocentric beliefs, it is "essential to our role as moral agents and as potential shapers of our own nature and destiny" (Paul 1990, 67). For Paul, and for some other Critical Thinking authors as well, part of the method of critical thinking involves fostering dialogue, in which thinking from the perspective of others is also relevant to the assessment of truth claims; a too-hasty imposition of one’s own

standards of evidence might result not only in a premature rejection of credible alternative points of view, but might also have the effect of silencing the voices of those who (in the present context) need to be encouraged as much as possible to speak for themselves. In this respect, we see Paul introducing into the very definition of critical thinking some of the sorts of social and contextual factors that Critical Pedagogy writers have emphasized.

Critical Pedagogy

The idea of Critical Pedagogy begins with the neo-Marxian literature on Critical Theory (Stanley 1992). The early Critical Theorists (most of whom were associated with the Frankfurt School) believed that Marxism had underemphasized the importance of cultural and media influences for the persistence of capitalism; that maintaining conditions of ideological hegemony were important for (in fact inseparable from) the legitimacy and smooth working of capitalist economic relations. One obvious example would be in the growth of advertising as both a spur to rising consumption and as a means of creating the image of industries driven only by a desire to serve the needs of their customers. As consumers, as workers, and as winners or losers in the marketplace of employment, citizens in a capitalist society need both to know their "rightful" place in the order of things and to be reconciled to that destiny. Systems of education are among the institutions that foster and reinforce such beliefs, through the rhetoric of meritocracy, through testing, through tracking, through vocational training or college preparatory curricula, and so forth (Bowles & Gintis 1976; Apple 1979; Popkewitz 1991).

Critical Pedagogy represents, in a phrase, the reaction of progressive educators against such institutionalized functions. It is an effort to work within educational institutions and other media to raise questions about inequalities of power, about the false myths of opportunity and merit for many students, and about the way belief systems become internalized to the point where individuals and groups abandon the very aspiration to question or change their lot in life. Some of the authors mostly strongly associated with this tradition include Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, and Ira Shor. In the language of Critical Pedagogy, the critical person is one who is empowered to seek justice, to seek emancipation. Not

only is the critical person adept at recognizing injustice but, for Critical Pedagogy, that person is also moved to change it. Here Critical Pedagogy wholeheartedly takes up Marx's Thesis XI on Feuerbach: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it" (Marx 1845/1977, 158).

This emphasis on change, and on collective action to achieve it, moves the central concerns of Critical Pedagogy rather far from those of Critical Thinking: the endeavor to teach others to think critically is less a matter of fostering individual skills and dispositions, and more a consequence of the pedagogical relations, between teachers and students and among students, which promote it; furthermore, the object of thinking critically is not only against demonstrably false beliefs, but also those that are misleading, partisan, or implicated in the preservation of an unjust status quo.

The author who has articulated these concerns most strongly is Paulo Freire, writing originally within the specific context of promoting adult literacy within Latin American peasant communities, but whose work has taken on an increasingly international interest and appeal in the past three decades (Freire 1970a, 1970b, 1973, 1985; McLaren & Lankshear 1993; McLaren & Leonard 1993). For Freire, Critical Pedagogy is concerned with the development of conscienticizao, usually translated as "critical consciousness." Freedom, for Freire, begins with the recognition of a system of oppressive relations, and one’s own place in that system. The task of Critical Pedagogy is to bring members of an oppressed group to a critical consciousness of their situation as a beginning point of their liberatory praxis. Change in consciousness and concrete action are linked for Freire; the greatest single barrier against the prospect of liberation is an ingrained, fatalistic belief in the inevitability and necessity of an unjust status quo.

One important way in which Giroux develops this idea is in his distinction between a "language of critique" and a "language of possibility" (Giroux 1983, 1988). As he stresses, both are essential to the pursuit of social justice. Giroux points to what he sees as the failure of the radical critics of the new sociology of education because, in his view, they offered a language of critique, but not a

language of possibility. They saw schools primarily as instruments for the reproduction of capitalist relations and for the legitimation of dominant ideologies, and thus were unable to construct a discourse for "counterhegemonic" practices in schools (Giroux 1988, 111-112). Giroux stresses the importance of developing a language of possibility as part of what makes a person critical. As he puts it, the aim of the critical educator should be "to raise ambitions, desires, and real hope for those who wish to take seriously the issue of educational struggle and social justice" (Giroux 1988, 177).

For both Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy, "criticality" requires that one be moved to do something, whether that something be seeking reasons or seeking social justice. For Critical Thinking, it is not enough to know how to seek reasons, truth, and understanding; one must also be impassioned to pursue them rigorously. For Critical Pedagogy, that one can critically reflect and interpret the world is not sufficient; one must also be willing and able to act to change that world. From the standpoint of Critical Pedagogy the Critical Thinking tradition assumes an overly direct connection between reasons and action. For instance, when Ennis conceives Critical Thinking as "reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or to do," the assumption is that "deciding" usually leads relatively unproblematically to the "doing" (Ennis 1987). The model of practical reasoning on which this view depends assumes a relatively straightforward relation, in most cases, between the force of reasons and action. But for Critical Pedagogy the problems of overcoming oppressed thinking and demoralization are more complex than this: changing thought and practice must occur together; they fuel one another. For Freire, criticality requires praxis — both reflection and action, both interpretation and change. As he puts it, "Critical consciousness is brought about not through intellectual effort alone but through praxis — through the authentic union of action and reflection" (Freire 1970a, 48).

Critical Pedagogy would never find it sufficient to reform the habits of thought of thinkers, however effectively, without challenging and transforming the institutions, ideologies, and relations that engender distorted, oppressed thinking in the first place — not as an additional act beyond the pedagogical one, but as an inseparable

part of it. For Critical Thinking, at most, the development of more discerning thinkers might make them more likely to undermine discreditable institutions, to challenge misleading authorities, and so on — but this would be a separate consequence of the attainment of Critical Thinking, not part of it.

A second central theme in Freire’s work, which has fundamentally shaped the Critical Pedagogy tradition, is his particular focus on "literacy." At the ground level, what motivated Freire’s original work was the attempt to develop an adult literacy program, one in which developing the capacity to read was tied into developing an enhanced sense of individual and collective self-esteem and confidence. To be illiterate, for Freire, was not only to lack the skills of reading and writing; it was to feel powerless and dependent in a much more general way as well. The challenge to an adult literacy campaign was not only to provide skills, but to address directly the self-contempt and sense of powerlessness that he believed accompanied illiteracy (Freire 1970b). Hence his approach to fostering literacy combined the development of basic skills in reading and writing; the development of a sense of confidence and efficacy, especially in collective thought and action; and the desire to change, not only one’s self, but the circumstances of one’s social group. The pedagogical method that he thinks promote all of these is dialogue: "cultural action for freedom is characterized by dialogue, and its preeminent purpose is to conscientize the people" (Freire 1970a, 47).

Richard Paul says similarly that "dialogical thinking" is inherent to Critical Thinking (Paul 1990). However, there is more of a social emphasis to dialogue within Critical Pedagogy: dialogue occurs between people, not purely as a form of dialogical thought. Here again Critical Pedagogy focuses more upon institutional settings and relations between individuals, where Critical Thinking’s focus is more on the individuals themselves. In other words, dialogue directly involves others, while one person’s development of "dialogical thinking" may only indirectly involve others. Yet the work of Vygotsky and others would argue that the development of such capacities for individuals necessarily involves social interactions as well. Paul addresses this point, but it does not play the central role in his theory that it does for Freire and other

Critical Pedagogues — still, Paul appears to us to be somewhat of a transitional figure between these two traditions.

The method of Critical Pedagogy for Freire involves, to use his phrase, "reading the world" as well as "reading the word" (Freire & Macedo 1987). Part of developing a critical consciousness, as noted above, is critiquing the social relations, social institutions, and social traditions that create and maintain conditions of oppression. For Freire, the teaching of literacy is a primary form of cultural action, and as action it must "relate speaking the word to transforming reality" (Freire 1970a, 4). To do this, Freire uses what he calls codifications: representative images that both "illustrate" the words or phrases students are learning to read, and also represent problematic social conditions that become the focus of collective dialogue (and, eventually, the object of strategies for potential change). The process of decodification is a kind of "reading" — a "reading" of social dynamics, of forces of reaction or change, of why the world is as it is, and how it might be made different. Decodification is the attempt to "read the world" with the same kind of perspicacity with which one is learning to "read the word."

In this important regard, Critical Pedagogy shares with Critical Thinking the idea that there is something real about which they can raise the consciousness of people. Both traditions believe that there is something given, against which mistaken beliefs and distorted perceptions can be tested. In both, there is a drive to bring people to recognize "the way things are" (Freire 1970a, 17). In different words, Critical Pedagogy and Critical Thinking arise from the same sentiment to overcome ignorance, to test the distorted against the true, to ground effective human action in an accurate sense of social reality. Of course, how each movement talks about "the way things are" is quite different. For Critical Thinking, this is about empirically demonstrable facts. For Critical Pedagogy, on the other hand, this is about the intersubjective attempt to formulate and agree upon a common understanding about "structures of oppression" and "relations of domination." As we have discussed, there is more to this process than simply determining the "facts"; but, in the end, for Freire as for any other Marxist tradition, this intersubjective process is thought to be grounded in a set of objective conditions.

Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy

In the discussion so far, we have tried to emphasize some relations and contrasts between the Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy traditions. To the extent that they have addressed one another, the commentary has often been antagonistic:

The most powerful, yet limited, definition of critical thinking comes out of the positivist tradition in the applied sciences and suffers from what I call the Internal Consistency position. According to the adherents of the Internal Consistency position, critical thinking refers primarily to teaching students how to analyze and develop reading and writing assignments from the perspective of formal, logical patterns of consistency....While all of the learning skills are important, their limitations as a whole lie in what is excluded, and it is with respect to what is missing that the ideology of such an approach is revealed (Giroux 1994, 200-201).

Although I hesitate to dignify Henry Giroux’s article on citizenship with a reply, I find it hard to contain myself. The article shows respect neither for logic nor for the English language....Giroux’s own bombastic, jargon-ridden rhetoric...is elitist in the worst sense: it is designed to erect a barrier between the author and any reader not already a member of the "critical" cult (Schrag 1988, 143).

There are other, more constructive engagements, however. Certain authors within each tradition have seriously tried to engage the concerns of the other — although, interestingly, the purpose of such investigations has usually been to demonstrate that all of the truly beneficial qualities of the other tradition can be reconciled with the best of one’s own, without any of the purported drawbacks:

It should be clear that my aim is not to discredit the ideal of critical thinking. Rather, I question whether the practices of teaching critical thinking...as it has evolved

into the practice of teaching informal logic issufficient for actualizing the ideal. I have argued that it is not sufficient, if "critical thinking" includes the ability to decode the political nature of events and institutions, and if it includes the ability to envision alternative events and institutions (Kaplan 1991/1994, 217, emphasis added).

Postmodernism, or any other perspective which seriously endorses radical or progressive social and educational change, requires an epistemology which endorses truth and justification as viable theoretical notions. That is to say: Postmodern advocacy of radical pedagogies (and politics) requires Old-Fashioned Epistemology (Siegel 1993, 22).

From the perspective of Critical Thinking, Critical Pedagogy crosses a threshold between teaching criticality and indoctrinating. Teaching students to think critically must include allowing them to come to their own conclusions; yet Critical Pedagogy seems to come dangerously close to prejudging what those conclusions must be. Critical Pedagogy see this threshold problem conversely: indoctrination is the case already; students must be brought to criticality, and this can only be done by alerting them to the social conditions that have brought this about. In short, we can restate the problem as follows: Critical Thinking’s claim is, at heart, to teach how to think critically, not how to think politically; for Critical Pedagogy, this is a false distinction.

For Critical Pedagogy, as we have discussed, self-emancipation is contingent upon social emancipation. It is not only a difference between an emphasis on the individual and an emphasis on society as a whole; both Critical Pedagogy and Critical Thinking want "criticality" in both senses (Missimer 1989/1994; Hostetler 1991/1994). It is rather that, for Critical Pedagogy, individual criticality is intimately linked to social criticality, joining, in Giroux’s phrase, "the conditions for social, and hence, self-emancipation" (Giroux 1988, 110). For Critical Thinking, the attainment of individual critical thinking may, with success for enough people, lead to an increase in critical thinking socially, but it does not depend upon it.

These traditions also explicitly differ from one another in the different problems and contexts they regard as issues. Critical Thinking assumes no set agenda of issues that must be addressed. To try to bring someone to criticality necessarily precludes identifying any fixed set of questions about particular social, moral, political, economic, and cultural issues, let alone a fixed set of answers. As already noted, this is not to say that those involved in the Critical Thinking movement do not think that social justice is an important issue; nor to say that people such as Ennis, Paul, and Siegel do not wish to see those sorts of issues addressed — in fact, they occasionally assert quite explicitly that they do. It is rather that, as Critical Thinking understands criticality, "impartiality" is a key virtue. They strive not to push their students along certain lines, nor to impose certain values (the fact/value distinction is a central thesis of the analytical tradition that informs much of Critical Thinking). Socially relevant cases might be pedagogically beneficial as the "raw material" on which to practice the skills and dispositions of Critical Thinking, because they are salient for many learners in a classroom. But they are not intrinsically important to Critical Thinking itself; in many cases purely symbolic cases could be used to teach the same elements (as in the use of symbols or empty X’s and Y’s to teach logic).

Hence, Critical Thinking tends to address issues in an item-by-item fashion, not within a grand scheme with other issues. The issues themselves may have relations to one another, and they may have connections to broader themes, but those relations and connections are not the focus of investigation. What is crucial to the issue at hand is the interplay of an immediate cluster of evidence, reasons, and arguments. For Critical Thinking, what is important is to describe the issue, give the various reasons for and against, and draw out any assumptions (and only those) that have immediate and direct bearing on the argument. This tends to produce a more analytical and less wholistic mode of critique.

When Critical Pedagogy talks about power and the way in which it structures social relations, it inevitably draws from a context, a larger narrative, within which these issues are framed; and typically sees it as part of the artificiality and abstractness of Critical Thinking that it does not treat such matters as central. Critical Pedagogy looks to how an issue relates to "deeper"

explanations — deeper in the sense that they refer to the basic functioning of power on institutional and societal levels. For Critical Pedagogy, it makes no sense to talk about issues on a nonrelational, item-by-item basis. Where Critical Thinking emphasizes the immediate reasons and assumptions of an argument, Critical Pedagogy wants to draw in for consideration factors that may appear at first of less immediate relevance.

We do not want to imply merely that Critical Pedagogy wants people to get the "big picture" whereas Critical Thinking does not. Oftentimes, their "big pictures" are simply going to be different. The important point is why they are different, and the difference resides in the fact that whereas Critical Thinking is quite reluctant to prescribe any particular context for a discussion, Critical Pedagogy shows enthusiasm for a particular one — one that tends to view social matters within a framework of struggles over social justice, the workings of capitalism, and forms of cultural and material oppression. As noted, this favoring of a particular narrative seems to open Critical Pedagogy up to a charge of indoctrination by Critical Thinking: that everything is up for questioning within Critical Pedagogy except the categories and premises of Critical Pedagogy itself. But the Critical Pedagogue’s counter to this is that Critical Thinking’s apparent "openness" and impartiality simply enshrine many conventional assumptions as presented by the popular media, traditional textbooks, etc., in a manner that intentionally or not teaches political conformity; particular claims are scrutinized critically, while a less visible set of social norms and practices — including, notably, many particular to the structure and activities of schooling itself — continue to operate invisibly in the background.

In short, each of these traditions regards the other as insufficiently critical; each defines, in terms of its own discourse and priorities, key elements that it believes the other neglects to address. Each wants to acknowledge a certain value in the goals the other aspires to, but argues that its means are inadequate to attain them. What is most interesting, from our standpoint, is not which of these traditions is "better," but the fascinating way in which each wants to claim sovereignty over the other; each claiming to include all the truly beneficial insights of the other, and yet more — and, as we will see, how each has been subject to

criticisms that may make them appear more as related rivals than as polar opposites.

Criticisms of Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy

It will not have been lost on many readers that when we listed the prime authors in both the Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy traditions, all listed were male. There are certainly significant women writing within each tradition, but the chief spokespersons, and the most visible figures in the debates between these traditions, have been men. Not surprisingly, then, both traditions have been subject to criticisms, often from feminists, that their ostensibly universal categories and issues in fact exclude the voices and concerns of women and other groups.

In the case of Critical Thinking, as noted earlier, this has typically taken the form of an attack on the "rationalistic" underpinnings of its epistemology: that its logic is different from "women’s logic," that its reliance on empirical evidence excludes other sources of evidence or forms of verification (experience, emotion, feeling) — in short, that its masculinist way of knowing is different from "women’s ways of knowing" (for example, Belenky et al. 1986; Thayer-Bacon 1993). Other arguments do not denigrate the concerns of Critical Thinking entirely, but simply want to relegate them to part of what we want to accomplish educationally (Arnstine 1991; Garrison & Phelan 1990; Noddings 1984; Warren 1994). Often these criticisms, posed by women with distinctive feminist concerns in mind, also bring in a concern with Critical Thinking’s exclusion or neglect of ways of thought of other racial or ethnic groups as well — though the problems of "essentializing" such groups, as if they "naturally" thought differently from white men, has made some advocates cautious about overgeneralizing these concerns.

Critical Pedagogy has been subject to similar, and occasionally identical, criticisms. Claims that Critical Pedagogy is "rationalistic," that its purported reliance on "open dialogue" in fact masks a closed and paternal conversation, that it excludes issues and voices that other groups bring to educational encounters, have been asserted with some force (Ellsworth 1989; Gore 1993). In this case, the sting of irony is especially strong. After all, advocates of Critical

Thinking would hardly feel the accusation of being called "rationalistic" as much of an insult; but for Critical Pedagogy, given its discourse of emancipation, to be accused of being yet another medium of oppression is a sharp rebuke.

Are these criticisms justified? Certainly the advocates of these traditions have tried to defend themselves against the accusation of being "exclusionary" (Siegel 1996; Giroux 1992c). The arguments have been long and vigorous, and we cannot recount them all here. But without dodging the matter of taking sides, we would like to suggest a different way of looking at the issue: Why is it that significant audiences see themselves as excluded from each of these traditions? Are they simply misled; are they ignorant or ill-willed; are they unwilling to listen to or accept the reasonable case that advocates of Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy put forth in response to their objections — or is the very existence of disenfranchised and alienated audiences a reason for concern, a sign that Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy do not, and perhaps cannot, achieve the sort of breadth, inclusiveness, and universal liberation they each, in their own way, promise? We find it impossible to avoid such a conclusion: that if the continued and well-intended defense and rearticulation of the reasons for a Critical Thinking or a Critical Pedagogy approach cannot themselves succeed in persuading those who are skeptical toward them, then this is prima facie evidence that something stands beyond them — that their aspirations toward a universal liberation, whether a liberation of the intellect first and foremost, or a liberation of a political consciousness and praxis, patently do not touch all of the felt concerns and needs of certain audiences, and that a renewed call for "more of the same," as if this might eventually win others over, simply pushes such audiences further away.

For this reason and others we do not want to see an "erasure" of Critical Thinking by Critical Pedagogy, or vice versa. Though each, from its own perspective, claims sovereignty over the other, and purports to have the more encompassing view, we prefer to regard the tension between them as beneficial. If one values a "critical" perspective at all, then part of that should entail critique from the most challenging points of view. Critical Thinking needs to be questioned from the standpoint of social accountability; it needs to

be asked what difference it makes to people’s real lives; it needs to be challenged when it becomes overly artificial and abstract; and it needs to be interrogated about the social and institutional features that promote or inhibit the "critical spirit," for if such dispositions are central to Critical Thinking, then the conditions that suppress them cannot be altered or influenced by the teaching of epistemological rigor alone (Burbules 1992, 1995).

At the same time, Critical Pedagogy needs to be questioned from the standpoint of Critical Thinking: about what its implicit standards of truth and evidence are; about the extent to which inquiry, whether individual or collective, should be unbounded by particular political presuppositions; about how far it is and is not willing to go in seeing learners question the authority of their teachers (when the teachers are advocating the correct "critical" positions); about how open-ended and decentered the process of dialogue actually is — or whether it is simply a more egalitarian and humane way of steering students toward certain foregone conclusions.

And finally, both of these traditions need to be challenged by perspectives that can plausibly claim that other voices and concerns are not addressed by their promises. Claims of universalism are especially suspect in a world of increasingly self-conscious diversity; and whether or not one adopts the full range of "postmodern" criticisms of rationality and modernity, it cannot be denied that these are criticisms that must be met, not pushed off by simply reasserting the promise and hope that "you may not be included or feel included yet, but our theoretical categories and assumptions can indeed accommodate you without fundamental modification." The responses to such a defense are easily predictable, and understandable.

One of the most useful critical angles toward both the Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy traditions has been a poststructural examination of how they exist within a historical context as discursive systems with particular social effects (Cherryholmes 1988: Gore 1993). The contemporary challenge to "metanarratives" is sometimes misunderstood as a simple rejection of any theory at all, a total rejection on anti-epistemological grounds; but this is not the key point. The challenge of such criticisms is to examine the

effects of metanarratives as ways of framing the world; in this case, how claims of universality, or impartiality, or inclusiveness, or objectivity, variously characterize different positions within the Critical Thinking or Critical Pedagogy schools of thought. Their very claims to sovereignty, one might say, are more revealing about them (and from this perspective makes them more deeply akin) than any particular positions or claims they put forth. It is partly for this reason that we welcome their unreconciled disputes; it reminds us of something important about their limitations.

Here, gradually, we have tried to introduce a different way of thinking about criticality, one that stands outside the traditions of Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy, without taking sides between them, but regarding each as having a range of benefit and a range of limitation. The very tension between them teaches us something, in a way that eliminating either or seeing one gain hegemony would ultimately dissolve. Important feminist, multiculturalist, and generally postmodernist rejections of both Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy, which we have only been able to sketch here, are of more recent provenance in educational discourse — but about them we would say the same. There is something about the preservation of such sustained differences that yields new insights, something that is lost when the tension is erased by one perspective gaining (or claiming) dominance. But the tension is also erased by the pursuit of a liberal "compromise"; or by the dream of an Hegelian "synthesis" that can reconcile the opposites; or by a Deweyan attempt to show that the apparent dichotomy is not real; or by a presumption of incommensurability that makes the sides decide it is no longer worth engaging one another. All of these are ways of making the agonistic engagement go away. We prefer to think in terms of a criticality that is procedural: What are the conditions that give rise to critical thinking, that promote a sharp reflection on one’s own presuppositions, that allow for a fresh rethinking of the conventional, that fosterthinking in new ways?

Toward an Alternate Criticality

The starting point of this alternative is reflecting upon criticality as a practice — what is involved in actually thinking critically, what are the conditions that tend to foster such thinking, and so on. Here

we can only draw the outlines of some of these elements, each of which merits extended discussion.

First, criticality does involve certain abilities and skills, including but not limited to the skills of Critical Thinking. These skills have a definite domain of usefulness, but learning them should include not only an appreciation for what they can do, but an appreciation for what they cannot do. For example, methods of analysis, across different disciplines from the scientific to the philosophic, involve removing the object of study from its usual context in order (1) to focus study upon it and it only and (2) to be able to parse it into component elements. This is true of all sorts of analysis, whether the analysis of an organism, a chemical analysis, or an analysis of a concept. There is value to doing this, but also a limit, since removing a thing from its usual context changes it by eliminating the network of relations that give rise to it, interact with it, and partly define it. If any amount of wholism is true, then such decontextualizing and/or dissecting into components loses something of the original.

In addition to these logical and analytical skills, we would emphasize that criticality also involves the ability to think outside a framework of conventional understandings; it means to think anew, to think differently. This view of criticality goes far beyond the preoccupation with not being deceived. There might be worse things than being mistaken; there may be greater dangers in being only trivially or banally "true." Ignorance is one kind of impotence; an inability or unwillingness to move beyond or question conventional understandings is another. This is a point that links in some respects with Freire’s desire to move beyond an "intransitive consciousness," and with Giroux’s call for a "language of possibility." But even in these cases there is a givenness to what a "critical" understanding should look like that threatens to become its own kind of constraint. Freire’s metaphor for learning to read is "decodification," a revealing word because it implies a fixed relation of symbol to meaning and reveals an assumption usually latent within Critical Pedagogy: that the purpose of critical thinking is to discern a world, a real world of relations, structures, and social dynamics, that has been obscured by the distortions of ideology. Learning to "decode" means to find the actual, hidden meaning of things. It is a revealing choice of words, as opposed to,

say, "interpretation," which also suggests finding a meaning, but which could also mean creating a meaning, or seeking out several alternative meanings. This latter view could not assume that "critical" literacy and dialogue would necessarily converge on any single understanding of the world. Yet it is a crucial aspect of Critical Pedagogy that dialogue does converge upon a set of understandings tied to a capacity to act toward social change — and social change of a particular type. Multiple, unreconciled interpretations, by contrast, might yield other sorts of benefits — those of fecundity and variety over those of solidarity.

Much more needs to be said about how it is possible to think anew, to think otherwise. But what we wish to stress here is that this is a kind of criticality, too, a breaking away from convention and cant. Part of what is necessary for this to happen is an openness to, and a comfort with, thinking in the midst of deeply challenging alternatives. One obvious condition here is that such alternatives exist and that they be engaged with sufficient respect to be considered imaginatively — even when (especially when) they do not fit in neatly with the categories with which one is familiar. This is why, as noted earlier, the tensions between radically conflicting views are themselves valuable; and why the etic perspective is as potentially informative as the emic. Difference is a condition of criticality, when it is encountered in a context that allows for translations or communication across differences; when it is taken seriously, and not distanced as exotic or quaint; and when one does not use the excuse of "incommensurability" as a reason to abandon dialogue (Burbules & Rice 1991; Burbules 1993, forthcoming).

Rather than the simple epistemic view of "ideology" as distortion or misrepresentation, we find it useful here to reflect on Douglas Kellner’s discussion of the "life cycle" of an ideology (Kellner 1978). An ideology is not a simple proposition, or even a set of propositions, whose truth value can be tested against the world. Ideologies have the appeal and persistence that they do because they actually do account for a set of social experiences and concerns. No thorough approach to ideology-critique should deny the very real appeal that ideologies hold for people — an appeal that is as much affective as cognitive. To deny that appeal is to adopt a very simplistic view of human naiveté, and to assume that it will be easier to displace ideologies than it actually is. Both the

Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy traditions often make this mistake, we believe. As Kellner puts it, ideologies often have an original appeal as an "ism," as a radically new, fresh, challenging perspective on social and political concerns. Over time, the selfsame ideologies become "hegemonic," not because they change, but because circumstances change while the ideology becomes more and more concerned with its own preservation. What causes this decline into reification and stasis is precisely the absence of reflexiveness within ideological thought, the inability to recognize its own origins and limitations, and the lack of opportunities for thinking differently. In the sense we are discussing it here, criticality is the opposite of the hegemonic.

This argument suggests, then, that one important aspect of criticality is an ability to reflect on one’s own views and assumptions as themselves features of a particular cultural and historical formation. Such a reflection does not automatically lead to relativism or a conclusion that all views are equally valid; but it does make it more difficult to imagine universality or finality for any particular set of views. Most important, it regards one’s views as perpetually open to challenge, as choices entailing a responsibility toward the effects of one’s arguments on others. This sort of critical reflection is quite difficult to exercise entirely on one’s own; we are enabled to do it through our conversations with others, especially others not like us. Almost by definition, it is difficult to see the limitations and lacunae in our own understandings; hence maintaining both the social conditions in which such conversations can occur (conditions of plurality, tolerance, and respect) as well as the personal and interpersonal capacities, and willingness, to engage in such conversations, becomes a central dimension of criticality — it is not simply a matter of individual abilities or dispositions. The Critical Pedagogy tradition has stressed some of these same concerns.

Yet at a still deeper level, the work of Jacques Derrida, Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, and others, challenges us with a further aspect of criticality: the ability to question and doubt even our own presuppositions — the ones without which we literally do not know how to think and act (Burbules 1995). This seemingly paradoxical sort of questioning is often part of the process by which radically new thinking begins: by an aporia; by a doubt that we do not know

(yet) how to move beyond; by imagining what it might mean to think without some of the very things that make our (current) thinking meaningful. Here, we have moved into a sense of criticality well beyond the categories of both Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy; to the extent that these traditions of thought and practice have become programmatic, become "movements" of a sort, they may be less able — and less motivated — to pull up their own roots for examination. Their very success as influential areas of scholarship and teaching seems to have required a certain insistence about particular ways of thinking and acting. Can a deeper criticality be maintained under such circumstances? Or is it threatened by the desire to win over converts?

The perspective of viewing criticality as a practice helps us to see that criticality is a way of being as well as a way of thinking, a relation to others as well as an intellectual capacity. To take one concrete instance, the critical thinker must relish, or at least tolerate, the sense of moving against the grain of convention — this isn’t separate from criticality or a "motivation" for it; it is part of what it means to be critical, and not everyone (even those who can master certain logical or analytical skills) can or will occupy that position. To take another example, in order for fallibilism to mean anything, a person must be willing to admit to being wrong. We know that some people possess this virtue and others do not; we also know that certain circumstances and relations encourage the exercise of such virtues and others do not. Once we unravel these mysteries, we will see that fostering such virtues will involve much more than Critical Thinking instruction typically imagines. Here Critical Pedagogy may be closer to the position we are proposing, as it begins with the premise of social context, the barriers that inhibit critical thought, and the need to learn through activity.

Furthermore, as soon as one starts examining just what the conditions of criticality are, it becomes readily apparent that it is not a purely individual trait. It may involve some individual virtues, but only as they are formed, expressed, and influenced in actual social circumstances. Institutions and social relations may foster criticality or suppress it. Because criticality is a function of collective questioning, criticism, and creativity, it is always social in character, partly because relations to others influence the individual, and partly because certain of these activities

(particularly thinking in new ways) arise from an interaction with challenging alternative views (Burbules 1993).

These conditions, then, of personal character, of challenging and supportive social relations, of communicative opportunities, of contexts of difference that present us with the possibility of thinking otherwise, are interdependent circumstances. They are the conditions that allow the development and exercise of criticality as we have sketched it in this essay. They are, of course, educational conditions. Criticality is a practice, a mark of what we do, of who we are, and not only how we think. Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy, and their feminist, multiculturalist, and postmodern critics, apprehend parts of this conception of criticality. Yet, we find, the deepest insights into understanding what criticality is come from the unreconciled tensions amongst them — because it is in remaining open to such challenges without seeking to dissipate them that criticality reveals its value as a way of life.

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Garrison, James W. and Phelan, Anne M. (1990). "Toward a feminist poetic of critical thinking." Philosophy of Education 1989, Ralph Page, ed. (Normal, IL: Philosophy of Education Society).

Giroux, Henry A. (1983). Theory and Resistance in Education (South Hadley, MA: Bergin Garvey).

Giroux, Henry A. (1988). Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Learning (South Hadley, MA: Bergin Garvey, 1988).

Giroux, Henry A. (1992a). Border Crossings (New York: Routledge).

Giroux, Henry A. (1992b). "The Habermasian headache: A response to Dieter Misgeld." Phenomenology + Pedagogy, vol. 10: 143-149.

Giroux, Henry A. (1992c). "Resisting difference: Cultural studies and the discourse of critical pedagogy." Cultural Studies, Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler, eds. (New York: Routledge), 199-212.

Giroux, Henry A. (1994). "Toward a pedagogy of critical thinking." Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press), 200-201.

Giroux, Henry A. and McLaren, Peter (1994). Between Borders (New York, Routledge).

Gore, Jennifer M. (1993). The Struggle for Pedagogies (New York, Routledge).

Hostetler, Karl (1991/1994). "Community and neutrality in critical thought." Educational Theory, vol. 41 no. 1: 1-12. Republished in Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press), 135-154.

Kaplan, Laura Duhan (1991/1994). "Teaching intellectual autonomy: The failure of the critical thinking movement." Educational Theory, vol. 41 no. 4: 361-370. Republished in Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press).

Kellner, Douglas. (1978). "Ideology, Marxism, and advanced capitalism." Socialist Review, no. 42: 37-65.

Lakatos, Imre (1970). "Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes." Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., (NY: Cambridge University Press), 91-196.

Marx, Karl (1845/1977), "Theses on Feuerbach." Karl Marx: Selected Writings, David McLellan, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press), 158.

McLaren, Peter and Hammer, Rhonda (1989). "Critical pedagogy and the postmodern challenge." Educational Foundations, vol. 3 no. 3: 29-62.

McLaren, Peter and Lankshear, Colin (1993). Politics of Liberation: Paths from Freire (New York: Routledge).

McLaren, Peter and Leonard, Peter (1993). Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter (New York: Routledge).

Misgeld, Dieter (1992). "Pedagogy and politics: Some critical reflections on the postmodern turn in critical pedagogy." Phenomenology + Pedagogy, vol. 10: 125-142.

Missimer, Connie (1989/1994). "Why two heads are better than one." Philosophy of Education 1988 James M. Giarelli, ed. (Normal, IL: Philosophy of Education Society), 388-402. Republished in Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press), 119-133.

Noddings, Nel (1984). Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press).

Norris, Stephen P. (1992). The Generalizability of Critical Thinking (New York: Teachers College Press).

Norris, Stephen P. (1995). "Sustaining and responding to charges of bias in critical thinking." Educational Theory, vol. 45 no. 2: 199-211.

Paul, Richard (1983). "An agenda item for the informal logic / critical thinking movement." Informal Logic Newsletter, vol. 5 no. 2: 23.

Paul, Richard (1990). Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World (Rohnert Park, CA: Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Critique).

Paul, Richard (1994). "Teaching critical thinking in the strong sense." Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press), 181-198.

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Introduction to Critical PedagogyCritical pedagogy is a teaching approach inspired by Marxist critical theory and other radical philosophies,

which attempts to help students question and challenge posited "domination," and to undermine the beliefs and

practices that are alleged to dominate. In other words, it is a theory and practice of helping students achieve

"critical consciousness."

In practical terms, the goal of critical pedagogy is to challenge conservative, right-wing and traditionalist

philosophies and politics.[1] Critical pedagogy developed in the 1960s and '70s as a reaction amongst

academics of an activist, radical left-wing inclination to the repeated failure of socialist governments around the

world to deliver on their promises of economic equality.[1] Critical pedagogic educator Ira Shor defines critical

pedagogy as:

Contents

  [hide]

1     Topics Introduced   

o 1.1      Generalized Examples   

2     Results   

o 2.1      Call to Action   

3     Examples   

o 3.1      History   

o 3.2      Literature   

o 3.3      Famous quotes   

o 3.4      Movies   

o 3.5      Music   

o 3.6      Other media   

4     Critiques of Critical Pedagogy   

5     References   

6     See also   

7     External links   

Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions,

dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional cliches, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to

understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action,

event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse.

(Empowering Education, 129)

In this tradition the teacher works to lead students to question ideologies and practices considered oppressive

(including those at school), and encourage "liberatory" collective and individual responses to the actual

conditions of their own lives.

The student often begins as a member of the group or process he or she is critically studying (e.g., religion,

national identity, cultural norms, or expected roles). After the student begins to view present society as deeply

problematic, the next behavior encouraged is sharing this knowledge, paired with an attempt to change the

perceived oppression of the society. A good picture of this development from social member to dissident to

radical teacher/learner is offered in both Paulo Freire's book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and bell hooks'

book Teaching to Transgress. An earlier propenent of a more active classroom, where students direct the

epistemological method as well as the actual object(s) of inquiry is the late Neil Postman. In his Teaching as a

Subversive Activity, Postman suggests creating a class where students themselves are entirely in control of the

syllabus, class activities, and grading.

Topics Introduced[edit]

To help encourage students to change their view from accepting the social norms (viewed by critics as being

gullible) into being independently critical (viewed by mainstream society as being cynical) the instructors often

introduce challenges to heroic icons and self-edifying history using contradictory reports or external points of

view of the same subjects.

Generalized Examples[edit]

To encourage students to become critical the instructor might use these tasks to challenge the generally

accepted paradigm of the student's society:

Prompt the student to investigate a war that his or her society has waged and considered just and critically

evaluate if it meets the criteria of a just war.

Encourage students to explore issues of power in their own families.

To lead students to examine the underlying messages of popular culture and mass media.

Require the evaluation of existing controversies in contemporary society, such as the relative merits of

U.S. government spending on atomic weapons versus international health programs.

Ask whether the metaphoric emperor is, in fact, clothed.

Real-world examples of concepts often introduced to generate critical thinking:

A challenge to the reverential mythology around Christopher Columbus and leading students to investigate

primary sources by and about the historical figure. One might possibly suggest sources such as the Black

Legend, or other sources that cast more disconcerting views on the legacy of his efforts.

Results[edit]

Template:Unreferenced A prevalent result of critical pedagogy is that students view certain aspects of their

lifestyles, nation, or culture critically for the first time.

As an example, someone who follows this means of learning about the United States culture may develop a

view that most people in Western society are sleepwalking through a banal existence of consumption,

obedience, and propaganda, and that they need to be awakened.

Call to Action[edit]

Most instructors of critical pedagogy encourage students who have reached the cognitive state perceived as

"enlightened" to share their knowledge in an attempt to reveal perceived failings of society with the goal of

fostering what critical pedagogy regards as positive change. Other critical pedagogues, however, are

suspicious of the claims encountered in certain modernist emancipatory discourses. Rather than seeking to

'enlighten' the 'gullible,' these instructors explore concepts of identity, history, desire, etc. with learners, and any

subsequent calls to action are made by learners.

Examples[edit]

History[edit]

During South African apartheid, legal racialization implemented by the regime drove members of the radical

leftist Teachers' League of South Africa to employ critical pedagogy with a focus on nonracialism in Cape Town

schools and prisons. Teachers collaborated loosely to subvert the racist curriculum and encourage critical

examination of political and social circumstances in terms of humanist and democratic ideologies. The efforts of

such teachers are credited with having bolstered student resistance and activism.[2]

Literature[edit]

Famous authors of critical pedagogy texts include Paulo Freire, Rich Gibson, Michael Apple, Henry

Giroux, Peter McLaren, Joe L. Kincheloe, Howard Zinn, and others. Famous educationalists including Jonathan

Kozol and Parker Palmer are sometimes included in this category. Other critical pedagogues more famous for

their anti-schooling, unschooling, or deschooling perspectives include Ivan Illich, John Holt, Ira Shor, John

Taylor Gatto, and Matt Hern. Much of the work draws on feminism, marxism, Lukacs, Wilhelm Reich, post-

colonialism, and the discourse theories ofEdward Said, Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault. Radical

Teacher is a magazine dedicated to critical pedagogy and issues of interest to critical educators. The Rouge

Forum is an online organization led by people involved with critical pedagogy.

Famous quotes[edit]

Do not follow a life of evil; do not live heedlessly; do not have false views; do not value worldly things.

In this way one can get rid of suffering.

— Buddha, Dhammapada, Loka Vagga, verse 167

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

— Jesus, Bible, Gospel of Matthew chapter 16, verse 26

I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I've been

knocking from inside!

— Jelaluddin Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks

Movies[edit]

A number of motion pictures have been used as case studies or object lessons in critical

pedagogy, but this does not necessarily imply that the writers and directors of these films endorse

radical left-wing politics, or that the films are necessarily allegorical.

In the movie The Matrix, the setting is an artificial construction of oppression that instills

complacency in its captives through a form of virtual reality, much like the World Wide Web

you are currently immersed in. The movie's initial conflict sees the protagonist Neo coming to

grips with this truth by suspending belief of the reality he has accepted as unquestionable.

In John Carpenter's "They Live" special sunglasses help the protagonist see the hidden

messages that lull the population to sleep and seduce them to obedience. These special

sunglasses are regarded by someTemplate:Who? as a visual metaphor for critical

consciousness. But this sort of consciousness is disturbing, and the protagonist has to fight

to get someone else to put the glasses on.

In the biographical film Stand and Deliver Jaime Escalante challenges urban students to

excel at math.

Dead Poets Society , a Peter Weir film, is set in a 1950's American prep school. Teacher

John Keating encourages students to think freely, challenge social norms and "seize the

day."

In the movie "Accepted", when faced with cultural and parental pressures to attend college, a

group of non-admitted recent high school graduates creates a fictitious college. Obstensibly

a teen comedy, accepted is said by someTemplate:Who? to exemplify Freire's notion of

critical pedagogy by showcasing the learning that takes place when students are confronted

with the question "What do you want to learn?" while they are exhorted by an iconoclast

academic to question various societal assumptions.

Music[edit]

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.

— Paul Simon, Kodachrome

We don't need no education, We don't need no thought-control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom -

Teacher, leave those kids alone! All in all, you're just another brick in the wall.

— Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall part 2

Interestingly though, all the surviving pupils who took part in the Pink

Floyd recording collectively agree they would not now support as radical a

position as the sentiments expressed by the composers in this song. [1]

The teacher stands in front of the class, but the lesson plan he can't recall. The student's eyes don't

perceive the lies bouncing off every fucking wall. His composure is well kept, I guess he fears playing

the fool. The complacent students sit and listen to some of that bullshit that he learned in school.

— Zack de la Rocha, Rage Against the Machine, Take the Power Back

These are a few examples of musical artists who have explored the

world of critical pedagogy. Artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Joan

Baez, Public Enemy, System of a Down, Propagandhi, The

Beatles,dead prez, the coup and Eminem have been viewed as

raising critical consciousness and challenging authority through some

of their works.

Other media[edit]

Critical pedagogy is used throughout Grant Morrison's comic

book The Invisibles. It is a major theme and plot device through out

the series, particularly in the first few issues and the final series.

Also, the book intended for adolescents, "The Giver" by Lois Lowry,

depicts an apparently utopian society that is gradually revealed as

dystopic. Jonas, the story's protagonist, becomes the "Receiver of

Memory" and undergoes a process that someTemplate:Who? argue

is comparable to the development of critical consciousness. Despite

the criticisms of various conservative groups who cite that the ideas in

the book are inappropriate for children, the book is still included on

the middle school reading lists of many school districts.

Critiques of Critical Pedagogy[edit]

Critical pedagogy has its critics. They attack the methodology, the

goal, and appearances. Below are some contrary views.

Teachers that use this method will often bias the class towards

an anti-status quo position instead of allowing students to decide

if they agree or disagree with the situation at hand [ref?].

This approach to understanding the nature of society is often

presented in a very intellectual fashion. When an individual

attains the interest to find out the validity of the statements they

inherently must consider themselves separate from the rest of

society. Critics will describe such a self-image as being elitist in a

way which excludes the bulk of society thus preventing progress

[ref?].

The goal exceeds the desire to instill creativity and exploration by

encouraging detrimental disdain for tradition, hierarchy (such as

parental control over children), and self-isolation [ref?].

Such a high degree of distrust in generally accepted truths will

create or perpetuate conspiracy theories [ref?].

Critical pedagogists selectively pick icons to interrogate and

subvert: for example, Thomas Jefferson but not Martin Luther

King [ref?].

Many people involved in critical pedagogy have never been

involved in serious struggles and have used the field to build

themselves and a small publishing cabal rather than a social

movement. Paulo Friere, for example, can be criticized for being

for revolution wherever he was not, and for reform wherever he

was [ref?].

Critical pedagogy is, in many instances, a movement in

opposition to revolutionary or marxist movements as easily seen

in its roots in Catholic base communities of Latin America,

created to stave off the potential of class war. Much of critical

pedagogy focuses on culture, language, and abstractions about

domination rather than criticizing the centrality of class,

alienation, and exploitation [ref?].

Rather than "liberating" student thought, teachers replace a

cultural bias with their own bias [ref?].

References[edit]

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Hicks, Stephen (2005). Explaining Postmodernism:

Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Tempe,

AZ: Scholargy Press

2. ↑  Wieder, Alan (2003). Voices from Cape Town Classrooms:

Oral Histories of Teachers Who Fought Apartheid. History of

Schools and Schooling Series, vol. 39. New York: Peter

Lang. ISBN 0-8204-6768-5.

A great deal of this content is currently an adaptation of the Wikipedia

article on Critical pedagogy.

See also[edit]

Topic:Critical pedagogy

Topic:Critical psychology

External links[edit]

Radical Teacher magazine

The Rouge Forum

Radical Teaching, a critical pedagogy site

Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language,

Composition, Culture

Liberatory Education

Many relevant links

"What is Critical Literacy?" by Ira Shor

For Your Own Good   by Alice Miller

Resources and readings about c.p. CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

"Critical pedagogy considers how education can provide individuals with the tools to better themselves and strengthen democracy, to create a more egalitarian and just society, and thus to deploy education in a process of progressive social change.  Media literacy involves teaching the skills that will empower citizens and students to become sensitive to the politics of representations of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and other cultural differences in order to foster critical thinking and enhance democratization.  Critical media literacy aims to make viewers and readers more critical and discriminating readers and producers of texts.

"Critical media pedagogy provides students and citizens with the tools to analyze critically how texts are constructed and in turn construct and position viewers and readers.  It provides tools so that individuals can dissect the instruments of cultural domination, transform themselves from objects to subjects, from passive to active.  Thus critical media literacy is empowering, enabling students to become critical producers of meanings and texts, able to resist manipulation and domination."

(from Douglas Kellner, "Multiple Literacies and Critical Pedagogies" in Revolutionary Pedagogies - Cultural Politics, Instituting Education, and the Discourse of Theory, Peter Pericles Trifonas, Editor, Routledge, 2000).

[Critical] pedagogy . . . signals how questions of audience, voice, power, and evaluation actively work to construct particular relations between teachers and students, institutions and society, and classrooms and communities. . . . Pedagogy in the critical sense illuminates the relationship among knowledge, authority, and power.          Giroux, 1994: 30

"The fundamental commitment of critical educators is to empower the powerless and transform those conditions which perpetuate human injustice and inequity (McLaren, 1988). 

This purpose is inextricably linked to the fulfillment of what Paulo Freire (1970) defines as our "vocation" - to be truly humanized social agents in the world.  Hence, a major function of critical pedagogy is to critique, expose, and challenge the manner in which schools impact upon the political and cultural life of students.  Teachers must recognize how schools unite knowledge and power and how through this function they can work to influence or thwart the formation of critically thinking and socially active individuals.

"Unlike traditional perspectives of education that claim to be neutral and apolitical, critical pedagogy views all education theory as intimately linked to ideologies shaped by power, politics, history and culture.  Given this view, schooling functions as a terrain of ongoing struggle over what will be accepted as legitimate knowledge and culture.  In accordance with this notion, a critical pedagogy must seriously address the concept of cultural politics y both legitimizing and challenging cultural experiences that comprise the histories and social realities that in turn comprise the forms and boundaries that give meaning to student lives. (Darder 1991, p. 77)"               Antonia Darder, 1995

Synopsis for

Goal! (2005) More at   IMDbPro  »The content of this page was created directly by users and has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff.

Warning! This synopsis may contain spoilersSee plot summary for non-spoiler summarized description.

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SynopsisEditHistoryDiscuss

The film starts with a clip showing Santiago Munez playing football as a child in Mexico. The same night, his family illegally enter into the United States to find a better living. Santi grows up in the USA and works with his father as a gardener. At night he works as a busboy in a Chinese restaurant. He also plays football for a small local team called AJFC. He goes to play a match one day after his work with his father, where he is forced to use a pair of cardboard pieces as shin guards as he cannot afford any. He saves his money and hides it in his shoes every night to purchase a football kit.

The next day, while playing football, he is noticed by Glen Foy, an ex-Newcastle player, scout and car mechanic. Glen tells Santi that on the next match day, he will call an agent who was in US to set up a meeting with the Newcastle manager. The agent, Barry Rankin, does not turn up and lies that he is in a

meeting. Later, Glen himself calls the Newcastle boss and convinces him to give Santiago a trial. Glen then tells Santiago that, if he can get to England, he will be allowed a tryout with Newcastle United. Santiago would like nothing more in the world than to join the club. However, he does not have sufficient funds, so he decides to save up some more money and use it along with his hidden stash. He returns home one afternoon, however, to find that his father has stolen his money hidden in the shoes, and used it to purchase a new Chevy truck, so they can have their own gardening business and not work for another business. When Santiago confronts his father, he explains that "this is how things get better! This is how you measure a man's life," to him. Santiago suddenly shouts at him "It's Your life!" and sulks in his room. His grandmother (who is an even bigger football fan than him) sells off part of her jewellery and buys a ticket for Santi to travel from Los Angeles to Mexico City by train and catch the plane to London from there (since he is an illegal immigrant he couldn't travel from Los Angeles to London)

On arrival in England, Glen warmly welcomes Santi to his house and arranges for a trial. Santi completely messes up his first trial and is rejected by the manager. Glen then manages to convince the manager that Santi was nervous and jetlagged. Glen requested for a month's trial, which is accepted. At the same time, Newcastle signs Gavin Harris. Santi successfully passes the medical test by lying about his asthma condition, and meets the club's nurse Roz Harmison. One night, Santi and teammate Jamie, go clubbing and bump into Roz. After a month, in a reserve game, another jealous teammate crushes Santi's inhaler (Santi has asthma which he deliberately hides from the club officials because he thought he would not get the try out if they knew). His performance is very poor in the match as he is not able to run. He is then removed from the club.

On his way to the airport, Santi accidentally meets Harris on the same taxicab because he's late for training as his car tires have been stolen. Harris remembers seeing Santi in the club and finds out what happened in the reserve game. Harris convinces the manager to extend Santi's stay at the club. After treatment at the club, Santi is able to play more confidently and aggressively in the reserves. He finally makes it into the first team, even though he thought that he was dropped entirely from the reserves. He starts as a substitute against a match against Fulham as many of the first team players were injured. He gets his chance when a player is injured and manages to win a penalty for Newcastle which ultimately won them the match. Meanwhile his father watches the match on TV in the USA and is very proud of his son. The manager keeps telling Santi that his weakness was that he does not pass the ball (the manager also said he doesn't pass the ball in a training session). Santi is then transferred back to the reserves. Santi thinking he won't be able to stay long at the club goes to St. James' Park to feel how it is to play on the pitch. The manager tells him to get off the pitch and that he could get the feeling when he played in Newcastle's final game against Liverpool. In the training session before the match, Santi's father dies of heart attack. Santi is completely demoralized and heartbroken though his father always criticized him. He decides to stay and play for the team in the final match rather than go back.

Also his friend Jamie tore a ligament in his leg and was told by Roz, who is now Santi's girlfriend, that Jamie would never play football again.

In the match against Liverpool, Newcastle takes the lead first thanks to a goal from Harris. Before half-time, Liverpool makes a comeback with two goals, one from Igor Biscan and one from Milan Baros. In the dying minutes before injury time, Santi assists Harris in scoring the equalizer by finally passing the ball to him and correcting his major drawback in football. In the dying minutes of the injury time, Harris is tripped. Harris decides to make Santi take the final free kick. Santi scores with a beautiful free kick swinging away from the Liverpool goalkeeper. After the game ends 3-2 to Newcastle, Glen runs down the stands and gives his mobile saying that Santi's grandmother had called. She is very happy and proud and congratulates her grandson. She also adds that his father did watch his first match. Roz then blows kisses to him. The film ends with Santiago shedding tears of joy while embracing his realized dream.

Synopsis for

Freedom Writers (2007) More at   IMDbPro  »The content of this page was created directly by users and has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff.

Warning! This synopsis may contain spoilersSee plot summary for non-spoiler summarized description.

Visit our Synopsis Help to learn more

SynopsisEditHistoryDiscuss

The storyline of the movie takes place between 19921995, beginning with scenes from the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Hilary Swank plays the role of Erin Gruwell, a new, excited schoolteacher who leaves the safety of her hometown, Newport Beach, to teach at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, a formerly high achieving school which has recently had an integration program put in place. Her enthusiasm is quickly challenged when she realizes that her class are all "at-risk" students, also known as "unteachables", and not the eager students she was expecting. The students segregate themselves into racial groups in the classroom, fights break out, and eventually most of the students stop turning up to class. Not only does Gruwell meet opposition from her students, but she also has a hard time with her department head, who refuses to let her teach her students with books in case they get damaged and lost, and instead tells her to focus on teaching them discipline and obedience. One night, two students, Eva (April Lee Hernández), a Hispanic girl and narrator for much of the film, and a Cambodian refugee, Sindy (Jaclyn Ngan), find themselves in the same convenience store. Another student, Grant Rice (Armand Jones) is frustrated at losing an arcade game and demands a refund from the owner. When he storms out, Eva's boyfriend attempts a drive-by shooting, wanting to kill Grant but misses, accidentally killing Sindy's boyfriend. As Eva is a witness, she must testify at court; she intends to protect her own kind in her testimony. At school, Gruwell intercepts a racist drawing of one of her students and uses it to teach them about the Holocaust. She gradually begins to earn their trust and buys them composition books to record their diaries, in which they talk about their experiences of being abused, seeing their friends die, and being evicted. Determined to reform her students, she takes two part-time jobs to pay for more books and spends more time at school, to the disappointment of her husband (Patrick Dempsey). Her students start to behave with respect and learn more. A transformation is especially visible in one of her students, Marcus (Jason Finn). She invites several Holocaust survivors to talk with her class about their experiences and takes them on a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance. Meanwhile, her unorthodox teaching methods are scorned by her colleagues and department chair Margaret Campbell (Imelda Staunton). The next year comes, and Gruwell teaches her class again for sophomore (second) year. In class, when reading The Diary of Anne Frank, they invite Miep Gies (Pat Carroll), the woman who sheltered Anne Frank from the German soldiers to talk to them. After they raise the money to bring her over, she tells them her experiences hiding Anne Frank. When Marcus tells her that she is his hero, she denies it, claiming she was merely doing the right thing. Her denial causes Eva to rethink lying during her testimony. When she testifies, she finally breaks down and tells the truth, much to some of her family members' dismay. Meanwhile, Gruwell asks her students to write their diaries in book form. She compiles the entries and names it The Freedom Writers Diary. Her husband divorces her and Margaret tells her she cannot teach her kids for their junior year. She fights this decision, eventually convincing the superintendent to allow her to teach her kids' junior and senior year. The film ends with a note that Gruwell successfully brought many of her students to graduation and college.