Introduction
This paper will seek to document various pedagogical projects which are designed to eradicate racist, sexist, classist and the homophobic status quo in our schools and the wider society. In doing so, the guiding principles and maxims of critical pedagogy as an emergent moralistic and ethical discourse of the above-mentioned variables in the law will be briefly outlined. The backbone of these projects is derived from a variety of articles from The Critical Pedagogy Reader book which deeply explain race, gender and sexuality in the context of the new millennium.
Pedagogy Project on Eradicating Racism in Our System
It is evident that Racism is highly engraved in the fabric and the structure of the American Society. Normally, the white supremacy perpetuates the marginalization of individuals with different color. Through their article After Race: An introduction, Antonia Darder and Rodolfo Torres explains the ideology of race as that which is instigated by religious, economical, rise of nationalism and largely due to political factors. The concept of the race ideology has always been linked to either our social or genetic constructs of inferiority or superiority which is usually assigned to a particular population which depends on the term’s historical usage and reference. In our society, race continues to exist as part of the simple discourse that includes the accumulated and mostly contradictory assumptions used by individuals to contend with the complex world around us.
Racism has been defined in many ways thus making it appear as an ambiguous term. It sometimes refers to as ethnicity while at other times as culture or ancestry. It is worth noting that scholars have failed to clearly define the terms used in explaining race and theorizing about the construct itself therefore the term race has been frequently employed in an uncritical manner to represent ill-defined social and cultural factors. In the quest of theorizing racism, Antonia Darder and Rodolfo Torres puts it that, racism is not the result of pathology, as some scientists and scholars mostly wants to put it, but it is an ideological set of practices and discourses which are deeply entrenched in the scheme of modernity and capitalist expansion. The two authors further link racism to racialisation. This is the process by which populations are ranked and categorized on the foundation of phenotypical traits or cultural signifiers.
In our desire to eradicate racism in our society, we must endeavor to develop theories that seek to negotiate both the commonality, and plurality of racism in our historical alterations. These theories will thereby grapple with the development of various strategies and counter practices for dismantling the many structures that can probably give rise to its consequences. It is important to our understanding to realize that racism is the manner in which class and capitalism are inextricably linked in ways that do not apply to the other forms and categories of oppression (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres 2003). Therefore, this perspective points out to the social and political apparatus of the state that functions systematically so as to retain the widespread control and governance over the available resources and material wealth. Another ideology which walks hand in hand with racism is the ideology of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism appears as if it is the term used to mean taking the blacks off the streets hence appearing to the state as a rebellion against them. In agreement, we assert that we must put more effort to construct an effective politics of antiracism. We should strive to transcend ‘race’ rather than embracing our differences as we normally do and consequently embrace human universality that contends with the particularities and differences of our existence.
Critical Race Pedagogy project: Teaching About Race and Racism Through Legal Learning Strategies
In this part of my pedagogical project, I will attempt to explain through various legal learning strategies, the need to theorize race and use it as a critical analytic tool meant for understanding school inequity. Many authors have managed to clearly delineate the great inequalities that exist between the school experiences of the white-middle class students and their poor African-American and Latinos counterparts. Critical race theory education suggests that these inequalities that exist between these students are the logical and predictable result of the racialized society in which race and racism continue to prosper but is muted and marginalized. Gloria and Billings in their article Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education bases their argument on social and school inequity on three major prepositions which are:
- Race continues to be a considerable factor in shaping inequality in the United States
- The U S civilization is based on property rights.
- The relationship between race and property generates a methodical tool through which we can understand social and ultimately school inequity.
Race has been a significant factor in determining inequity in our educational and social life. For instance, when we take a look at the statistical and demographical data of the number of high suspensions rate and school drop outs in the United States, we are compelled to question the usefulness of race as a category. Gloria and Billings affirm that, when one thinks of race as purely an objective condition denies the challenging aspects of race since it is a bit problematic to be able to come to a decision about who fits into which ethnic classifications and how the racial mixtures will be categorized.
Despite the immense efforts put to eradicate racism and race related issues, when focusing on teaching about race and racism in the society and schools, a lot of student resistance has been observed in regard to learning about race and racism. This particular problem is pervasive and well documented and many scholars have noted multiple direct and indirect tactics of resistance. These forms of resistance range from course withdrawal, not participating in class discussions in regard to racism topics and questioning professorial authority in the classroom. Through Critical race pedagogical, legal strategies that focus on argumentation will be able to dissipate emotional volatility in our classrooms, increase student responsiveness and heighten up professional authority in the school.
In communities where there exist racial issues between African American youths, there emerges the need to completely uproot this vice so as the learning experience would be conducive to all. Often, these youths may come to classrooms with preset minds and assumptions that would eventually undermine the legitimacy of the treatment of racism under the course being studied (Billings, 2009). Therefore, this Critical race pedagogy project asserts that for curbing resistance in learning about Racism and racial studies in class, the instructor should provide substantial amount of information which seeks to establish the reality of the surrounding social inequality at the beginning of the course. In addition, the instructor should communicate with the concerned parties and inform them that the topic that they will be about to focus on touches on difficult and critical subjects and therefore they should expect discomfort.
Pedagogy project: Teaching Anti oppressive theories in Schools and to the wider society
In order to attempt and address the many ways in which classism, racism, sexism and other forms of oppression manifests out in our schools and the society, the educators ought to the dynamics of oppression and thereby articulate ways to enable them to work against it. In her article, Michelle Fine examines education and sexuality in the context of young female adolescents. In my opinion, Michelle’s article also represents the many youth especially the African American and their perspective in regard to adolescent sexuality and sex education. Michelle claims that despite our devotion to young adult’s sexuality, pregnancy and parenting enlightenment, there are still many individuals who are opposed to the idea of incorporating sex education to the Curriculum. To them, sex education will raise ultimately lead to questions of promoting promiscuity, immorality and undermining family values.
Unfortunately, our education system lacks the right mechanism to enable educators to freely tech these adolescent youths issues about sexuality, therefore as Michelle suggests, some of these educators nonetheless continue to take personal and professional risks by ensuring that they create materials that foster environments that speak fully to the sexual subjectivities of young men and women (Fine 1988). It would be very helpful if students would be given the freedom to express themselves beyond simple right and wrong answers since it offer this young individual to freely share what they know with humor and delight.
Articulating the myriad of ways to work against oppression in the US schools largely includes providing teacher candidates who are equipped with extensive and comprehensive histories of their country’s oppressive practices and policies. It is for this reason that over the past decade the understandings of the adolescent young woman and man’s sexual choice, coercion and consent have grown richer and more complex. This pedagogical project will therefore be useful in the in the formulation of an education course that is able to provide students with real life examples of systematic and institutional sexism, racism, classism and other forms of coercion within the framework of our institutions of learning and community.
Homophobic status quo in our institutions of learning and the community at large is another oppressive and retrogressive challenge that needs to be tackled with diligence. It is among the major reasons why many young adults do not speak out about their sexuality. In her article Feminist Analysis of Gender and Schooling, Kathleen Weiler explains how the lack of space for exploring gender and sexuality affects adolescents. Most gay and lesbian students have been undoubtedly closeted from the public since most of them have suffered individually from the assaults of homophobia (Fine 1988). Therefore, by putting in place an education curriculum that is devoted to explore and unearth the many dangers that can be caused by the existence of racist, classist, Sexist and the homophobic status quo in schools and the society can be put as the chief solution to all the explained challenges facing our institutions of learning and the community.
References
Darder, A., Baltodano, M., & Torres, R. D. (2003). The critical pedagogy reader. New York:
RoutledgeFalmer.
Fine, M. (1988). Sexuality, schooling, and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire.
Harvard educational review, 58(1), 29-54.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). Critical Race Theory in Education. The Routledge International
Handbook of Critical Education, 110.
Weiler, Kathleen (2003). Feminist analyses of gender and schooling. The critical pedagogy
reader, 269-295.
