critical pedagogy

Critical pedagogy begins with questions...all kinds of questions. 

• If I have a class of 30 kids, how do I treat them all as individuals?
• I'm supposed to keep discipline and order in the classroom, but real learning is messy.
• How can I apply standards when I have students who learn at different speeds?
• How can I teach creatively when I have to follow a book and a curriculum?
• What's my role as teacher?  How can I have authority while still being their friend?
• Is what I'm teaching useful?
• How do I know my students have learned?  How much learning is enough?

The problem with all of these questions is that once you start, it's really hard to stop.  The challenge is to ask a lot of questions, then narrow your focus to good questions, ones that will actually make your classes better.  Then narrow your focus further to the questions you can actually answer.

My story:

I had decided (prior to reading Freire, interestingly enough) to question my role as authority figure in my university classes.  What right do I have to assign tasks and determine deadlines?  What would a classroom look like where students could determine their own workload and deadlines, while still following a pre-set curriculum and course book?

I tried the experiment.  I told the students they were required to complete the coursebook and I added what I thought were extra fun tasks for when they finished.   I set only the deadlines imposed by the university (3 per term).  I told them they could send their work to be corrected as often as they needed as long as it was perfect by deadline.  If so they would get 100%, if not, they would get 50%.

It failed.

Students were paralysed and confused for most of the term, and lined up outside my office to be corrected the day before deadline.  They didn't seem to enjoy the extra tasks at all because they saw them as extra work.

They didn't say any of this of course.  According to the surveys, they seemed to enjoy the freedom.  They said they enjoyed the extra tasks as a way to make the course book topic come alive and be more relevant.  But the reality appeared different.

Then I realised my question was wrong.  It was based on the wrong theories and the wrong assumptions.  The problem with students isn't necessarily that they want more freedom.   A different educational paradigm wasn't the answer.

It's true that they sometimes find the coursebook a little dull and it's true that the coursebook fails to teach certain crucial skills that can be taught through extra tasks.  But the solution isn't to flip the teacher-student paradigm.  I now think the solution is to use the book as a springboard for more meaningful, structured assignments.

Why I made the mistake I made:

I was inspired by the fact that so many people seem to enjoy playing videogames, so I decided to learn more about them.
Video games tend to fall along a spectrum: "sandbox" games allow for greater player freedom to do things in the order of their choice (the Grand Theft Auto series, for example, gives you missions, but there is a certain amount of freedom in how you choose to go about them).  Mario, on the other hand, is linear: you move in the direction the designer wants you to go.

I tried to teach "sandbox".  Now it's time to go back to linear. 
Now, how can I do that, and still make it great?