My Reflection On Readings By Freire And Kincheloe

This semester helped build upon what I learned in the American Dilemmas course last academic school year. That course highlighted many inequities that exist within the American school system. Education as a Social Institution afforded me the opportunity to learn about new ways that schools can overcome these inequalities by disrupting institutions, or more specifically, reimagining schools and learning. Readings by Freire and Kincheloe helped me to better understand what is meant by a critical pedagogy and education. I learned that this is an approach to education in which one of the main goals is to facilitate students’ abilities to reflect on their social positions. More importantly, education should be providing students with the critical thinking skills to take this further and understand how they can use this awareness to better their social situations and transcend difficulties. This framework emphasizes that the relationship between students and teachers should not consist of a power dynamic where the teacher is dominant over

For example, I really enjoyed reading Ants and Buddhists because the author walked the readers through her daily life in school. She demonstrated new and more importantly, feasible ways that she could help her students think critically and solve social issues. I was inspired by the way that she connected class material to students’ daily life, such as by allowing them to conduct science experiments in their town. She highlighted the importance of making post-secondary education seem within reach for these students by bringing in college students that her first graders could meet since most of them never met someone who attended college before. This reading was helpful for thinking about how we can help students turn to local communities and value skills that students bring from