“[E]ducation is not about filling a bucket but about lighting a fire.”

Gert Biesta paraphrasing W.B. Yeats.

Freire’s call for teachers to engage their students in a process of conscientização— of awakening their ‘critical consciousness’ so that they might confront and react to the socio-political realities of themselves and others, the injustices in which they are implicated, their privileges and oppressions— has long fed my pedagogical thinking. Still now (especially now), as I teach in what is an affluent public school, this emancipatory pedagogy is never far from my mind. Whilst it may indeed constitute a ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, it is undoubtedly a pedagogy for all, since at any given moment every one of us is either fighting against, floating along with or propelling ourselves further into the global colonial vortex.

For those unfamiliar with it: there are a variety of pedagogic methodologies which purportedly promote ‘conscientization’. Though, perhaps chief amongst them is the development of and the normative engagement in critical literacy— a radically interrogatory, disruptive approach to reading and listening. Illustrating this in his article, Reading with and against a risky story, James Damico directly addresses the question of how critical literacy educators can utilize ‘risky stories’ to encourage their students to confront the horrors of injustices such as the transatlantic slave trade and the genocide of North American Native Peoples. For Damico, critical literacy is practiced and can be developed through two complementary reading techniques: (i) reading with such texts; and (ii) reading against them. In short, reading with entails processing, learning information from and reflecting upon texts so as to evaluate the personal experiences of the peoples and communities to which they relate, as well as one’s personal process of meaning-making. On the other hand, reading against involves scrutinizing the socio-political functionality of texts, their authors’ agendas and positionalities; and thus necessitates a healthy degree of analytic skepticism. Through these techniques, students not only learn about injustices but begin to engage with how historical, social and political narratives are constructed, how meaning and identities are constructed. Moreover, they may begin to recognize their own interpretive habits—how and why they read, listen and see things the way that they do. Exercised properly, this disruptive process can elevate students’ self-understanding and autonomy as they begin to ask questions, such as: why did the author frame the issue in this particular way? What about my life experiences have influenced me to see that or this as I have? Could the author or I have framed or seen things differently? Critical literacy highlights the innate link between theory and practice; between the extrinsic and intrinsic. Students begin to see the political in the ostensibly non-political.

Habituating reflexivity and critique is a central aim to all truly emancipatory pedagogies. All students— regardless of age, race, gender, class, sex, religion— deserve teachers willing to work tirelessly to support their self-actualization. For, emancipation in this context does not equate to increased practical autonomy, such as that afforded to the higher economic classes. Rather, critical literacy— conscientization— promotes cognitive and practical autonomy in tandem, constituting a praxis (the lived entanglement between theory and practice, epistemology and ontology) that empowers students to think and live more freely, more democratically. This, in turn, enables them to help others to do the same.

As a teacher of Religious Studies and Philosophy— where, for example, the second half of the AQA GCSE curriculum explores a variety of ‘Thematic Studies’ including topics such as human rights, social in/justice, activism, terrorism, capital and corporal punishment, assisted suicide, charity, abortions, climate breakdown and the human exploitation of nature and animals, to name just a few— I explicitly and continuously encourage and, at times, attempt to model reflexivity and criticality. Needless to say, this is difficult, tiring and, yes, sometimes a little risky. After all, almost everything we cover is controversial, especially in KS3/4. However, does this not necessitate that I remind my students to be skeptical of, to reflect upon and to critique all views, including even those that I might implicitly endorse or represent? Alternatively, if I utilized the traditional ‘banking method’ whereby I might provide and command my students to memorize a database of particular ‘facts’ for them to later regurgitate in an exam, would I not be advocating controversial partisan views either personally or by proxy? Their cognitive awakening requires me to be an educator, not a facilitator. 

Gert Biesta has suggested that education operates over three overlapping domains: qualification, socialization, and subjectification. As I currently see it, only through employing methodologies which serve conscientização can educators successfully advance the latter two. Over and above learning about new concepts, theories, facts and figures, my students must necessarily discuss, reflect, critique and self-scrutinize. And I must do the same.