Critical pedagogies (e.g. Dewey, 1938; Freire, 1993; Shor, 1992; 1996)
criticize the imbalance of power between educators and students. Freire (1993)
criticizes the “banking” model of education in which the relation between an
educator and students is described as a “A over B” relation. In the banking
model of education, educators are the primary decision makers and
sole deliverers of knowledge. Freire describes the banking approach to teaching
and learning as follows:
a) The teacher teaches and the students are taught; b) the
teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; c) the teacher thinks
and the students are thought about; d) the teacher talks and the students
listen-meekly; e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined; f)
the teacher chooses and enforces his [her] choice, and the students comply; g)
the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the
action of the teacher; h) the teacher chooses the content and the students, who
were not consulted, adapt to it. (p. 54)
Freire argues that in the “banking” model of teaching and learning,
educators control students’ thinking and action, leading to students’ passivity
and inhibiting their “creative power” (p. 58). For democratic
education, Freire (1993) argues, “Education must begin with the solution of the
teacher-student contradiction” (p. 72). The contradiction that Freire meant is
the hierarchical relationship between the teacher and students in which the
teacher is seen the expert who owns the knowledge and knows everything and
students know nothing. Rather, Freire emphasizes the partnership between the
educator and students. He describes such partnership as one in which both
students and the educator learn from each other in a way that “they become
jointly responsible for a process in which all grow” (p. 61). To accomplish
such partnership, there should be a horizontal relationship between the
educator and students in which the role of the educator is “to create, together
with students” the conditions of learning (p. 62). Freire argues that dialogue
has the power to break the vertical relationship between teachers and students
and transform it to a democratic relation in which both teachers and students
have a voice. He emphasizes, “Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and
the students-of the-teacher […] The teacher is no longer merely the one who
teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in
their turn while being taught also teach” (p. 61).
Much in line with Freire’s ideas, the critical educator Ira Shor
(1992; 1996) asserts that students’ meaningful participation in their learning
provides an important basis for constructing the fundamental imperatives of a
strong democracy. Shor (1992) argues that democracy is a process of open
communication and mutual governance in a community of shared power, where all
members can express ideas, frame purposes, and act on intentions. Shor (1996) further argues that
democratic principles can be fostered and realized in the classroom community
when power in the classroom is shared so that students are able to actively
participate in the learning process. For Shor, without student active
participation in decision-making, the classroom will be a place of undemocratic
transfers of information, and students will develop as authority-dependent
subordinates, not as democratic citizens. In contrast, Shor explains, when higher education seeks to maximize
students’ participation in decision-making, they develop intellectual
curiosity, scientific thinking, cooperative relations, social habits, and
self-discipline. Sharing the
decision-making power with students can serve as an important means to help
realize the vital goals of democratic education.
However, teaching democratically by involving students in the
decision making power does not mean that faculty abdicate their authority
(Schultz & Oyler, 2006; Weimer, 2002; Oyler, 1996; Brookfield, 1995).
Kreisberg (1992) agues, “‘Power with’ is not a zero-sum proposition where one
person gains the capacity to achieve his or her desires at the expense of
others” (p. 71). Rather, the “power with” relation, Kreisberg explains, manifests
in relationships of “co-agency”, in which “individuals and groups fulfill their
desires by acting together” (pp. 85-86). Therefore, as Oyler (1996) argues, sharing
power with students does not mean that the instructor “moves out of the
students’ way to the soft place of abdicated authority” (p. 24). Rather,
Schultz and Oyler (2006) explain, the instructor should remain a member of the
classroom as decisions are being made. Also, Shor (1992) argues that sharing
power with students does not mean students can do whatever they like in the
classroom, neither can the teacher do whatever she or he likes. What it does
mean, as Brookfield (1995) explains, is that educators make an effort to create
conditions under which all voices can be heard, and in which educational
processes are seen to be open and genuine negotiation.
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