Sunday 21 August 2016

Critical Pedagogy / Social Justice

One of my favorite list serves is Faculty Focus and while I was looking up information about Paulo Freire I came across an article about critical pedagogy the challenges of teaching it (Weimer, 2009). Some of the development of that pedagogy is often attributed to Freire. It also helped me to look at the social justice perspective of teaching, because of Freire emphasis on the practical application of reflection on social justice issues while teaching. Weimer summarizes the work of Fobes and Kaufman in this article (2008). She states, “critical pedagogy fits in with active learning, and the learner- or learning-centered approaches” (2009, para.1). In her description of the pedagogy she states one of its tenants is to promote social justice so a social justice perspective to education (2009, para.2).
Weimer summarizes the challenges in two parts, one for students and two for instructors (2009). The first is the issue of students who are used to traditional educational systems; that makes them less likely to speak up in class. When they do, how can that discussion be made more critical in nature?  The second challenge is the ability of the instructor to maintain an “authoritative air without being authoritarian” (Freire, 1990 as cited in Brookfield, 2015, p.24). Being authoritative can be hard for those instructors who are traditionally lacking in authority. Two examples are women and those with a race that is different from the dominating societal norm (Fobes & Kaufman, 2008, p.28 as cited by Weimer, 2009). Allowing the students to work in groups and produce knowledge through critical reflection of the topics is the suggestion of an answer for this issue. The instructor is the authoritative person guiding the groups.  A third issue, again for the instructor is that of evaluation of student work. The suggestion is to allow students to have a part in creating the rubrics that are used for the evaluation. I wonder if self-assessment as has been used in this PIDP course could also be an answer to this issue. Although in many of my classes I have experienced a dichotomy in the quality of assessments. The students who are most critically reflective are able to give a more honest self-assessment than the students who do no have insight into their understanding of the subject matter. The latter will give themselves an inflated or deflated mark depending on their self-confidence.
The ability of the instructor to tailor the course to the students’ experiences is important but it seems to be successful in as far as the instructor is able to promote a classroom of honest critical reflection.  It is in this critical reflection the students can see the social change that is needed to improve their situations and that of the discipline that they are learning about.

Brookfield, S. (2015). The skillful teacher: On technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Fobes, C., & Kaufman, P. (2008). Critical Pedagogy in the Sociology Classroom: Challenges and Concerns. Teaching Sociology, 36(1), 26-33. doi:10.1177/0092055x0803600104 Retrieved from: http://www.academia.edu/1459554/Critical_Pedagogy_Challenges_and_Concerns
Weimer, M. (2009). Critical Pedagogy Brings New Teaching and Learning Challenges - Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning. Magna Publications, Madison. Retrieved August 21, 2016, from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/critical-pedagogy-brings-new-teaching-and-learning-challenges/

Who is Paulo Friere?


The dialogic methods of education needed clarification while reading the Skillful Teacher by Brookfield (2015). When doing a search for the term, I came across the name Paulo Freire. I became interested in his “pedagogy of oppression” and “pedagogy of hope”. I have not read the books but the snatches I have read about his theories do intrigue me.
While in the Yukon a couple of weeks ago I came across a phenomenon that disturbed me. Just 20 km apart from each other in a remote part of the Yukon were two towns. One was obviously a European mining town with a lot of resources, beautifully manicured lawns and flowerbeds. The second was a Dene town, the resources seemed lacking when we went into the store and the warnings about public alcohol abuse were labeled everywhere. When I recounted the disturbed feelings I had about the differences between the towns, a colleague of mine brought up the writings of Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972). It came up in this conversation about his work in a discussion about the social determinants of health and learning or literacy.
Smith states, “Paulo Freire was able to take the discussion on several steps with his insistence that dialogue involves respect. It should not involve one person acting on another, but rather people working with each other.”(2012, Para. 2). Brookfield quotes Freire in his book on pg 24, “ students want their teachers to be authoritative not authoritarian.” (Horton & Freire, 1990 as cited by Brookfield, 2015) Both these statements have made me curious about the educator and revolutionary. I have never read Freire's books and would probably look at his later writing, Pedagogy of Hope (1995) but the article by Mark Smith wrote about the importance of Freire's contribution to education and social justice intrigued me.
Smith’s article describes both contributions and critique of Paulo Freire; I will focus on the contributions you can look at the article for the critiques. Besides Freire’s focus on dialogue, his other contributions included the idea of praxis (action) because of respectful dialogue in community and social contexts (Smith, 2012).
The third statement about Freire was his desire to have people understand the power dynamics within the process of learning and educational systems, especially the understanding of how the oppressed in a society are taught (Smith, 2012). When I think of this I remember the first nations boarding school issue in Canada. I would propose that the Dene town in Yukon is still part of the culture that experiences the “pedagogy of oppression”. In one of the nursing texts that I use in my collaboration classroom, the authors of How to Nurse speak about the critical lenses that examine the power dynamics of health care access and care (Doane & Varcoe, 2015). Using the lenses of critical feminist, postcolonial, and post-structural we can look at the interpersonal power dynamics that occur in all relationships (Doane & Varcoe, 2015, p.63). As with nursing, teaching is done with a perspective or a lens, I think Freire would have us look through those same lenses to understand who is privileged and why in the education system.
Freire’s fourth and fifth contribution, according to Smith, deal with informal educators. Freire wants educators to be aware where the learning is situated (Smith, 2012).  He uses metaphor often drawing upon Christian references to help informal (and I suggest formal) educators to look at their teaching experiences. I think formal educators also need to be very aware of the situation of their classroom and of learners' experience brought to that situation.
It is the dialogic, social action, and social understanding of power that most intrigues me about Freire’s pedagogy. Dialogue is an integral part of teaching whether in online discussions or face-to-face interactions. Secondly, an interesting perspective to look at education is that of social action, why are we teaching if not to promote active change through critical reflection? And thirdly, through the recent readings of I have come to see the value in understanding social power and how that affects relationships on all kinds of levels in nursing as well as in teaching. Teaching and learning are done in the relational context of groups of individual people, who bring a diversity of perspectives, experiences, and understandings of power. Freire might state that it is this power that can lead to a different pedagogy for the oppressed than the “normal” society, something we need to be aware of. I look forward to reading more about Paulo Freire and his work when I have more time.

Acknowledgment: The image of Paulo Freire is by chhhh/flickr.com. It is reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/chhhh/2973802038/  

References:
Brookfield, S. (2015). The skillful teacher: On technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Doane, G. H., & Varcoe, C. (2015). How to nurse: Relational inquiry with individuals and families in changing health and health care contexts. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Harmondsworth: Penguin. 
Freire, P. (1995) Pedagogy of Hope. Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum.
Smith, M. K. (2012). Paulo Freire: Dialogue, praxis, and education. Retrieved August 20, 2016, from http://infed.org/mobi/paulo-freire-dialogue-praxis-and-education/

Other resources about Paulo Freire are listed in Smith's blog and the following is a video of an interview with Paulo Freire:

Sunday 14 August 2016

Reflection on Perspectives and Philosophies of Learning

Perspectives & Philosophies 

In 2013 when I was taking the Educator Pathway through Fraser Health Authority, I was able to do a Teaching Perspectives Inventory of Pratt, D., Collins, J. & Selinger.
TPI results of 2013:

Perspective
Score
Beliefs
Intention
Action
Apprenticeship Total: (Ap)
42
B = 14;
I = 15;
A = 13
Nurturing Total: (Nu)
40
B = 14;
I = 13;
A = 13
Developmental Total: (Dv)
36
B = 12;
I = 13;
A = 11
Social Reform Total: (SR)
33
B = 12;
I = 11;
A = 10
Transmission Total: (Tr)
32
B = 13;
I = 6;
A = 13

In 2016 I found an inventory by Lorainne Zinn that looks more at the educational philosophies. 
PAEI results of 2016:

Learning Philosophy
Score
Behaviorist
92
Progressive
85
Liberal
82
Radical
81
Humanistic
71


So although the philosophy survey does not look at the beliefs, intentions and actions, I did notice a correlation between my 2013 inventory results and the 2016 philosophy results. 

I believe that the behaviorist approach that looks at the “observable behaviours” of a student is very similar to the apprenticeship perspective that tries “to model a way of being” (Pratt & Collins, 2013; Zinn, 2015; Melrose, Perry & Park, n.d.). This makes sense to me, I am presently teaching clinical labs, requires a high concentration on the performing of skills a nursing educator is trying to model a way of being to the students during those skills.

But being is not just skills as my second highest scoring perspective and philosophy indicate. Nurturing seems right to me as the nursing profession is a “caring” profession and this perspective promotes self-efficacy (Pratt & Collins, 2000, p.4). The progressive philosophy sits right with teaching in the nursing profession, many of our clinical scenarios in the lab, case-based learning courses for transitions and the use of case studies in my collaboration course all require the problem-based learning that is fundamental to developing the critical thinking to deal with real life scenarios that the students might encounter when they end up in the workforce (Zinn, 1998, p. 46).  I also see that many of the nursing policies are based on competencies that require an understanding of critically thinking through problems.

What I do find interesting is that I really believe in the different aspects of all the perspectives as noted by the belief numbers of the 2013 survey. I also really don’t have a defined philosophy as noted by the small deviation of the numbers in the 2016 survey. I am not constrained by a specific perspective or even philosophy; that is a good thing. It means to me that I adapt to the diversity of situations that I encounter in the classrooms, labs and clinical areas as I do my nursing instruction.

I was also encouraged that I continue to have a radical philosophy and social reform perspective as it is important to allow the students to understand the social determinants of health and be agents of change for health policies as needed.

I was able to find a paper that described the inventory survey although the website seems not to be active at present[1], I did find a link to an article presentation of the survey authors (Pratt & Collins, 2000). I was also able to find a chapter in a book that the author of the philosophy survey had written (Zinn, 1998). A description of both these surveys are included in a creative commons book from Athabasca University (Melrose, Perry & Park, n.d., Chapter 2).

Melrose, S., Perry, B., & Park, C. (n.d.). CREATIVE CLINICAL TEACHING IN THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS. Retrieved August 14, 2016, from http://epub-fhd.athabascau.ca/clinical-teaching/chapter/chapter-two-where-do-i-fit-in-articulating-a-personal-philosophy/

Pratt, D. D., & Collins, J. B. (2000). The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI). Retrieved August 14, 2016, from http://newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2207&context=aerc

Zinn, L. (1998). Identifying your philosophical orientation. In M.W. Galbraith (ed.), Adult learning methods, (2nd ed., pp.37–72). Malabar, FL: Krieger. Retrieved August 14, 2016, from http://www.labr.net/apps/paei/zinn.pdf

Zinn, L. M. (2015, June 22). Philosophy of Adult Education. Retrieved August 14, 2016, from http://www.labr.net/apps/paei/

PIDP 3260 Almost Done!

My name is Ruth Klann, I am a Nurse Educator, with VCC in the BSN program offered at the Broadway campus in Vancouver. I still feel like a new teacher, even though I taught in nursing in Egypt and health care personnel working in children's camps in Russia. My nursing life is varied and full, being an educator gives me an opportunity to share those experiences with nursing students who are soon to be beginning their professional life.

Really to be honest I am taking this course to finish my PIDP diploma. 
Of course, I am also taking it to learn more about being a professional in my educator role.
I have truly enjoyed all the information and ideas that I have been able to learn about in the PIDP program so far. As I am teaching at the present time I have been able to make practical use of the courses immediately.