Rewriting Critical Pedagogy for K-12 Public Schools (original) (raw)

ABSTRACT Over the past five decades, critical pedagogy (Freire, 2000) has become a mainstay within academic culture (McLaren & Kincheloe, 2007). Schools of education as well as Language, English, and Sociology departments consistently teach about critical pedagogy (Darder, Baltodano & Torres, 2003; McLaren, 2015). Nonetheless, critical pedagogy rarely finds its way into K-12 public schools (Freire, 2000, p. 15-16). In this essay we argue that this absence compromises the primary ambition of critical pedagogy: to serve marginalized groups. Additionally, this absence within public schools strengthens the ever-widening gap between rich and poor in the United States (Reiman & Leighton, 2015) as well as racial tensions. To challenge this divide and the related racial tensions, critical pedagogy must find its way into K-12 public schools.