Can education be used to prevent prejudice?

Critical pedagogy aims to give students the tools and resources to challenge an oppressive system. While this is extremely worthwhile, I wonder if education can be used to prevent prejudice in its students. In my education, there was very little attention paid to our (the students') differences. In fact, a "we are all the same" rhetoric was very much present. Students are typically taught that they all have the same potential for success. If students were taught about the differences between people, I think they may be more likely to accept people that are not just like them. For example, if you are told your whole life that anybody can achieve success if they work hard enough, and you have never thought critically about this claim, than you may look at an underprivileged who has not achieved success and say "What's wrong with you? You threw away opportunities". The reality is that not everybody in this society has the same opportunities; why don't we tell students the truth about that? Then they would see the underprivileged person who is not successful and feel compassion, not contempt. This could potentially eliminate a lot of prejudice in the world.

Why are we afraid to tell students that the world is not fair?

Response to Kim, "Critical Pedagogy"

Is critical pedagogy trying to lead students to view the world in specific ways or does it encourage them to form their own opinions?

I don't think critical pedagogy is attempting to indoctrinate students. All people accept certain things to be true about the world, and teachers are assigned to teach their students what they believe to be true about the world. Most elementary schools teach that 1+1=2, but we don't accuse them of trying to indoctrinate students into believing that 1+1=2. This is because we trust teachers to teach things that they believe to be true. Of course, some points are more contentious than others. Most of our class came to the conclusion last week that a teacher should not teach creationism in schools just because he or she personally believes it to be true. However, a religious belief is rooted in faith alone, whereas oppression is something people experience in the world. When people have experienced something, they know that it is true. Therefore, I think it is acceptable to teach students how they can be conscious of the power dynamics they exist in and how to challenge them.


Question: What is the distinction between a teacher teaching a relatively benign belief like "1+1=2" and a teacher teaching a controversial belief, such as creationism?

Why Don't We Value Life Experiences as Evidence?

In class, we starting talking a little bit about how, as a society, we generally value scientific facts, logic, and objectivity. While these things are important, we also devalue things like emotion, intuition, and personal experience as evidence. This is interesting, because we have ideas about scientific research being objective, when it often isn't. Scientific research is controlled, funded, and validated by an elite group. Science also changes over time, so it is not always correct. For example, science has been used historically as a way to validate racist ideas (scientific racism). Clearly, this is not objective and non-biased. So why do we put science up on a pedestal? I'm not anti-science, and I'm certainly not suggesting we disregard all of the great things science has to offer us. But there is more to understanding the world than learning facts. For example, we can learn about the world through experiences. These experiences are valuable, and can be used as evidence for knowledge. Sometimes, science ignores certain groups, rendering their experiences extremely valuable, because it is all they have.

My question is the title of this post: why don't we value life experiences as evidence for knowledge?

Response to Kim, "Pedagody and Race"

Thank you for bringing up this topic. This is a common theme I have noticed in social justice circles. For example, second-wave feminism has been criticized for not being inclusive to women of color, lower class women, queer women, etc. I think this happens because it is a privilege to be able to sit around and discuss oppression. Additionally, the language used in these circles can be very inaccessible to most people, especially underprivileged people. This becomes a problem, because something that is supposed to be (and, I think, genuinely is) concerned with liberating an oppressed group isn't even accessible to said group. The faces of human rights movements (such as the civil rights movement, feminist movements, gay rights movement, etc) are typically people who are pretty privileged. People who are underprivileged are probably too busy trying to survive to participate in these movements. They also may not have the language to participate in discussions about these issues because of education inequalities.
I think a way to combat this problem is to make the language we use to discuss these issues more simplistic. I am not suggesting we "dumb down" our ideas though; the ideas are still very complex, and underpriveleged people are very capable of grasping them. However, making the language inaccessible while we talk about them alienates people who deserve to be a part of these discussions.

Question: What are some other ways we can make these movements more accessible to underprivileged people?

Morality in the Classroom

People tend to be resistant to teaching morality in schools. People think it involves teaching controversial topics such as religion, sexuality, politics, abortion, etc. However, we do teach morality in schools, and I don't see how we could avoid it. With children, we teach "right" from "wrong" probably as much as we teach academic things. Children need to learn how to behave in socially acceptable ways in order to grow and be able to function in the world. Even with older students, we still teach them right from wrong. For example, colleges take plagiarism extremely seriously, because it is wrong to steal people's intellectual property. Some things, we accept as clearly right or wrong. Others, such as the controversial topics I mentioned above, are less clear, so we avoid talking about them. However, we apparently do teach morality to students.

Question: Where do we draw the line between morality that should be taught in schools and morality that is too controversial?

Response to Bryan, "Life-Long Learning"

Q: “What specific activities should be implemented to encourage “life-long learners?”

As you touched upon, reading for pleasure seems essential to learning. More generally though, engaging in any sort of self- directed learning (and I think this can involve mediums other than books, such asTV, internet, etc) is vital to life-long learning. I think the key is curiosity and passion for learning. When school is viewed as a means to an end (the "end" usually being a job), of course people are going to stop learning after they graduate. As you said, learning is something people think they have to suffer through. I think this can be traced back to our earlier discussions of motivation and grading. When you are constantly being judged and critiqued for how much you have learned, it may seem like a chore for some people. If learning truly is a life-long process, then students should not be graded on their work, as it is never complete. Schools also tend to suppress critical thinking (at least, in my experience) which can stifle the innate drive to learn. I think that, if there was no grading, teachers would send the message to students that there work is never complete. To be a life-long learner, you should always question things that others take for granted, stay open to alternative opinions and views, keep evolving your own views, talk to other people about what they have learned, and surround yourself by people and situations that challenge you. I don't know if schools can necessarily instill all of those things in their students, but I think a start would be getting rid of standardized testing, minimize the need for grades in general, encourage students to question what they are learning, and make connections across disciplines.

Question: Is critical thinking necessary for life-long learning?

Response to Shelby, PFC and Parents

Is it possible to do philosophy in classrooms without broaching controversial topics (e.g. God)?

Probably not, but I don't think this is a bad thing. If you encourage children (or anyone, for that matter) to question things around them and think critically, then they are going to stumble upon some controversial topics such as God. As you said, something relatively benign such as "what does it mean to be alive" could get controversial fast. I think at the heart of every inquisitive question lies something controversial. Again, I don't think this is a negative thing. Children should be allowed to explore these issues; it doesn't mean the school is telling them what to believe. Children shouldn't be sheltered from these "controversial" topics; they are going to think about them anyway. I don't think we give children enough credit. Children are capable of thinking abstractly, and they will, whether people want them to or not, because humans are naturally curious.

Question: Encouraging discussion among children is one thing, but how much should school's teach children about morality?