Critical Didactics: Characteristics And Objectives
Critical didactics, or critical pedagogy, is a philosophy and a social movement that applies concepts of critical theory to the teaching-learning process. Being a philosophy, it offers a series of theoretical perspectives that problematize both the contents and purposes of pedagogy. Likewise, being a social movement, it problematizes the very act of educating and promotes itself as an inherently political perspective.
In this article we will see what critical didactics is and how it has transformed educational models and practices.
Critical didactics: from education to consciousness
Critical pedagogy is a theoretical-practical proposal that has been developed to reformulate traditional notions and practices of education. Among other things, it proposes that the teaching-learning process is a tool that can foster critical awareness and with this, the emancipation of oppressed people.
Critical pedagogy is the theoretical basis of educational practice; and didactics, for its part, is the discipline in which this base is specified. That is, the didactics it becomes visible directly in the classroom and in the contents that are taught, while pedagogy functions as ideological support (Ramírez, 2008). Both processes, theoretical and practical, are understood from this perspective as the same process, so their characteristics are usually included in the same way under the terms of “critical didactics” or “critical pedagogy”.
At an epistemological level, critical didactics starts from considering that all knowledge is mediated by the categories of understanding (Red, ), therefore, it is neither neutral nor immediate; Its production is included in the context and not outside it. While the educational act is fundamentally an act of knowledge, critical didactics takes into consideration its consequences and political elements
The latter also requires thinking that the school of modernity is not a creation that transcends history, but is linked to the origins and development of a specific type of society and State (Cuesta, Mainer, Mateos, et al, 2005); Therefore, it fulfills functions that are important to make visible and problematize.
The above includes both the school content and the emphasis on the topics they teach, as well as the pedagogical strategies and the relationships established between teachers and students. It specifically promotes a dialogic relationship, where it is established in an egalitarian dialogue strongly focused on the needs of students and not only from the teacher.
Likewise, the effects that teaching practices can have on students are considered, especially those who have historically been left out of traditional education.
Paulo Freire: precursor of critical pedagogy
At the end of the 20th century, the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire developed a pedagogical philosophy in which he defended that education is a tool that must be used to free from oppression Through this, it is possible to create critical awareness in people and generate fundamentally community-based emancipatory practices.
Freire sought to empower students in the ability to think critically about their own situation as students; as well as contextualize this situation in a specific society What he sought was to establish connections between individual experiences and the social contexts in which they were generated. Both his theory of the pedagogy of the oppressed and his model of community education represent a large part of the bases of critical didactics.
6 theoretical assumptions of pedagogy and critical didactics
According to Ramírez (2008) there are six assumptions that need to be considered to describe and understand critical pedagogy. The same author explains to us that the following assumptions refer to both the theoretical support of critical didactics and the educational activities that are generated from them.
1. Promote social participation
Following the community education model, critical didactics promotes social participation, beyond the school context. It includes the strengthening of democratic thinking that allows us to recognize problems and alternative solutions together.
2. Horizontal communication
It is about promoting equality of conditions between the will of the different subjects involved in the teaching-learning process. Thus the hierarchical relationship is dissolved and a process of “unlearning”, “learning” and “relearning” is established, which also influences subsequent “reflection” and “evaluation”.
One of the examples of teaching strategies specifically, and within the context of the classrooms, are the debates and consensus that are applied both to think about specific social problems and to the structuring of study plans.
3. Historical reconstruction
Historical reconstruction is a practice that allows us to understand the process through which pedagogy has been established as such, and also consider its scope and limitations of the educational process itself in relation to political and communicative changes.
4. Humanize educational processes
It refers to the stimulation of intellectual abilities, but at the same time it refers to sharpening the sensory apparatus. Is about create the necessary conditions to generate self-government and collective actions; as well as a critical awareness of the institutions or structures that generate oppression.
It recognizes the need to place the subject in the framework of social circumstances, where education is not only synonymous with “instruction”; but a powerful mechanism for analysis, reflection and discernment, both of one’s own attitudes and behaviors, as well as politics, ideology and society.
5. Contextualize the educational process
It is based on the principle of educating for community life, seeking signs of collective identity that question cultural crises and values based on segregation and exclusion. In this way, the school is recognized as a setting for criticism and questioning of hegemonic models.
6. Transform social reality
All of the above has consequences at the micropolitical level, not only within the classrooms. The school is understood as a space and a dynamic that collects social problems, which makes it possible to propose concrete paths to seek solutions.
