Culture, Politics & Pedagogy: A Conversation w/ Henry Giroux

[educatietreiro]

Very good movie. Congratulations for this.

[konduct522]

I like a lot of this channel's videos but this one just isn't saying anything to me. If it's against the NCLB policy then find someone worthy of talking about it. Still not sure what that nut was trying to say but I wouldn't let him teach my children?

[koyunbaba73]

I also don't like no child left behind. As a music teacher and an advocate for contextualized and integrated learning, I find teaching for the purposes of testing to be harmful. But I think Giroux's comments are alarming. He feels that one of the purposes of education is to raise people who will want to "close the gap between the rich and the poor." The only way to do that is by cutting the rich down. This is Marxist ideology at its worst. Freedom is better than equality.

[Autopilot84]

It's a notion of equity, not equality.

[spitfirepilot]

where there is inequality, there is lack of freedom

[2020Uoy]

No domino el inglés y me gustaría poder entender la conferencia de Henry Giroux, ideal en español.

[Licmycat]

I hope things change with Obama in, but the truth is they were trying to destroy our infrastructure by ignoring the invasion of Mexico into here. Why ELSE would they have ignoted all of it and wasted so much time and money? It's the only thing that makes sense.

[LliasiAsbi]

Oh yeah, by the way, our school has been rewarded for all of this. Its called a Blue Ribbon and it has nothing to do with my education, or that of your own children. I don't understand why we get a ribbon when the seniors in my literature class can't grasp what a metaphor is. Frankly, its disgusting, and I'm pleased people like this man are speaking out against it.

later

[LliasiAsbi]

He is not lying about the detrimental effects NCLB has had on education. I literally fear going to school every day. I witness devastating ignorance, and sickening reinforcement of it. There are two surveillance cameras in each hallway, and four officers patrolling the school. We frequently have military personnel recruiting in our cafeteria during lunch periods. And mind you, I live in a small safe suburban white community! I despise ...

[LliasiAsbi]

...school and I despise my teachers and administrators for punishing me when I express myself, and when I ask reasonable questions. I am even encouraged to dumb down my writing. This is no joke, people. It is scary as hell, and I promise that in the future, I will never allow my children into an American school. I don't know what the solution is, but I know that something needs to change right away.

---

[ManchuDan22]

"Political and moral imperative"? "Deskilling" (not even a word) teachers?

You want to see what's wrong with education in the USA?? Well, you're looking at its face!!

These kind of radical, Marxist demagogues are what has destroyed American Education; K-12.

These jerks don't care about kids, they don't care if your child can read and write, they just want them to understand the "political and moral imperative". K-8 is FAILING to educate the students, and the H.S. can't fix it!

[idealtypical]

The fact is that for better or worse Dr. Giroux has very little impact upon education.

Do you want to know what's destroying education? The propaganda of neoconservative war criminals in Washington DC think tanks, who pollute minds w/ the idea that education should be based on "market principles." Nothing could be more opposed to thousands of years of collected wisdom on education, from Plato on. Don't fall for their brainwashing: their greedy devotion to fucking up the American Dream.

[idealtypical]

Anybody who thinks seriously about education -- no matter his politics or philosophy -- can tell you that a sucessful education is one that is equipped to open possibilities  to a child that surpass those to which the child's parents had access. Herein lies true horror of neoconservative ideology: it seeks to frighten parents into infantilizing their children, into preventing their children from accessing a wider scope of knowledge & ambitions. It seeks to kill the American Dream once & for all.

[ManchuDan22]

ideal, why do you keep throwing "neoconservative" around? NCLB was a joint action of Bush and Ted Kennedy, get a grip!

Let me tell you what a successful education is, at 18 yrs old:

Can read and understand the local newspaper

Can calculate the interest on a car loan and a credit card

Can write an effective personal resume

Can tell you where Pakistan is, and why we care

Can explain the legal system in the US

Can explain the workings of Evolution

Until that, the rest is BS!

[idealtypical]

Consider the grip gotten, my friend. I'm not "throwing 'neoconservative' around." Rather, I'm describing the political philosophy that has motivated education policy from Reagan to Clinton to the Bushes. So what if Ted Kennedy sponsored NCLB? Did I identify myself as a big Ted Kennedy fan?

You seem like a smart enough guy, so why don't we both set aside the name-calling & try to explain more carefully what we mean to one another. I'll try my best if you do the same.

[ManchuDan22]

Ideal, agree on the polite discourse.

My point about Kennedy is simply that it is more than just a political philosophy argument, the need for vast improvement in ED is recognized by the entire spectrum.

I disagree that the Neocon label has anything to do with the evolution of ED in the last 20 years. "You're mixing your metaphors"

Reagen's "Nation at Risk" really started the dialogue and exposed the failure of public education, and all "reasonable'"people agreed

[ManchuDan22]

ideal, "propaganda of neoconservative war criminals"? Geez, all you're missing is DR. Evil and a bad Bond movie plot!

1st, you must remember public education has been the sole property of the liberals since Dewey, and his unapologetic socialist agenda for indoctrinating children (his words), and the very liberal teacher's unions.

2nd, we've turned a corner in education, with NCLB (a little bit) in just trying to establish some basic ED standards and teacher accountability

[idealtypical]

So, in keeping with the intentions I expressed in my response to your previous post, I'll give my take on both of your points:

1st) In some ways Dewey could be seen as a "liberal," but I have to say that "socialist" misses the mark. There's only one chapter of one book in which he comes close to sounding like a socialist, & it's not on education. Democracy & Education could hardly be called socialist: in it he indeed proposes something akin to indoctrination, but not in socialism!

[idealtypical]

Rather: what Dewey talks about resembles pretty closely the kind of small-d democratic education that would do Joseph McCarthy proud! Dewey basically calls for what we could call civics class!: totally pro-melting pot, not a whiff of multiculturalism. In fact, he specifically insists that 1st generation immigrants must leave their families' culture/values at the door, so that they can learn how to be responsible democratic citizens. To call Dewey's vision conservative would be an understatement.

[idealtypical]

1st [part 2]): What do you mean "very liberal" teacher's unions? You mean that they're more liberal than other unions, or do you mean that by virtue of being unions, they're "very liberal"? In any event, the unions are fairly irrelevant to education policy at this point. Most younger teachers (like me) have no faith that there'll be a 'safety net' for us upon retirement. Of course, neither does anybody in any sector of our economy...

2nd) Who's against education standards & accountability?

[idealtypical]

I know, maybe some people are, but that's not the real problem with NCLB, & those who oppose having ANY metrics/standards can be counted with the fingers on one hand. If it were just the assessments, then that would be fine: data can be useful for making good education policy. The problem w/NCLB resides in the way in which the data are used: lots of factors go into why a school might be failing: NCLB's solution is simply to reiterate the problem. & instead of solving it, it pushes cynical

[idealtypical]

privatization schemes along the lines of those that have been put in place in New Orleans. I decry neoconservationism because it describes precisely the non-answer that NCLB is pushing--& quite tendentiously, I might add! The idea is that privatization somehow solves problems.

Particularly in the midst of the current banking crisis, it's more than clear to everyone that private is not always better than public.

[idealtypical]

& @ its worst, there's no difference between the two: it's the same members of the same bloated, incompetent oligarchy passing the buck back & forth ad infinitum.

By building a legitimation scheme for widespread privatization of public schools into NCLB, the neocons are singing the same old song as when they made Haliburton the sole bidder on Iraqi oil contracts.

You& I might identify w/opposite ends of the political spectrum, but on education, I bet there's more common ground than we realize.

[ManchuDan22]

2nd) Who's against education standards & accountability? The Unions Why?because it weakens their ability to collectively bargain

I'll bet in your District (like mine) ALL teachers start at the same pay scale: Math, Physics, Art, PE, etc Why?

Is PE as important as math or as hard to teach? (NO! sorry if you're PE ) but the union would lose there grip on collective bargaining if EACH teacher could negotiate their own contract based on their personal value

Now there's your evil scheme

[ManchuDan22]

Ideal, I'm afraid you've been drinking the kool-aid if you think the Teacher"s Unions are "irrelevant to education policy"

You must read "The Worm in the Apple" by Brimelow. The Union's are, and have been, the single greatest enemy for improving education, EVER!

The Union's responsibility is to it's members, as in any union. It's conflict of interest between teachers and students is ALWAYS resolved in the teachers favor.

A very bad thing for kids, as shown by the USA ED levels.

[ManchuDan22]

liberal, socialist -- potato, potaato.

Dewey's agenda was to use education for things other than education, which he saw as being the "greater good"; social equality, blending everyone into an ant farm of conformity.

While some of his ideas have merit (if not taken to extremes) but using ED and students to push his agenda, earns him a place in the 7th Ring of Hell!

What is called Progressive Education today is merely a refined extension of Dewey's ideas, with some 60s idiocy added

[spinozacelt]

Nice words from mr Giroux :-)

[Glowwriter]

I totally agree about NCLB. If I had my way, I'd get rid of testing as we know it and use other forms of assessment to measure learning. Who in the real world sits for an hour and takes a test? Get real! (but I still love George Bush, but for other issues)

[fine1214]

i watched the video and thought giroux was brilliant, but after reading amiegray's insightful comments i realize i was wrong. thanks for enlightening me.

[rickinkorea]

Giroux would have us believe that the military-industrial complex was the catalyst for NCLB, which is preposterous. He dismisses this legilation because it doesn't address his ideological concerns. But students can't engage in critical pedagogy if they can't read well enough to comprehend it, or write well enough to express their views. His critique of NCLB amounts to little more than a straw man argument.

[jdubon10]

NCLB is a disaster and a legislation led by a neo-conservative administration that might very well want to expand the military industrial complex. We can teach students how to read through critical pedagogy, but we can't teach them how to lead through the current educational system. With critical pedagogy, the society that accepts it, desires to create conscientizacao -- those which put together thought with action. NCLB help the military-industrial complex culture.

[poneseven]

you must not go to a poor public school where the military calls your house to recruit you there because your info is public due to NCLB.

Assuming students cannot be engaged through their understanding of the world because they might not be able to read grossly underestimates how sophisticated students understanding is of the world actually is.

Crit Pedagogy can be nurtured through those everyday experiences that go from passive to actively engaged.

[rickinkorea]

This guru among criticalists is quick to label those educators who he perceives as oppressive. But his ideologically underpinning (i.e. neo-Marxism) is suspect in my view because it reduces school conflicts to simplistic binary thinking and denies the potential of self-agency to compensate for barriers to social justice. Critical pedagogy has become a metanarrative, willfully unaware of its own unexamined biases and privileged positionality.

[iggypot]

Is friere really big enough to call his work a meta-narrative already? i think his work is still quite unrecognized and unexamined in american schools of education. as for a critical theory of education, it can be quite simple - don't demean or dehumanize your students - do not break them down , but build them up. kind of what yer getting at with 'potential of self agency' - my critique of NCLB is that it has made it harder than EVER to become a credentialed teacher - more money & paperwork req.

[killwhitey88d]

so then what do you propose?

[dogterd]

Here's the problem with all this high minded intellectualism.... its totally out of place in the current age of the celebutard sound bite. More people care about who Paris Hilton is blowing than whether black kids can read and write. Just look at the Iraq war, the nation is going broke and nobody even notices.

Bottom line, nobody gives a fuck, so all this high brow hand wringing is utterly irrelevant.

[kshugrue]

then why so many posts here?

[puertopensee]

I agree with most of what Giroux says about No Child Left Behind, but I believe that critcal pedagogy is horribly dangerous for our children and for academic freedom. It is intrinsically anti-capitalist, left-wing and positions students to deconstruct what is orthodox. I used to be a fanatic of this approach, but politics, whether right or left, must stay away from schools. Ironically, critcal literacy often makes kids uncritical.

[eemoore80]

Boo,

[FrankFacade]

arr, makes me angry.

[redicono]

These comments are so devoid of substitive challange to what Henry Giroux is saying. I guess sarcasm and wise cracks is what passes for dialogue these days.

If you disagree than you should point out what you think is wrong and give some logic or evidence as to why you believe such. What is posted here does not tell me anything about what the authors disagree with.

[32oz]

Intergrate this into Chomsky's thoughts on the transformation of democracy and your lead to believe that this effect was intentional.

[redicono]

These comments are so devoid of substitive challange to what Henry Giroux is saying. I guess sarcasm and wise cracks is what passes for dialogue these days.

If you disagree than you should point out what you think is wrong and give some logic or evidence as to why you believe such. What is posted here does not tell me anything about what the authors disagree with.

[kshugrue]

Ever notice that ad hominem attacks usually come from the right. I never hear this retort: "Just like a conservative...."

[jermill9]

Just like liberals, to need someone else to think for them. I need no one to explain to me what I believe. Hard right bitch, from the start.

[samiegray]

Giroux is one smart ass motherfucker.

[wog7]

Thanks for informing us.