in defense of a 'non-punitive problem-posing' education model

Introduction

The structuring of the US public school system has thus far been extremely misguided. At its core, the “vertical structure” of teachers imposing their knowledge onto students, expecting them to apply this knowledge exactly as their “smarter, wiser” teachers do, and punishing them for being unable to keep up with the instructors’ methods, all serve to quell the students’ creativity and propensity to think critically. However, the ability to think creatively and critically is necessary in order to participate in political and social life. Being able to think critically allows one to understand the situation they are in with respect to society: are they oppressed? Are they the oppressors? Are they able to have meaningful conversations with others? As well as with respect to themselves: do they truly know themselves? Do they know where they fit into society? The former questions relate to the ability to develop a community free from oppression, which is able to be created only when a majority of people in a society think about and answer these questions, as well as take action against possible injustices. The latter relate to personal identity and the ability to develop our authentic selves. A communal identity that is free from oppression is important in itself – we all intrinsically seek community, and would rather be allowed to “speak our own word” rather than having people impose their will on us. A sense of self is also important – it allows us to understand what we truly want, which we can then put into practice in our own lives. We can also use this knowledge of our own preferences to engage in the political system to bring about more widespread change. Through the understanding that we can begin to shape ourselves and our communities through critical thought, we can see how education that incentivizes this critical thinking is key to freeing ourselves from oppression, which exists within communities and which we may perpetuate in our own beliefs. Of utmost importance is that this education cannot be oppressive in itself. It must treat all students fairly, and with the understanding that they are all individuals with different cultural backgrounds and different ways of thinking, who all deserve mutual respect. I will go on to prove that the current “vertical” education system is deeply flawed, and must be reformed in order to better promote the kinds of critical thinking necessary to engage in political thought. I will argue for a new, “liberatory” education system that promotes critical thinking, and has the potential to help individuals reason about their true selves, and develop a society that can begin to disentangle the webs of systemic oppression woven throughout it. In this paper I will argue for a “culturally sensitive, non-punitive problem posing” educational system that will better promote critical thought, in which differences among students are taken into account and where classes are centered around questions posed by the teacher. Importantly, this is a system in which students and teachers have a level of mutual respect for one another.

Issues with the Current Education System

Before we are able to develop our own model for the way our education system ought to operate, we should first understand how the current system works, and provide an argument for why it fails to instill values of critical thinking. In his revolutionary work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire discusses what he calls the “banking system” of education. He compares the current system of teachers “depositing” information into students’ minds with bankers depositing money into banks. It is not for any shallow reason that Freire places teachers into the “human role” of a bank clerk in this analogy, and students into the “non-human” or “dehumanized” role of a bank – this is deliberate. Dehumanization is the concept of being deprived of one’s word, one’s ability to think and act for themselves. In the traditional education system, students are expected to conform to the expectations and knowledge presented to them by their teachers. The better they memorize the teacher’s information and rigidly follow the teacher’s methods, the more the student is rewarded. On the other hand, students who are unable to follow the teacher’s methods are punished with a lower grade. This is a clear example of dehumanization – students’ own methods are seen as inferior or even negligible as compared to the teachers’, so they are taught to listen and memorize the “superior” knowledge of the teacher rather than to truly understand and think for themselves.

Freire casts the practice of colonization and traditional education into the same box in order to further exemplify how dehumanizing the education system truly is. Both education and colonization rely on the belief that one’s own practice is better than others’, and a violent tradition of subjugation ensues. When white settlers colonized the Indigenous peoples of America, they believed that Indigenous practices were barbaric and inferior to their own, so they stole Indigenous land and largely refused to listen to the opinions of those they subjugated. When teachers enforce their methodology and information as the superior word that the students must obey (otherwise the students will face the consequences of a lower grade), they are essentially carrying out a similar practice, as students are viewed as inferior and thus do not have much of a say in what goes on inside the classroom.

This practice stifles true reflection and critical thinking from students. In fact, students are actively incentivized not to think for themselves through a grading scheme that incentivizes copying the teacher rather than thinking of new ways to present information or solve problems. But, it is certainly not true that people are unable to think for themselves in our current society – this kind of thought can emerge from personal interest or passion, or perhaps even the rare classroom which employs some of the aspects of horizontal education. However, this is not effectively done in a traditional classroom setting where students are taught to repeat only what the teacher has told them. Critical thinking can flourish most in a space where students and their ideas are treated with respect, and one where students are encouraged to continue thinking outside the classroom. When students are encouraged to come up with new ideas, this can not only lead to scientific discoveries, but also to mass social reform and even liberation.

A Better Education System

We must now construct a system of education that does not fall victim to the previous critiques. On top of these critiques, we must be able to develop a system which everyone can benefit from so that we can maximize the number of people engaging in critical thought. So, it must satisfy the following:

1. It must be accessible to all students.
2. It must incentivize independent/critical thinking.

Developing an Accessible System In order to create an accessible and respectful environment within education, we first need to understand what makes the current system inaccessible to some groups. I use the word inaccessible to mean that the kind of education offered does not recognize and take into account the fact that students have different abilities and different cultural backgrounds, all which will result in differing abilities. I will examine two different types of inaccessibility, which I call cognitive inaccessibility and cultural inaccessibility, and use these to guide our sense of what education should look like.

Cognitive inaccessibility is inaccessibility that results from differences in neurocognitive ability. Take, for example, a student with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), typically characterized as a condition that results in very low attention spans, hyperactive, and impulsive behavior. A student with ADHD who is forced into the typical routine of eight hour school days, hour-long exams, and lecture-style classes will very obviously have trouble learning. They may be unable to focus in lectures, causing them to not understand the material, or be unable to sit throughout the entirety of their tests and get bad grades, which often leads to discouragement and serves as a deterrent from continuing to engage with the material. Through no failure of the student’s own, and simply due to circumstances beyond their control, they are unable to learn to the best of their ability.

One solution implemented in some schools in order to combat this issue is “accommodations.” Accommodations are compromises with the teachers that neurodivergent students may make in order to increase their performance in the class. For example, a student with ADHD may request to take exams in a separate, less distracting room, or a student with memory issues may request to bring a sheet of notes to their exam in order to avoid forgetting important information. While these accommodations can definitely be helpful to neurodivergent students, they do not serve to address the root cause of the situation – they are simply band-aid solutions. The true cause of the issue is that neurodivergency is seen as an inconvenience or a hindrance to their education, rather than a benefit that may allow them to see the material in a different perspective as compared with neurotypical students. This is valuable because different perspectives can lead to solutions that others may not have thought of, and this diversity of solutions can lead to a wider option-set that we can use to deal with societal issues. So, our system must not punish differing methods and thoughts, but rather embrace them as valuable alternatives. This implies a need to reform the grading and assessment system by placing more of an emphasis on learning new concepts rather than testing their knowledge with high-stakes, stressful examinations. We must also focus on respecting all students, including those with differing cognitive skills. Rather than students needing to seek out accommodations, their education should inherently be accommodating,

Cultural inaccessibility in education describes when students from some backgrounds learn less efficiently than others, due specifically to the fact that their culture is not taken into account when developing curriculum. Geneva Gay brings up differences in young Black students’ performance in reading comprehension as opposed to white students. Many Black children communicate with their families through African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which is a dialect of English often mischaracterized as uneducated or grammatically incorrect. When Black students are faced with traditional English literacy tests, they tend to perform poorly in comparison to their white peers because of this difference in dialect, neither of which is “more correct” than the other. So, Black students who speak AAVE should not be expected to adhere to the same English curriculum as white students.

Another important example is what Gay calls “topic associative” versus “topic centered” methods of speaking. Topic centered speaking refers to discussing one topic at a time, refraining from using overly descriptive language, and clearly separating facts from emotions, which is the kind of language favored in traditional writing assignments. This is also the language that many white students tend to use. Topic associative language addresses multiple issues at once, where subsequent thoughts build off of the opinions and feelings of the speaker. Due to cultural differences, most Black and Hawaiian students utilize topic associative language, while white students tend to use topic centered language. This can result in teachers grading Black or Hawaiian students’ writing poorly in comparison with white students, because it may include what the teacher believes to be unnecessary information. However, the writing style may be what the student feels is best suited for the story. Teachers must learn about these cultural differences in order to provide the best possible feedback and refrain from giving students lower grades based on an aspect of their cultural upbringing. So, our concerns regarding inaccessibility have led us to believe that teachers must be understanding and accommodating of students’ individual differences.

Assessments and Non-Punitive Grading Besides undergoing training to understand these differences, we must also change the very way we assess students in order to make sure that they are not being punished for these differences. Currently, we standardize tests and essentially compare students to each other. If one student receives an F on the same exam that another student receives an A on, the current education system takes this to mean that the former did not work as hard, or that they just are not as smart. These assumptions completely fail to recognize the aforementioned differences in accessibility, and thus show us that we need to find different ways to measure student performance. One way of doing this is by having students self-assess, perhaps by completing short surveys or writing assignments about what they feel like they have mastered and what they need more help with. This way, teachers can understand what they may need to re-teach and students will become more aware of what they need to work on themselves. On top of not addressing inaccessibility, the current grading system also serves to hinder students’ motivation. Our grading system is punitive, which I use to mean that grades serve as a form of punishment. Lower grades lead to a lower GPA, which under our capitalist system, reduces the chances of getting into a “good” university or getting hired for a “good” or high-paying job. Clearly, a lower grade can result in a lower income, which serves as a punishment for underachieving. Students who get low grades in a course often feel like they are incapable of learning the material and quickly lose motivation, which is the exact opposite of the purpose of education. So, we must abolish grading in favor of a system of self-assessment. One possible objection to the idea of abolishing grading is the misconception that students can only be motivated by grades, and will not work as hard if they solely self-assess. However, it has been shown that grading does little more than motivate students through fear of failure – students are better motivated by “intrinsic” factors, such as individual passion for the subject matter.

Incentivizing Critical Thinking

In order to incentivize authentic learning, in which the student is able to think for themselves without the teacher providing all of the answers, Friere suggests “problem-posing education.” The role of the teacher in this case is someone who is able to “re-present” important information that the students want to learn more about in the form of questions. This way, students are given the opportunity to discuss their own thoughts while coming up with answers to these questions. This should be done in an engaging and challenging way, and should not serve as the teacher imposing their own worldview onto the students. It should be genuinely open-ended, and should be done with students rather than for or to them. Because students are forced to think about the answers to these questions, they will inevitably be engaging in critical thought: using all of the information they have access to in order to make judgements about the questions being asked of them. Further, the teacher should have mutual respect with their students, which allows both parties to truly communicate with and learn from each other.

Non-Punitive Problem-Posing Education in Practice

We will call this amalgamation of Freire’s problem-posing education and non-punitive, culturally sensitive education non-punitive problem-posing. A possible class period of a high school social studies course could look like this:

• The teacher provides students with different newspaper articles, each with differing recounts of the same event.
• The teacher poses the question: How and why do different news outlets portray news differently?
• Students will discuss their answers with the class, and the teacher will encourage each student to come up with their own answer. The teacher should also encourage students to improve or change their answers based on those of their classmates.
• If students have questions, the teacher should re-present these questions back to the class, encouraging another round of discussion.

One possible objection to this scheme is the idea that certain subjects cannot be taught in this format, for example, mathematics. While it is true that 1 + 1 = 2, there will always be a way to facilitate critical thinking even when the concepts relate to objective truths. For example, students can be asked to work together to prove a formula, or think of creative ways to solve a problem to satisfy the problem-posing criteria. Different ways of solving problems should be celebrated: if one method is more intuitive to one student, they should use it without punishment. The teacher should, obviously, guide their students to a correct answer if there is one, but should not imply that one method of arriving at this answer is superior. However, they may encourage students to view the pros and cons of each method.

Another objection would be that this kind of education cannot work for young children, and that children need to be taught explicit rules because they are incapable of understanding complex questions that require critical thought. However, this is untrue – when encouraged, children are able to think in creative ways and formulate answers to complex questions. However, this does require the careful guidance of teachers, who will have to be much more involved than teachers for older students. Nevertheless, teachers should still treat their young students with respect and be willing to learn from them.

How Critical Thought Can Lead to Liberation

Now that we have developed an educational system which is both accessible and promotes critical thought, we turn to bell hooks to show just how important this thought is, and why it is important to have students thinking this way en masse. Hooks says that the ideas formed as a result of critical thinking, which she calls “theorizing,” can lead to possible liberation. She reflects on her childhood living in a household that upheld traditional patriarchal ideology. There, even as a young child, hooks recognized that something was not quite right with this arrangement, began to think about why this arrangement was put into place, and how “life could be lived differently.” Hooks, from her own lived experiences of childhood trauma reinforced by the patriarchy, looked to theory and critical thinking as solace from her own life. She says that “explaining the hurt” through theorizing actually helped heal her trauma.

In order to prove that theory and practice are, in fact, two sides of the same coin, hooks references anecdotes from her own life where people have promoted this idea and seeks to dispel their claims. Hooks mentions that at a discussion about feminist critiques of famous Black revolutionaries, a woman said that she was “tired of all the talk” and more interested in action, implying that the discussion was a widely-held one. This is a common objection to my and hooks’ ideas that theorizing can serve to liberate: Hooks responds that this is simply not true – that a group of women of color debating issues regarding gender and theorizing together has not happened much before, and that only with this “talk” can they begin to form a collective feminist movement (take “action”). On top of this, theorizing is in itself action because talking about gender and blackness without censorship is “subversive practice,” and subversion is a form of action.

She also argues that there is a “reciprocal process” surrounding theorizing and taking action. She claims that theory is derived from lived pain or oppression, and will lead to a process of healing by being able to “name the hurt.” This active healing then brings about more theory, which leads to more healing, and so on. Therefore, it is hard to say where the theory stops and where action starts, and hooks concludes that the two are inextricably linked, “wherein one enables the other.”

In order to reinforce hooks’ arguments, let us first clearly define theory as liberatory practice. “Theory as liberatory practice” implies using theory as the method and agent of actively seeking ways to end oppression. This way, if theory is equivalent to a practice, it is also a form of action. If we can come up with an example where theory is used in this way, we have shown that it is plausible that theory can be used as the primary agent in freeing someone from oppression.

Consider a woman who is subjugated in her household. She is dominated by her husband, and expected to do housework and raise her children without questioning the system she is under. I will state without further argument that this system is oppressive because the woman has much less control over her own life than she could have in a system without these constraints placed upon her by the patriarchy. Consider also that the woman thinks that this system is normal and just, and continues to live under it with an understanding that she deserves this treatment solely because of her gender. Now, let’s say she is exposed to feminist discussion – discussion which she is able to understand and allows her to shape a new worldview. This is subversive activity. It allows her to begin to understand where the pain that she thought was normal, was coming from. It allows her to begin to seek out ways that will get her out of the system, and free herself from oppression. This is inherently an action she is taking towards liberation, simply by being able to process this theory, which proves that theorizing and critical thought can be used as liberatory practice.

If critical thinking and theorizing is more widely encouraged in schools, we are essentially able to promote liberation and if the millions of students currently attending US schools engage in the subversive practice of theorizing, society can change at a much greater pace than it is now. By reforming the classroom, thousands of women currently facing the plight of the woman in the previous example would be more easily exposed to that feminist discussion and new worldviews they may not have been exposed to otherwise. Through reforming education, we have the opportunity to save the lives of those tormented by such systemic oppression.

Final Thoughts

Through Freire’s influence, we have seen how the current US education system is subpar. If we want to encourage a culture of critical thinking and diversity of thought, we must instill a non-punitive, culturally sensitive, problem-posing system of education. We need to reframe the role of the teacher not as someone who deposits knowledge into students, but as someone who helps students come to their own conclusions, and someone who is willing to learn from their students. Only with this mutual respect can the majority of students begin to engage in true, meaningful discussions within the classroom and engage in critical thinking.

Through bell hooks’ claims, we have seen that both an individual and a group engaging in critical thought can lead to liberatory movements, and why it is so important for people to be taught how to theorize in schools. These liberatory movements can lead to an increased sense of community, where oppressed peoples are able to unite together and form collectives. We can also see how this kind of thinking can lead to a further understanding of one’s sense of self. When we learn to engage in critical thinking through everyday education, we naturally tend to reason about ourselves in the same manner. We ask ourselves what we really want in life, whether we are happy, and whether we are fulfilled. These are all questions that help us develop our authentic selves.