In a developing country like Pakistan, where only 2.5 percent of GDP is spent on education, ranking lower than 156 countries, the decision for educators in choosing the profession is a hard choice. The great bulk of teachers is disadvantaged and has no opportunities to widen their teaching horizons by exploring other avenues. Critical consciousness isn’t a feasible opportunity when the market is exclusively dictated by conventional pedagogy. Development of critical consciousness is simply out of the question even for students who are taught in these stagnating pedagogical methods.
Consciousness is not merely the condition of being cognizant but also includes a sense of one’s personal or collective identity, including the approaches, beliefs, and understandings perceived by an individual or a group. It may also be described as the capacity to first recognise social, political, and economic oppression, and then to act against oppressive elements of society. Critical consciousness is the most important aspect in the initiation of critical discourse. Arguing about that, there is no consciousness that is not critical. Critically conscious teachers need to question the syllabi they teach, methods they employ and medium they teach in. For example, think about the teaching of English for different audiences, its cultural relevancy and the critical value of the content. Students could be either learning English to secure a job or preparing for a test. On the other hand, the same teachers also need to be aware of the broader impacts of the English language on their society. To critically educate about politics and sociocultural context of the language can help students and colleagues make better decisions and save education from commodification as private property.
The present concept of English for communication is rather ambiguous and inadequate because English is considered as a mere tool in getting assimilated into the non-problematic world that does not exist in reality. If there are more who fail than succeed in learning in our schools, then such results are not because of students’ negligence or a lack of effort but are the failure in providing students necessary psychological, sociocultural, and economic support.
Delivering the seemingly value-neutral discourse of learning is an act of indoctrination and deprives students of the opportunity to think about different possibilities. Critical teachers constantly check censorships that exist, and they teach how to fight off undemocratic practices by engaging in critical dialogues with students and colleagues. This critique should also include how race, gender, class, power, identity, and other social markers in teaching shape a teacher’s or student’s ways of accepting the roles and possibilities of, say, English language in the world, either passively or actively.
In order to deconstruct and reconstruct the current formation of teaching, critical educators in Pakistan, in particular, have to change themselves, firstly, by continuing to learn through self-reflection, in addition to credentials they receive from teachers’ education programmes. Secondly, teachers will have to understand the importance of changing relationships between teachers and students in order to value a student’s experiential knowledge. Thirdly, teachers should invite their students to participate in critical dialogue that is engaging and informative to society in an interactive manner. This, effectively, would encourage the concept of knowledge and language as entities in transition and co-constructed rather than fixed.
Teaching both skills and content is a matter of commitment rather than a method in making students agents of constructive change. Teachers who have critical cognizance of power relations in society are less likely to teach solely for standardised tests. They can resist the knowledge that is lacking information on marginalised cultures, critical thinking skills, and unbiased historical records.
On the other hand, teachers who understand the notion of social placement are conscious of their students’ requirements to contest for jobs in the social field, and are, therefore, unwilling to scrap the curriculum of the dominant culture. They are more inclined towards striking a balance. Prescribed curriculum may be improved with supplementary materials that offer students unconventional views of about a biased history. Problematising historical narratives that enable students to see that history is socially constructed and is constantly changing. In light of new discoveries new historical discourses can be promoted.
Critically aware educators are knowledgeable of skill-sets necessitated by the dominant culture, the ones that are needed for success in today’s socioeconomic setting. Extending the opportunity for teaching and learning through critical responsiveness is a decision to be made by our government. That potential can only be fully realised through conscious critical reflection. New possibilities for research and progress in effective teaching and learning is not an unforeseeable future if right choices are made now. It is never late to acquire critical consciousness because it is a basic human faculty.
The writer is PhD scholar in English Language Education. He can be reached at [email protected], and on Twitter @yaserhturi