EXPLORING FEMINIST, CRITICAL AND PROGRESSIVE PEDAGOGIES

Spring 1995

C&I 490:  Section FCP
        Exploring Feminist, Critical and Progressive Pedagogies
 in the Context of the Subject Matters

        Time: 4:00-7:00 P.M., Wednesday
        Place:  42A Education
        Credit: negotiable
        Professor:  Margery Osborne, 386 Education, University of Illinois
at Urbana/Champaign, 244-1271 (office), [home number also provided]
                                e-mail: mosborne@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

Purpose of the course:
        This course is an exploration of some of the classic descriptions
of feminist, critical and progressive pedagogies.  Beginning with the
premise that there is much that links the three philosophies (for example
all suggest the purpose of teaching and education in general is affecting
societal change) as well as differentiates them (the sorts of changes as
well as the processes that we go through to affect change), we will
construct a critical understanding of the three in comparison.
        We will read selections by such authors as Freire, Shor, Giroux,
Maher, Weiler, Noddings, MacIntosh, Lather, Gore, Dewey.  Much of this
writing has concentrated upon either how to teach or what gets taught;
there is little that brings the two together.  Even less has been written
about these philosophies of teaching in the context of actual school
subject matters.  After reading descriptions of the three philosophies we
will think together about how to translate these philosophies into actually
teaching in the disciplines in the settings of the schools.  For this final
section of the course we will examine the question of whether change occurs
by attaining a position at the "center" of the various disciplines or
whether it can be affected by "voices from the margin."

Course requirements and evaluation:
        This course is going to be conducted as a seminar--we are all going
to be talking together about the issues raised in the papers and books we
are reading.  For this reason we must come to class having done the
readings and we must work together to create an environment in the class in
which we all feel free to talk.  Personally I would like to invite you to
both try out new ideas in this course and to re-work old ideas and
experiences.  To do this constructively involves taking chances on the part
of the speaker and understanding on the part of the listeners.  I believe
we have to work together to have this happen--it doesn't happen on its own.
        There are two kinds of written work I would like you to produce
during the semester.  I would like a "reaction paper" on one or two
readings every three weeks--a total of 5 reaction papers.  Reaction papers
(my definition) are short papers (2-3 pages) in which you react--make an
argument for your reactions to one or two ideas in a couple of the
readings.  I think it is a very helpful exercise to work on honing our
skills at creating good arguments for our ideas.  Making these arguments
hinges on both making clear, understandable statements of our own ideas and
also drawing connections to the work of others.  My idea is that these
"reaction papers" are a place to work on this.  Another way to think of
what reaction papers are is to conceive of them as more "formal" versions
of journaling.  More formal in that you are actually working to develop an
argument using the ideas presented by the authors we are reading in the
course.
        The second piece of writing I would like is due at the end of the
semester.  I would like people to draw together the ideas we have been
playing with in this course and fantasize about how they would teach a
particular subject matter in a particular setting.  This paper would be
worth the same as 3 of the reaction papers.
        Out of 80 possible points:

          10 points per reaction paper, 5 reaction papers--50 total points
          30 points per final paper--30 total points

Materials:
Course packet and books at Horizons
Books to buy:
Belenky, M.F., Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, Jill Mattuck
Tarule, Women's Ways of Knowing:  The Development of Self, Voice, and
Mind ( New York: Basic Books, 1986).
Freire, P.  (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York : Continuum.
Gore, J. 1993. The Struggle for Pedagogies: Critical and Feminist
Discourses as Regimes of Truth.  New York: Routledge.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of
Freedom.   New York: Routledge.
Noddings, N. 1984. Caring, a Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral
Education.  Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weiler, K. Women Teaching for Change: Gender, Class and Power (South Hadley
MA: Bergen and Garvey, 1988).P. Freire.  Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Week 1 (January 17-20): Introduction
MacIntosh, P. (1983). Interactive Phases of Curricular Re-vision: A
Feminist Perspective. Working Paper 124, Wellesley MA.: Center for Research
on Women.

Week 2 (January 23-27): Theoretical Underpinnings--Gramsci
Kathleen Weiler, Women Teaching for Change: Gender, Class and Power (South
Hadley MA: Bergen and Garvey, 1988). Chapter 1
Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York :
International Publishers. Section I, Chapters 1 and 2, "The Intellectuals"
and "On Education" p.5-43 and Section III, Chapter 1, "The Study of
Philosophy" p.322-343.

Week 3 (January 30-Febuary 3): Critical Pedagogy I
Freire, P.  (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York : Continuum.
I. Shor.  (1992). Empowering Education : Critical Teaching for Social
Change.  Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Chapter 4.

Week 4 (Febuary 6-10): Critical Pedagogy II
Giroux, H. (1985) Teacher as Transformative Intellectual.
MacLaren, P. (1993) Multiculturalism and the postmodern critique: Toward a
pedagogy of difference. from Between Borders. NY: Routledge.
Giroux, H. (1993) Living dangerously: Identity politics and the new
cultural racism. from Between Borders. NY: Routledge.  (didn't use)
Giroux, H. (1991) Schooling as a form of cultural politics: Toward a
pedagogy of difference.  From Giroux and McLaren eds. Critical Pedagogy,
the State and Cultural Struggle.  NY: Routledge.
Giroux, H. and Simon, R. (1991) Popular culture and critical pedagogy:
Everyday life as a basis for curriculum knowledge.  From Giroux and McLaren
eds. Critical Pedagogy, the State and Cultural Struggle.  NY: Routledge.
McLaren, P. L. (1991) On ideology and education: Critical pedagogy and
cultural politics of resistance.  From Giroux and McLaren eds. Critical
Pedagogy, the State and Cultural Struggle.  NY: Routledge.

Week 5 (Febuary 13-17): Images of Critical Teaching.
Mississippi Freedom School Curriculum--1964. Radical Teacher 40, p6-18.
Moses, Robert P., Kamii, M., Swap, S.M., Howard, J. (1989). The Algebra
Project: Organizing in the Spirit of Ella. Harvard Ed. Rev. 59. 423-442.
Hoffman, N. (1981). A Noble Work Done Earnestly. Women's True Profession.
New York: McGraw-Hill. p.90-135.
Kohl, H. (1984). Growing minds : on becoming a teacher.  New York : Harper
& Row. p100-116.
Freire, P. (1975). Cultural action for freedom. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard
Educational Review. p.85-88.

Week 6 (Febuary 20-24): Feminist Pedagogy I: Process
Noddings, N. 1984. Caring, a Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral
Education.  Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapters 1-4
Duckworth, E. (1987) Teaching as Research, The having of wonderful ideas &
other essays on teaching & learning.  122-140.
Belenky, Mary Field, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, Jill
Mattuck Tarule, Women's Ways of Knowing:  The Development of Self, Voice,
and Mind ( New York: Basic Books, 1986).  Chapters 5,6,7,10.

Week 7 (Febuary 27-March 3): Feminist Pedagogy II: Content.
Weiler, Kathleen, Women Teaching for Change: Gender, Class and Power (South
Hadley MA: Bergen and Garvey, 1988) 2, 3.
Lather, P. (1992). Post-critical pedagogies: A feminist reading, in Luke
and Gore (eds.) Feminisms and critical pedagogy.  New York: Routledge.
Maher. F.A. (1987). Inquiry teaching and feminist pedagogy.  Social
Education 51(3):186-192.
Maher. F.A. Pedagogies for the gender-balanced classroom, Journal of
Thought, 20. 48-64.
Shrewsbury, C.M. (1987). What is feminist pedagogy? Women's Studies
Quarterly, 15. 6-14.

Week 8 (March 6-10): Images of Feminist Teaching.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of
Freedom.   New York: Routledge.
Paley, V.G. (1986). On listening to what children say. Harvard Educational
Review 56(2): 122-131.
Weiler. Women Teaching for Change (chapters 4,5,6)

Spring Break (March 13-17)

Week 9 (March 20-24): Progressive Pedagogy
Dewey, John, The Child and the Curriculum (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1902/1956).
Schwab, Joseph J. "Education and the state:  Learning community."  In Great
Ideas Today, 234-271  (Chicago:  Encyclopedia Britannica, 1976).

Week 10 (March 27-31): Images of Progressive Teaching.
Addams, J. (1985). Jane Addams on education.  New York : Teachers College
Press. p.?.
Mitchell, Lucy Sprague. (1963). Young geographers; how they explore the
world & how they map the world. New York, Basic Books, Chapters 1.
Strumbo, C. (1989). Teachers and teaching. Harvard Educational Review
59(1): 87-97.

Week 11 (April 3-7): Comparison and Critique I, Feminist and Critical Pedagogy.
Gore, J. (1993). The Struggle for Pedagogies: Critical and Feminist
Discourses as Regimes of Truth.  New York: Routledge.

Week 12 (April 10-14): Comparison and Critique II, Feminist and Critical
Pedagogy.
Weiler, K. (1991.) Freire and a feminist pedagogy of difference.  Harvard
Educational Review 61:449-474.
Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn't this feel empowering: Working through the
repressive myths of critical pedagogy.  Harvard Educational Review. 59.

April 17-21 AERA

Week 13 (April 24-28): Margin to Center: Can change be effected by voices
from the margin or only from those how have attained the center?
Gates, H.L. (1992) Trading on the margin: Notes on the culture of
criticism. In H. L. Gates, Loose Canons.
Gates, H.L. (1992). Integrating the American mind.  In Gates, H.L. Loose Canons.
West, C. (1993). Black critics and the pitfalls of canon formation. in
Keeping the Faith. p.33-43
hooks, b. 1990. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness.
Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics.  Boston: South End Press.

Week 14 (May 1-5): What vs. How:  To cause cultural and societal change
should we worry about how we teach of what we teach?
Delpit, L. D. (1992). Acquisition of literate discourse: Bowing before the
master? Theory into Practice, 31. 296-302.
Delpit, L. D. (1988) The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating
other people's children. Harvard Educational Review. 58(3): 280-298.
MacIntosh, P. (1983). Interactive Phases of Curricular Re-vision: A
Feminist Perspective. Working Paper 124, Wellesley MA.: Center for Research
on Women.
Maher F.A., Tetraeult, M.K.T. 1993. Doing feminist ethnography: Lessons
from feminist classrooms.  Qualitative Studies in Education.  6(1):19-32.
Foucault, M. 1980. Truth and Power. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews
and Other Writings. 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon Books. p.51-75

Week 15 (May 8-12): Talking about feminist/critical/progressive curriculum
Barton, A.C., M.D. Osborne, (1995). Science for all Americans?  Science
Education Reform and Mexican-Americans. The High School Journal. in press.
Presentations of final project.