Chapter 4: Schooling for a Democratic Society: Critical Pedagogy in the Democratic Classroom

There are two purposes to this paper. The first purpose is to outline my pedagogical approach to teaching democratically. In this respect, I describe how my understanding and practice of critical pedagogy informs my teaching a graduate class titled Schooling for a democratic society. In the class, I use critical pcdagogy to provide an experience in democratic education. The class serves as a place for reflection on the topic of schooling for a democratic society as well as an experience to reflect on the students’ experience with critical pedagogy in a democratic classroom. The second purpose of the paper is to reflect on the role of dialogue and conflict experienced with a critical pedagogy in a democratic classroom.