GRIGGS, CHARLES BRADFORD, Ph.D. Positive Freedom: An Exploration of Pedagogical Citizenship. (2010) Directed By H. Svi Shapiro. 216pp. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the pedagogical attempt to teach for citizenship in the public school setting. Using the tools of critical/ liberatory pedagogy the critical scholar embarked on a discovery of the foundations of his pedagogical practice, by exploring his subject stance while teaching with a democratic mindset. This dissertation proposes that there is a crisis of democratic citizenship in this country. The crisis is due to forces of oppression and is exacerbated by the lack of democratic practice in schools and society. By uncovering the techniques inherent in critical pedagogy and the free school movement the dissertation seeks to place the subject/ researcher within the mental context of liberation while engaged in a systematic autobiographical record of his teaching practices. From this autobiographic stance the researcher will reflect upon his own teaching and understandings as they are presented. The findings indicate that liberatory/ critical pedagogy is a difficult practice and creates tensions within the authoritarian bodies that control schooling. The research also suggests that democracy is only an abstract concept in schooling and cannot be practiced in traditional public school settings. The original premise of the research, that there is a “crisis of democratic citizenship” and part of that crisis is due to the lack of practice in schools, is advanced by this dissertation. POSITIVE FREEDOM: AN EXPLORATION OF PEDAGOGICAL CITIZENSHIP by Charles Bradford Griggs A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2010 Approved by ____________________________________ Committee Chair APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair __________________________________ Committee Members __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ ____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee ____________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………... 1 II. CRITICAL PEDAGOGY…………………………………………………... 34 III. FREE SCHOOL TEACHING……………………………………………… 67 IV. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTIVE PROCESS…………………….... 99 V. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………. 178 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………....... 195 APPENDIX A. METHODOLOGY………………………………………………….. 201 iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION There is a prominent educational tradition in the United States in which the future of secondary education is premised on the recognition that in order for freedom to flourish in the worldly space of the public realm, citizens had to be educated for the task of self-government. Education in this context was linked to public life through democratic values such as equality, justice, and freedom, rather than as an adjunct of the corporation whose knowledge and values were defined largely through the prism of commercial interests (Giroux, 2003, p. 5-6). Every man and every body of men on earth possess the right of self government (Jefferson, 1790). …a teacher in search of his/her own freedom may be the only kind of teacher who can arouse young persons to go in search of their own (Greene, 1988, p. 14). When I think of democracy, I think of open spaces, ideas flying back and forth carried by the winds of conversation and debate. When I think of democracy, I think of multiple faces all different colors all singing different tunes with the same chorus. When I think of democracy, I hear the bell tolls of heroes whose voices ring across the dawning age. When I think of democracy, I think of invention and sacrifice for the greater good. When I think of democracy, I see people communing with agreed principles called laws. When I think of democracy, I see a work of art. When I think of democracy…..(untitled, Griggs, 2009). When I was a child I had this dynamic view of democracy and the United States. The view was vast and free, like an unending landscape or the shores of an endless ocean. I saw all that possibility, all that talent just waiting, yearning to be freed. The freedom that encased the idea of democracy in my mind was powerful, it was not defeatable; it was everything and everyone. The vision that I had allowed for no subordinates; it was 1 equality. I saw our founding fathers, farmers and merchants, just trying to make a living and, in doing so, stumbling on a government, that provided much more than a space to make a living. It provided a space for all the contrasting pictures. I saw no divisions, pain, hate, or suffering, just love and acceptance of everyone and everything. This naive view of our culture does not ring true, but in my mind I cannot seem to give it up. I cannot remove the picture in my mind of the statue of liberty rising over our shores and beckoning everyone, to come for any reason, to take part in our democratic experiment. This cultural view fuels the fire of what could be, in my mind. From this perspective I refuse to give up the idea of functioning democracy. I feel that as a society we can move closer to this vision if we embrace the ability of the human mind to learn, converse, and love. I came to teaching to further this goal, to entice this proposition that democracy can be practiced on a practical scale. There are in existence many philosophies and constructs that are acceptable to such an expansion. The two that I have chosen to explore within the bounds of my teaching and learning are Liberatory Pedagogy and the Democratic Schools Movement. In doing so I would like to understand the democratic space, subjecthood and the tension these ideas create if practiced by myself and others in a public school setting. In essence, I would like to facilitate pedagogical citizenship. CONCERN There are several major factors that have influenced the democratic culture negatively, especially within schools but also within society. Three of these factors that warrant notice are consumerism, militarism and the privatization of public space. These 2 factors have limited the subjectivity of citizens and curtailed the application of democracy thereby producing a sublime pressure on the practice of education. The influence of these ideas provides the contextual demand for an investigation into schools as a nexus of the clash between these negative factors and democratic culture. This contextual demand crystallized interest in exploring the topic of liberatory pedagogy and the free school movement as a means of equalizing or combating this assault on freedom and citizenship happening within the confines of a supposed democratic institution and culture. Consumerism One of the greatest assaults on democratic culture comes from the subtle process of taught consumerism. It has come to my attention over the last few years that school children have not been taught the process of citizenship; instead in its place, they have been exposed mainly to the ideas of themselves as consumers (Giroux, 2003; DeGraff, 2005). Within this structure, students are overwhelmed with the idea of “invidious comparison”; they are constantly being compared to each other. This tactic advances the cause of consumerism and makes the students wary of each other’s advances and successes. The powers of the marketplace have become the standard of education. Consumerism is constantly being used as a tacit guide to move the students where they should be going. Statements such as: “If you want to get a good job…..”, “Don’t you want to be able to drive a car like that?”, “You better finish your homework, or do well on this test so you can get into a good college, and get a great job.” All these statements lead a student to believe that an individual’s worth is based on what he/ she 3 can purchase/ consume. The repetition presupposes; that there are only so many good jobs to go around, just like there are only so many fast cars and that if a person doesn’t get the best job and the fastest car, then that person’s worth will be less than someone who does. This type of thinking, however, is extremely dangerous. It does not allow the student to see into their own creativity; they simply do not have time because they are constantly in invidious comparison with each other. Bell curve The grading system based on the bell curve is another example of how teachers have to make market-based type comparisons of students. The very idea of the curve tends to create itself, because, if everyone became proficient at a standard then the standard, would be changed to create the bell curve again. All these comparisons teach the students that they individually are everything and there is no “we” only “I” and this “I” is always in competition with other “I’s”. Patriotic Consumer Built into this notion of the citizen is the cast of the consumer. “The invitation to the public was to view consumption not just as a matter of private expenditure, self- styling and gratification, but as an act of political identification through which the ‘patriotic’ consumer signals support for the Western way of life” (Soper, 2008, p. 568). Casting ourselves and our students as consumers/ citizens we make a political statement about how we as a society are supposed to function. Therefore this whole premise promotes neoliberalism as a function of the school system. “Most generally neoliberalism is a philosophy viewing market exchange as a guide for all human action. 4 Redefining social and ethical life in accordance with economic criterion and expectations, neoliberalism holds that human freedom is best achieved through the operation of the markets” (Dean, 2008, p.