Resonse to Henry Giroux's Question

- How do questions of audience, voice, power, and evaluation actively work to construct particular relations between teachers and students, institutions and society, and classrooms and communities? (Are there power relations inherent in the content being taught? Are there power relations inherent in the ways in which content is being taught?)

Giroux's question can be understood best in the context of power relationship: what is the balance of power between two entities? Basically, Giroux's critical pedagogy is rooted on progressive education, which promotes a power relationship totally different from traditional education. In traditional education, the power relationship between the teacher and the student is tilted heavily toward the teacher. The teacher is the omniscient dispenser of knowledge and wisdom, and it is the duty of the student to receive them totally and unconditionally. Progressive education, however, opposes this view: it rejects the notion of the student as a receptive audience. For the student to learn truly, he must become an active participant in his learning experience. In this sense the power relationship between the teacher and the student is equal because they are partners in the search for knowledge.

In this view, literacy instruction must also be based on this kind of power relationship in which the students are active participants. This becomes especially crucial in literacy instruction for many reasons. For example, literacy is so diverse and dynamic that the teacher does not have the full capacity for it alone. Students, too, must pitch in to teach one another to become literate.

In a wider context, this new view of power relationship is beneficial for students as they grow and become members of the society. They no longer see themselves as receptive, ineffectual individuals, but active and dynamic force that can truly change the society. As more citizens view themselves in such a way, this democratic society will become more diverse and mature.

Saying all this, to answer Giroux's question in short, is that those questions foster such relationships by changing people's perception of the power relationships they have with other entities and by transforming them into active participants, rather than receptive audiences.