Can someone please give me an opinion? What do you understand as "critical pedagogy"? My tutor is doing a PhD on critical pedagogy and I feel like I am in a nightmare experiment. For example, in my first assignment my opening three words were: "This paper examines". When I got my assignment back the word "paper" was circled with an asterisk, it said: "No, it's a critical discussion". When I looked at the legend for the * it said: "More detail please". Fair dinkum, "paper" was my second word and she wants "more detail"! And, the Course Study Guide called the assignment a "paper"; the Topic Guide called the assignment a "paper" and yet my tutor marks my assignment: "No, it's a critical discussion". I think this is pedantic bullshit - what do you think?
I used end notes in the assignment and clearly designated them. My tutor's comment was: "Please let the reader know that you are using footnotes please". That really threw me, I have never heard of such a thing before and so I have sought out leading academics from around the world and they also agree that my tutor's comments are bullshit!
It seems to me that critical pedagogy is largely about setting "impossible" tasks in order to "criticise" something. For example, in one assignment we were asked for detailed analysis of 10 questions to be contained within 2 pages. So that if a person went over 2 pages they were penalised for being over-length but by answering the questions within the 2 page limit every answer was critised for needing "more detail please". Damned if you, damned if you don't! What do you think? Have you experienced this? ESOL8703.
To give an example of this ridiculous "critical" bullshit - I dressed as a doctor for a workshop lesson I was teaching. My tutor's comments were: "I could see that you were a doctor but I wasn't sure why you had a stethescope?" Duh, if I just had a white lab coat on people could have mistaken me for a lab technician or a scientist or...the stethescope made it clear that I was a doctor - what did the tutor expect - I would go around an examine female's chests?
Seriously, I believe critical pedagogy is not just bullshit but it is dangerous and should be outlawed. Have you had any experience of it? If you have, what do you think? If not, I seriously advise you not to do ESOL8703 because it is riddled with critical pedagogy bullshit.
It sounds like critical reflection is part and parcel of at least one ESOL topic, although not specifically the one you referred to:
http://stusyswww.flinders.edu.au/topic.taf?subj=ESOL&numb=8704&year=2008&type=Both&aims=Y&fees=Y and
http://stusyswww.flinders.edu.au/topic.taf?subj=ESOL&numb=8703&year=2008&type=Both&aims=Y&fees=YYou mentioned a criticism by the tutor of endnotes vs footnotes. They're 2 different things, but if you meant footnotes, they're quite customary so I can't see what the problem was there, although perhaps students weren't meant to use footnotes for that assignment or something. Dunno.
