McGee, A. Robin. “Climbing Walls: Attempting Critical Pedagogy as a 21st Century Preservice Teacher.” Language Arts. 88.4 (2011): 270-277. Print.

A. Robin McGee documents her preservice teaching experience with a sixth grade class where she enacted critical pedagogy. Led by student inquiry, McGee uses Freirian theory of critical pedagogy to help her students learn about issues they were concerned about, immigrants and immigration, through problem-posing. She also reflects on lessons she has learned:

Does it make sense to state that as a 21st-century preservice teacher, I was teaching for social justice? I was able to do some work in the spirit of a just and democratic society. However, if I had opened up my cycle of critical praxis more fully, rather than being so caught up in the mechanics of figuring out “teaching,” my class could have accomplished so much more. If I had been willing to turn over more of the direction and autonomy to the students and the stories they had found, I am sure that the results would have been different—more dramatic and more meaningful.