A Justice Site
MIRROR SITES: CSUDH - Habermas - UWP
NEW: - UWP CJ Dept. - CSUDH Soc. Dept. - NEW on Site
Title of Painting or Image
SITE RESOURCES: Susan's UWP Archive
Visual Sociology - Community Action - Academic Resources
Career Info - Art Projects - Discussion Threads from Transform_dom
Graduate Exam Study - Academic Assessment Standards: FAQs
POST TO: Transform-dom Open Discussion - Learning Records (F '06)
SEARCH: Topics Index - Site Index - Archives
| Merriam-Webster Dictionary Search: |
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created:August 27, 2006
Latest Update:August 27, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Community-Building and the Context of Critical ConsciousnessSituated learning recognizes that learning takes place in a context, and that an understanding of the context is essential to effective application of the learning. Banked education is rote learning of information that you will need to recall from time to time. It serves an important role in giving a database of information that you share with your family, your co-workers, your classmates, or your fellow citizens. But the process of using that information to solve the problems of everyday living is as important as the information itself.
Some of us are horrified at the substitution of learned trivia for real problem solving. Trivia may be useful for winning a local parlor game, but critical consciousness that leads you to ask where the information came from, how reliable it is for you to use, and how it can serve as a tool to solving real problems is essential for you to take on the responsibility of governing, within your family, your neighborhood, your community, your school, your work place, your nation-state. Critical consciousness is about taking responsibility for refusing to passively accept situations that lead to injustice and exploitation of others and understanding the part you can effectively take in guiding and helping your community improve justice and fairness in the environments in which you live, work, worship, and play.
Discussion Questions
- What does critical consciousness entail?
Consider that it consists of two terms: consciousness or awareness and critical. The awareness implies that you are alert and paying attention to what goes on around you in your community or nation-state, even though it may not directly affect you. Awareness fulfills one of our civic responsibilities as citizens and residents of our community. Critical implies that you consider in good faith the perspectives on issues from all sides, and that you make a sincere effort to determine valid facts, fairly collected and analyzed. Critical further implies that you accept reponsibility for either checking such facts on your own, or that you assume responsibility for the trust you place in the authority who does that for you, and that you join in efforts by your fellow citizens and residents to correct injustice and exploitation and to make our system work better for all of us.
I guess that's a nice way of saying that if you rely on the 6 o'clock or 7o'clock news on one of our local TV channels that you are placing a lot of trust in corporate control of the media. So someone may someday challenge you for accepting the dominant discourse version of current events. Probably not the best way to govern.
All we're saying is that you have a civic responsibility, and that sloppy and inattentive discharge of that responsibility makes you complicit in some of the results enacted in your name, because you could and should have taken greater care in gaining the information needed to govern.
- Who says it's my responsibilty?
Consider that that's what citizenship means. You have rights and responsibilities. If you ignore your responsibilities, we may all lose those rights. Like freedom of speech and freedom of the press and freedom from unwarranted searches by the government.
References:
- The Nature of Situated Learning By Paula Vincini. Backup copy of Academic Technology at Tufts: The Nature of Situated Learning
