The Necessity of Critical Pedagogy in Dark Times
[Photo: John Eisenschenk, flickr 2013]
By: Henry A. Giroux
Source: LA Progressive
The foundation of the triangle is REMEMBERING. This is especially true of remembering our collective and personal histories as well as what has happened more recently. Yet, the country is being swept by efforts to seriously edit what is taught in our schools; eliminate the experience of whole swaths of our population; and promote a sanitized view that elevates a white, Christian, heterosexual worldview as the only truth and value. Dr. Giroux has written extensively on the attacks on remembering and the undermining of our collective experience.
Without an accurate recollection of our experience, understanding becomes dependent on the propaganda machine which can shift frames leading to ever-greater confusion and anomie. We also have active threats to views and experiences outside the accepted small frame of the radical right with an ever-broadening list of banned books from both school and public libraries, threats to teachers who are considered “dangerous” because of their personal identities as much as what may (or may not) be happening in the classroom. From kindergarten through university, there is an eradication of accepted curriculum and theoretic frameworks overseen by educational fascists and the replacement of school boards and boards of directors. The Heritage Group’s Project 2025 is written largely by Trump acolytes and appointees; is based upon his “policy” goals, and is aimed at any Republican President moving forward. This playbook aims directly at decimating public education and institutionalizing a doctrinaire “Christian” education that institutes a Puritanical world order.
Returning to Bloom’s taxonomy, it is easy to see how shredding our collective remembering, enforcing a white Christian nationalist framework of understanding, skews people’s ability to analyze and evaluate, with a clear goal to make creativity stillborn if ever a conception of ideas even occurs. This is especially true for those young students currently being force-fed this reformation of education, as they will lack any basis for even questioning what they are being taught. Further, should those promoting this de-evolution to a mythical better time succeed, soon classrooms will once again be segregated by race, and likely by sex as well.
Dr. Giroux is absolutely correct that we need to fight to keep critical pedagogy alive in this effort to return us to the Dark Ages. The attack on education is a critical piece of the overthrow of our multi-racial democracy, and the prime way of taking the future captive. Warning, we are not at the beginning of this effort to transform education in this country. Like the forces that brought Trump to power, this too has been incrementally moving forward for decades.
Henry A. Giroux
As students return to school, we must reaffirm that education, at its best, is a public good that not only defends but actively fuels democracy. Public and higher education are among the last remaining spaces where young people can be inspired, where differences are not only acknowledged but celebrated, and where students are encouraged to be imaginative, engaged, and critical citizens. Now, more than ever, we must distinguish between pedagogies that liberate and those that oppress. Any meaningful vision of education cannot be reduced to mere methods or narrow, instrumental goals—it must inspire, ignite, and challenge. This is particularly urgent in a time when education at all levels is being shaped by right-wing ideologues, politicians, administrators, and a billionaire elite who see it as a tool of ideological repression, instrumentalism, white Christian nationalism, and indoctrination.
Education is once again being ensnared by the suffocating chains of instrumentalism—a pedagogy that prioritizes rote memorization, conformity, and rigid discipline over critical thinking and creativity. This deadening rationality, for instance, reduces pedagogy to teaching for the test, stripping education of its transformative potential. It masquerades as a set of “learning objectives” but too often turns the classroom into little more than job training, producing consumers for a market-driven world while reinforcing entrenched social inequalities. While learning work skills is important, education must aspire to something greater. It must cultivate informed, critical, and socially responsible citizens—not just workers.
Simultaneously, equally sinister forces are at play in the current historical moment, seeking to align education with an authoritarian agenda. These approaches promote a pedagogy of indoctrination that bans books, censors history, suppresses academic freedom, and dismantles the labor conditions that empower teachers and faculty. This authoritarian pedagogy erodes solidarity, undermines the social fabric, and advances an eviscerated notion of individualism, competition, and the degradation of civic culture. In the face of this dangerous attack on education, progressives must advocate for rigorous, interdisciplinary, and affirmative pedagogical practices that defend democracy, foster community and solidarity, and connect learning with social responsibility, compassion, and justice. We need an education that links learning to meaningful social change, economic equity, and social justice.
Critical pedagogy, in contrast to the pedagogies of instrumentalism and authoritarianism, illuminates the vital relationship between knowledge, authority, and power. It compels us to ask crucial questions: Who controls the production of knowledge? Whose values dominate? Which social relations are being reinforced? Pedagogy is inherently political because it is tied to the acquisition of agency, revealing how knowledge and identities are constructed within specific power dynamics. As Homi Bhabha insightfully notes, pedagogy demands vigilance at “that very moment in which identities are being produced and groups are being constituted.” Under such circumstances, pedagogy makes clear how people can become responsible to themselves—which is a crucial step towards self-representation, agency, and the ability to narrate oneself from a position of power and agency. Education is never neutral; it is never removed from the dynamics of power; it shapes how power circulates through the construction of knowledge, identities, and authority within particular social relations.
Critical pedagogy envisions transformation and refuses the notion that democracy and capitalism are synonymous. In this vision of education, democratic values and human rights are crucial to what it means to create informed citizens. Moreover, critical pedagogy is not content with simply imparting knowledge; it empowers students to question, challenge, and reimagine the world beyond the boundaries of “common sense,” gangster capitalism, and the global machines of war and staggering inequality. As a form of critical literacy, it “it is not merely about competence but is about intervention, the possibility of interpretation as intervention, as interrogation, as relocation, as revision.” It teaches students to govern themselves rather than to be governed, providing a framework in which they can narrate their own lives. It bridges the gap between the classroom and the real world, exposing the power dynamics that govern society.
The transformative power of education is constantly under siege. Critical education cannot survive if educators are stripped of their autonomy over their labor, teaching practices, and the connection of their work to broader social issues. Critical pedagogy poses a direct threat to authoritarian forces because it redefines education as a deeply moral and political endeavor, not a mere technical exercise. It challenges the status quo by exposing the struggle over power, values, identities, and competing visions of the present and future. Right-wing and authoritarian politicians fear this most: the realization that education cannot be reduced to a set of rigid skills designed to turn classrooms into instruments of censorship, propaganda, and indoctrination. This dangerous shift is already unfolding in states like Florida, Texas, Idaho, and Tennessee, where education is being weaponized to suppress dissent and critical thought.
Critical pedagogy extends far beyond the classroom, permeating all areas of social life and bridging the gap between education and everyday experiences. It confronts the entrenched power structures that dictate what knowledge is valued and whose interests are served, empowering students to recognize and resist domination in all its forms. By exposing the dynamics of power and authority, critical pedagogy equips individuals with the tools to act from a position of agency and engage in the struggle for a more just and equitable society. This battle for justice, however, is not limited to formal schooling. The broader culture—through print, media, and entertainment—plays an equally crucial role in shaping public consciousness. In a world where power manifests in economic, symbolic, and cultural forms, critical pedagogy becomes essential for decoding the mechanisms of domination embedded in cultural representations and social practices. It provides both students and citizens with the critical awareness necessary to challenge these forces and participate in the broader fight for emancipation.
The rise of authoritarianism in Canada, the U.S., and beyond underscores the urgent need to place education at the heart of the struggle for critical thinking. We need young people who will write themselves into the script of democracy, empowered to resist authoritarian and anti-democratic ideologies. Democracy cannot thrive without informed, engaged citizens, and critical pedagogy is vital in cultivating the awareness and courage necessary to confront the challenges of our time. It is the engine of individual and collective agency, essential to a vibrant socialist democracy.
A truly democratic education prioritizes human needs over profit, advocating for both economic and political rights while championing the public good above private gain. It rejects narrow self-interest, fostering a deep commitment to social responsibility and collective action. Critical pedagogy is the language of empowerment and transformation, unearthing the roots of injustice, confronting racism, poverty, and war, and inspiring us to envision a more just future. In the face of oppressive power, it reminds us that the fight for justice is not only necessary but always possible. Whether through individual acts or collective movements, public and higher education are essential for creating spaces of democratic participation and meaningful social change. What must be emphasized is that education is central to reshaping consciousness, influencing how individuals perceive themselves, others, and the broader world. Stuart Hall was right in declaring that “the left is in trouble… if it has no sense of politics being educative, of politics changing the way people see things.”
Ultimately, critical pedagogy is inseparable from the larger battle for human rights and transformative social and economic justice. It is not just a framework for education but a revolutionary force, igniting the fight against oppression in all its forms. Through this radical lens, education becomes a weapon for dismantling systems of exploitation, systemic racism, militarism, and inequality, forging a path toward true democracy—one that empowers the many, not the few. It links the struggle for individual and collective rights to the relentless pursuit of a just, liberated, and profoundly radical social order.
The opinions expressed here are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include The Terror of the Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of Books, 2019), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021); Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (Bloomsbury 2022) and Insurrections: Education in the Age of Counter-revolutionary Politics (Bloomsbury 2023). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s Board of Directors. His website is www.henryagiroux.com