Life In Schools Analysis
Life in Schools (5th Edition), authored by Peter McLaren currently stands as one of the definitive works on education where McLaren interrogates capitalism and its hold on US public education. The broadminded radicalization of McLaren’s thought can be easily drawn in this book. In this fifth edition, McLaren vividly presents the concept of Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy. This edition consists of three parts. First the opening which has an extensive preface seeking to encapsulate McLaren’s total view of the present-day educational process. The second part is a short collection of his past diaries from his early teaching years in the disadvantaged area around suburban Toronto known as Jane-Finch Corridor, titled “Cries from the Corridor.” Lastly,
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He goes ahead to establish the roots of critical pedagogy in the United States and overseas. The central tenets of the critical tradition are also explored. Eventually, McLaren asks hard question related to public education, for instance, what role or part do schools play in any given society? Do they indoctrinate learners with norms of a manipulative, capitalist class or are they tattlers of knowledge? Can schools be places of social transformation, a drastic reflection of praxis that decrees a realm in which hegemony is incomplete? Lastly, McLaren appeals for a universal society in which we primarily embrace the natural environment, human dignity, racial and gender equality in overpowering the human spirit commodification and dealing with value production. Additionally, one can claim this classical text to be a confrontational analysis of the socio-political and economic factors fundamental to classroom practices, proposing a distinctive primer to the modern field of critical pedagogy (McLaren 40).
Life in Schools features extracts from his successful book, "Cries from the Corridor: The New Suburban Ghetto." The narrative inflames analytic confab of social evils and a theoretical background for instituting potential solutions (Parts III & IV). It extensively discusses the issues of race and class, social construction of whiteness, and challenges presented by the present national and foreign policies of the present White House administration (as well as, the No Child Left Behind Act) and their effect on American public schooling
He goes ahead to establish the roots of critical pedagogy in the United States and overseas. The central tenets of the critical tradition are also explored. Eventually, McLaren asks hard question related to public education, for instance, what role or part do schools play in any given society? Do they indoctrinate learners with norms of a manipulative, capitalist class or are they tattlers of knowledge? Can schools be places of social transformation, a drastic reflection of praxis that decrees a realm in which hegemony is incomplete? Lastly, McLaren appeals for a universal society in which we primarily embrace the natural environment, human dignity, racial and gender equality in overpowering the human spirit commodification and dealing with value production. Additionally, one can claim this classical text to be a confrontational analysis of the socio-political and economic factors fundamental to classroom practices, proposing a distinctive primer to the modern field of critical pedagogy (McLaren 40).
Life in Schools features extracts from his successful book, "Cries from the Corridor: The New Suburban Ghetto." The narrative inflames analytic confab of social evils and a theoretical background for instituting potential solutions (Parts III & IV). It extensively discusses the issues of race and class, social construction of whiteness, and challenges presented by the present national and foreign policies of the present White House administration (as well as, the No Child Left Behind Act) and their effect on American public schooling