Questioning the Question?

The critical educator doesn’t believe that there are two sides to every question; with both sides needing equals attention. For the critical educator, there a re many sides to a problem, and often these sides are linked to certain class, race, and gender interests (McLaren 2003). As a child who spent most of the elementary years in the late 80’s and early 90’ s in a parochial school one of the things that I found most frustrating was the rigor structure to our education. Do we learn the same? All of us would answer that with a resounding NO! I believe what McLaren is saying here is that as educators with need to look a the entire scope of factors that effect a child’s education – race, gender, life experiences, school experiences, learning tendencies to ensure the success of every child. I didn’t always see or experience that in my elementary years. I believe it was the lack of resources available and it was also the norm at that time in parochial school education; I have seen that improvement now.
McLearn want’s us to be critical pedagogical instructor. He wants to instill the critical thinking and logic in the students that we reach. If this is accomplished are we not giving youth the best opportunity in the future for success? Are we not setting tem up for future success in other classes, careers and life experiences?