The teacher is no longer the king in the classroom.

The democratization of human societies and the

radical developments in pedagogy in the last century have redefined the roles of the teacher and the
learner. The pioneering work of John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky Jean Piaget, Paulo Freire and Bell Hooks and
the theoretical frameworks built by several educationists, psychologists and political thinkers on the
foundations laid by them have drastically changed the landscape of education.

We can no longer think of a teacher-centred classroom as the norm, or of the teacher as the repository
of all knowledge. Today we also know that knowledge is not something that can be transmitted or
passed on from the teacher to the learner like some magic potion. Knowledge is actively constructed by
the learners using the tools of learning and by interacting with the environment, a process in which they
can be aided by teachers, more experienced learners, or more competent peers. A learner, however
young he or she is, is not a blank slate on which anything can be written. Knowledge can be constructed
only on the basis of existing knowledge. Unlike what we are used to thinking, what is stored in written
texts like books or audio-visual material is not knowledge, but simply data. Knowledge can only be
constructed by the human brain by processing these data. Knowledge cannot be accumulated like
money in a bank account and exists only as structures in the brain . The accumulative theory of
knowledge is linked with traditional rote-learning methods where by the learners memorize bits of
information and mechanically reproduce them when required. The structures of knowledge can only be
conceived as wholes. So the acquisition of new knowledge modifies existing structures of knowledge.

The Constructivist approach does not imply, as some people think, that the teacher becomes a
silent spectator in the classroom, leaving everything to the students. The teacher is a facilitator who
intervenes actively in creating the conditions for learning. In fact, the new teacher is entrusted with the
responsibility of not only facilitating learning, but also of analyzing the learning process diligently,
gathering and putting together learning materials of all kinds, scaffolding, or supporting the process of
learning where it is seen as weak or slow and making precise assessments of the progress of the
learners.

Critical pedagogy conceives of the learner not as a passive receiver of knowledge, but as an
active agent who critically analyzes the world around her in the process of constructing knowledge.
Critically pedagogy also rejects the traditional power hierarchy in education with the teacher at the top
and the students at the bottom. Learning is a collaborative activity involving teachers and learners in
which teachers also necessarily learn. In a classroom that promotes critical thinking, the views and
assumptions of the teacher can be freely questioned or challenged by the learners. In fact the
classroom can become the site for a lively dialogue on issues which deepens the critical understanding
of the learners.

We present here a group of young learners with their teacher in the process of an attempt to
put critical pedagogy to work.