Critics of Critical Pedagogy

This approach has its critics. They attack the methodology, the goal, and appearances.

Below are some contrary views.

Teachers that use this method will often bias the class towards an anti-status quo position instead of allowing them to decide if they agree or disagree with the situation at hand.

This approach to understanding the nature of society is often presented in a very intellectual fashion. When an individual attains the interest to find out the validity of the statements they inherently must consider themselves separate from the rest of society. Critics will describe such a self-image as being elitist in a way which excludes the bulk of society thus preventing progress.

The goal exceeds the desire to instill creativity and exploration by encouraging detrimental disdain for tradition, hierarchy (such as parental control over children), and self-isolation.

Such a high degree of distrust in generally accepted truths will create or perpetuate conspiracy theories.

Critical pedagogists selectively pick icons to interrogate and subvert: for example, Thomas Jefferson but not Martin Luther King.

Many people involved in critical pedagogy have never been involved in serious struggles and have used the field to build themselves and a small publishing cabal rather than a social movement. Paulo Friere, for example, can be criticized for being for revolution wherever he was not, and for reform wherever he was.

Critical pedagogy is, in many instances, a movement in opposition to revolutionary or marxist movements as easily seen in its roots in Catholic base communities of Latin America, created to stave off the potential of class war. Much of critical pedagogy focuses on culture, language, and abstractions about domination rather than criticizing the centrality of class, alienation, and exploitation.

Rather than "liberating" student thought, teachers replace a cultural bias with their own bias.