How might Apple, Freire, and hooks redesign the modern school as a site for social transformation?
Abstract
In Western society, schools have largely been designed to reproduce capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist, colonial systems and values. Numerous structural elements—from redlining and modern segregation to scripted curricula and high-stakes testing—work to ensure that schools solidify existing social inequalities, produce good workers, and keep hegemonic powers in place. Shaped within these forces of reproduction, our schools are fraught with grave problems: racism and discrimination in every form, physical and emotional bullying, hunger and food insecurity, technology addiction, sexual harassment, teen suicide, conflicts and gang violence, drug use, mindless consumption, and ecological destruction. The modern school is a perfect microcosm and reflection of an unhealthy society.
How might we redesign schools such that they become sites of social transformation, rather than reproduction? How might we cultivate kind, ethical, empowered global citizens within our classrooms? In this paper, I will explore how Michael Apple, Paulo Freire, and bell hooks might address these questions. I will explore each scholar’s theories in an attempt to imagine what a school based in their pedagogical philosophy might look like—one that nurtures kind, ethical, and empowered global citizens.