Abstract
In this paper, I reflect on a series of lectures, underpinned by the principles of Freire’s critical pedagogy, when engaging with Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Working with pre-service teachers in a South African School of Education, I used a talk-back design to enable them to talk back to the canon and open interactional dialogue about social justice, understanding and tolerance. I used hot seating, teacher-in-role and written work and found that pre-service teachers grasped the opportunities to set the agenda for interrogating and resisting forms of knowledge usually deemed worthy. I understood that using a dialogic platform enabled them to identify different forms of knowledge and it allowed them to understand that all texts are socially constructed, are of a time, reflect an agenda, and need to be interrogated and resisted, if necessary. I found the talk-back design important in enabling democratic participation as pre-service teachers designed their own counter-discursive responses as they confronted the canonical imperatives.
Presenters
Ansurie PillayAssociate Professor, School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Learner Diversity and Identities
KEYWORDS
Critical Conversations, Social Justice, Pre-service teachers, Shakespeare, Canon, Talk-Back, Hot-seating
