Emancipation or simulation? The pedagogy of ignorance and action research in PETE

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background Education is increasingly a bureaucratized, standardized and regulated service in which everything is decided by the ‘experts’. There is an abandonment of the concept of education centred on the subject, social progress and collective transformation. Thus, education in general and teacher-training in particular, need innovative approaches that question the role of schools with regard to the social reproduction and neoliberalism. Critical pedagogies must develop practical propositions for transformation beyond theoretical criticism. In this sense, one of these possibilities is the philosophy of emancipation, which demands that students participate in their own education to recognize themselves as active social agents in the process of transformation and as authors in the construction of their own world. Purpose This study is an outline and an evaluation of an experience that was based on the main objective of emancipating the students of a Master’s degree in Physical Education in Secondary Education Teaching in order to carry out their own Action Research (AR) projects. Methods The study was carried out through the planning of three cycles of AR, and a teaching role closely associated to the pedagogy of ignorance. Data from the study was collected through reflective journals from the teachers (n = 2) and the participating students (n = 90). Added to this were two discussion groups, developed for the purpose of giving the students a more active voice. Findings The results show, on the one hand, how the combination of the pedagogy of ignorance and the cycles of AR required students to act with autonomy and responsibility; however, although they valued this precept in the end, they asked for more intervention by teachers. Their overriding feeling of needing to ‘be taught’ made the study, unexpectedly, resemble a simulation. On the other hand, the methodology demanded that the authors of the study to not only maintain distance and not intervene but also to continually reconsider their role and authority in the classroom. Conclusions Based on this study, the conclusions are that the course was designed too extensively planning fewer cycles might have resolved the sensation of the emotional distance that was perceived by the students. Reflection on the dynamics of the course also bred a feeling that the objectives of the study could have been shared with the students sooner to have obtained more accurate results. Despite these complications, it was a process of intense reflection and pedagogical learning, and a valuable experience on many levels.