Chemistry With the Community

• In Event: Critical Pedagogies Across Subject Areas: Comparative Perspectives From Urban Science, Elementary, and Out-of-School Educational Settings

Abstract

While there is extensive scholarship on and by educators enacting critical pedagogy in various contexts, including urban high schools in the United States (e.g Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008), there is a noticeable lack of concrete examples of applying the principles of critical pedagogy to high school science instruction. This paper examines the critical chemistry curriculum that we (two science teachers of color, one woman and one man) developed at a social justice high school in Chicago’s predominantly Latina/o and African-American neighborhoods, Little Village and Lawndale, respectively. Using an example of one curricular unit, we illustrate some possibilities for enacting critical pedagogy in high school science classes. We also argue that this type of project is in some ways fundamentally different from critical pedagogical ones in the social sciences or humanities. Finally, we reflect on and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum using our own written reflections, students’ written reflections, student work, and the curricular materials themselves.

Our paper focuses on one unit that began with foregrounding student knowledge through carefully chosen topics in youth popular culture. Next, we worked with students to identify a problematic aspect within popular culture. Once there was a relevant context in which to learn chemistry, we began to study the applicable chemical theories and to experiment with chemicals in order to address the chosen problem. Students were then asked to apply their knowledge of chemistry to address the problem in some way.

This curriculum was intended to push students to achieve academically and to be empowered to use their knowledge to effect change in their immediate living conditions. The curriculum and this examination of it are informed by Paulo Freire’s (2001) concepts of praxis and critical pedagogy as well as by other scholars’ applications of the principles of critical pedagogy to US urban contexts (Duncan-Andrade and Morrell, 2008; Camangian, 2011). The curriculum also considers criticisms of the ways Western science marginalizes other ways of knowing, thus also marginalizing people othered by Western traditions (Harding, 2006; Smith, 1999). We apply these criticisms to describe a vision of student achievement that promotes mastery of Western science concepts while it also honors the contributions of other traditions and pushes students to use their content knowledge to improve their lives and serve their communities.

This study is teacher research (Rex, Steadman, Graciano, 2006). As teachers systematically examining our own practice, our primary aim is to improve our own practice. We found evidence of student achievement as defined by both conventional measures and by critical indicators that we developed. Students felt empowered to use chemistry to respond to conditions in their lives. Students were academically empowered, with about one third of students who experienced the curriculum electing to take an Advanced Placement science course in the next school year. Some students embraced both indigenous and Western ways of knowing. There was limited evidence of students using their knowledge of chemistry in service of their community or to affect social or cultural change.

Authors

• Alejandra Frausto, Rudy Lozano Leadership Academy

• Daniel Morales-Doyle, Little Village Lawndale High School Campus