Hi! This is the first posting in my new blog. I hope to use the site to establish a dialogue group around issues of Critical Education Theory and Practice, Critical Pedagogy. In particular, I will emhasise issues about Cultural Studies, Indigenous Studies, Postcolonialism from the perspective of Critical Theory. I have more than 40 years experience of teaching at the best Universities on three continents (including UC, Berkeley in the US). For 20 years I worked as a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland School of Architecture, also running a Community Design Studio programme, finishing my PhD in Critical Education Theory, and working mostly in the Maori community.
During most of my academic career I developed a specific form of Critical Pedagogy for my design studio. Students worked collectively and co-operatively on real-world design projects for clients who would not otherwise have been able to afford professional design fees. The pedagogy was student-centred and controlled, as was the evaluation process. Over twenty years they were responsible for many million dollars-worth of design project work.
I left the University of Auckland six years ago, with a Distinguished Teaching Award, and was recruited to one of the three Maori Universities (Wananga) in NZ to work as their Director of Academic Programme Development and at the same time teaching Critical Theory and Contemporary Cultural Studies in the Teacher Education Degree programme. I was also the only non-Maori senior member of the academic staff. While I was there I was responsible for the creation, facilitation and accreditation of five new degree programmes: Media Studies, Art and Visual Culture, Maori Nursing, Matauranga Maori (Maori Knowledge Systems), Early Childhood Education (Immersion Maori language), as well as many sub-degree programmes (Maori Tourism, Business Studies, Maori Performing Arts, etc.) All of these programmes were founded upon principles of Tinorangatiratanga – that is, Maori Sovereignty and Independence. As you can imagine, it was a stimulating time, and gave me some very useful insights into my own disciplines (Design, Critical Theory and Cultural Studies). I am a passionate promoter of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to independence and self-determination - contesting past histories of colonisation, displacement and genocide.
Since retirement, I have developed my website as a free educational resource, aimed at passing on the knowledge and experience that I have gleaned from forty years of practicing Critical Pedagogy. The website comprises more than 60 free and fully-illustrated downloadable PDFs in na range of disciplines covering issues such as::
Critical Theory
Critical Practice
Critical Pedagogy
Cultural Studies
Colonisation
Postcolonialism
Postmodernism
Hegemony/Education
Critical Psychology
Critical Design
Critical Aesthetics
Critical Health
Critical Tourism
Indigenous Studies
Critical Education
Critical Rationality
Critical Urbanism
Critical Sustainability
Sustainable Community
Critical Space
Ideology and Design
Ethnic Cleansing and Urban Design
And much more.....
There are also several downloadable bibliographies and glossaries (since much of the literature is seen as impenetrable). The URL is:
www.TonyWardEdu.com
My only request is that visitors to the site leave comments in the “Contact” page so that I can measure its effectiveness and make ongoing improvements.
My website: www.TonyWardedu.com catalogues a lifetime of theoretical writings and critical practices, all of which are freely available for download.
Also, through this blog, I intend to post regular reflections on critical issues of culture, critical theory and critical education. I will build a comprehensive list of links to other sites in order to further the discourse on postcolonialism and transformative practice and to build a community of interest in social change and social justice.
There are links from there to the works and theories of Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, Jim Cummins and a host of other progressive critical theorists in the field of Education. In a field that witnesses a high degree of jargon and impenetrable theorising I intend to speak plainly - to cut through the jargon, to challenge abstraction and to promote clarity, simplicity and intellectual honesty. To do this, I need the support and involvement of many like-minded friends and colleagues. So feel free to post a commment, to visit my website, to offer suggestions and to participate in a meaningful social project.
During most of my academic career I developed a specific form of Critical Pedagogy for my design studio. Students worked collectively and co-operatively on real-world design projects for clients who would not otherwise have been able to afford professional design fees. The pedagogy was student-centred and controlled, as was the evaluation process. Over twenty years they were responsible for many million dollars-worth of design project work.
I left the University of Auckland six years ago, with a Distinguished Teaching Award, and was recruited to one of the three Maori Universities (Wananga) in NZ to work as their Director of Academic Programme Development and at the same time teaching Critical Theory and Contemporary Cultural Studies in the Teacher Education Degree programme. I was also the only non-Maori senior member of the academic staff. While I was there I was responsible for the creation, facilitation and accreditation of five new degree programmes: Media Studies, Art and Visual Culture, Maori Nursing, Matauranga Maori (Maori Knowledge Systems), Early Childhood Education (Immersion Maori language), as well as many sub-degree programmes (Maori Tourism, Business Studies, Maori Performing Arts, etc.) All of these programmes were founded upon principles of Tinorangatiratanga – that is, Maori Sovereignty and Independence. As you can imagine, it was a stimulating time, and gave me some very useful insights into my own disciplines (Design, Critical Theory and Cultural Studies). I am a passionate promoter of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to independence and self-determination - contesting past histories of colonisation, displacement and genocide.
Since retirement, I have developed my website as a free educational resource, aimed at passing on the knowledge and experience that I have gleaned from forty years of practicing Critical Pedagogy. The website comprises more than 60 free and fully-illustrated downloadable PDFs in na range of disciplines covering issues such as::
Critical Theory
Critical Practice
Critical Pedagogy
Cultural Studies
Colonisation
Postcolonialism
Postmodernism
Hegemony/Education
Critical Psychology
Critical Design
Critical Aesthetics
Critical Health
Critical Tourism
Indigenous Studies
Critical Education
Critical Rationality
Critical Urbanism
Critical Sustainability
Sustainable Community
Critical Space
Ideology and Design
Ethnic Cleansing and Urban Design
And much more.....
There are also several downloadable bibliographies and glossaries (since much of the literature is seen as impenetrable). The URL is:
www.TonyWardEdu.com
My only request is that visitors to the site leave comments in the “Contact” page so that I can measure its effectiveness and make ongoing improvements.
My website: www.TonyWardedu.com catalogues a lifetime of theoretical writings and critical practices, all of which are freely available for download.
Also, through this blog, I intend to post regular reflections on critical issues of culture, critical theory and critical education. I will build a comprehensive list of links to other sites in order to further the discourse on postcolonialism and transformative practice and to build a community of interest in social change and social justice.
There are links from there to the works and theories of Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, Jim Cummins and a host of other progressive critical theorists in the field of Education. In a field that witnesses a high degree of jargon and impenetrable theorising I intend to speak plainly - to cut through the jargon, to challenge abstraction and to promote clarity, simplicity and intellectual honesty. To do this, I need the support and involvement of many like-minded friends and colleagues. So feel free to post a commment, to visit my website, to offer suggestions and to participate in a meaningful social project.
1 comment:
Greetings Dr. Tony Ward, it was nice to see your blog a few moments ago, I intend to explore it fully (your name has been recommended to me by Prof. Peter Burgess at the University of Technology, Sydney). Meanwhile I would like to ask you to please comment specifically on a certain issue I am looking up (I am a PhD candidate at the same uni, my topic is indigenous architecture):
Freedom of cultural expression (included by the UN as a basic
human right), in principle implies the right to have one's cultural understandings of space to be given a proportionate place in the public domain. To illustrate this, the experience of a non-indigenous academic who spent just 5 days in a bush trip is sufficient: he says that upon returning to the city it was simply unbearable to walk on concrete, so what must be the feelings of an indigenous person having been born and bread in the bush (apart from experiencing the thrill of visual novelty upon a visit to a modern urban metropolis, or being mis-conditioned to considering it as necessarily 'superior'). Therefore the question arises, is actual practice reflecting this principle, or not, and why ? I am positioning this principle as opposed to consumerist attitudes, and am trying to evoke the concepts of social sustainability and ethics to launch a counter argument. It is the latter concept of ethics based on humanism (which happens to enjoy an over-riding position in comparison to the free-market-based protection of consumerism in the modernity ethos), that I would request your kind assistance. So far this topic is proving to be a dead end, and i am hoping that you may perhaps be able to provide some clues.
Thanks and best regards, and congratulations on a wonderful blog, I wish it all the success, and am proud to be the first commentor on it !
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