The Pedagogy of Fear by Morna Mcdermott
From Save Our Schools Volunteer Coordinator Elisa Waingort:
Recently, Morna M. Mcdermott, posted the following essay about what she refers to as the pedagogy of fear. Morna is an Associate Professor at the College of Education, Towson University. She can be reached at mcdermottmax@yahoo.com She wrote this narrative to demonstrate “the powerful role that fear plays in shaping our current educational policies and practices”. We welcome your comments to this post.
Pedagogy of fear
I write this narrative as a parent of two small children, a classroom teacher of ten years and a professor of curriculum and instructor of ten years (and running). I selected this title to juxtapose other respected scholarship with similar titles, namely Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Pedagogy of Hope, and Pedagogy of Freedom. While I agree that oppression still exists and that hope and freedom are necessary to transform schools and society, the purpose of this narrative to offer one scholars opinion on the powerful role that fear plays in shaping our current educational policies and practices. The poet Charles Bukowski once wrote that to do a “dangerous thing with style is what I call art.” Furthering his statement, I argue that creativity in the form of