Can we fix education? Living emancipatory pedagogy in Higher Education

This paper discusses a 12-week, 15-credit module taught to second year undergraduates during semester 2 of 2017–18 academic year. The module, entitled ‘Deschooling’, aimed to explore notions of emancipatory and critical pedagogy, control and coercion in the education system. Rather than ‘teach’ these concepts as abstract academic theory, I aimed to provide students with ‘lived’ experiences of them. That is, the aim was to provide a ‘deschooled’, ‘unoppressed’ experience for students by facilitating, so far as possible, democratic decision-making amongst the group. Subsequent reflection on the successes (or otherwise) of the module threw up numerous points. This paper reports on one particular aspect – assessment. As part of the module, students were offered choice over not only how they might be assessed, but also whether or not they should be assessed. This paper then discusses the challenges surrounding critical pedagogy in the HE classroom and considers implications for future practice.