Literacy for Stupidification: The Pedagogy of Big Lies

Abstract

In this article, Donaldo Macedo presents a provocative critique of the current educational system and challenges educators to examine potentially dangerous educational practices that privilege specialization while ignoring the need to make linkages using critical literacy. Recent events such as the Gulf War and the first Rodney King verdict are presented as compelling evidence that, without the ability to read the word and the world critically, Americans are subject to political manipulation. Macedo links this current political climate to the state of many of our nation's schools, which operate under a pedagogy that perpetuates the inability to think critically.