“Troublemaking,” “Making Trouble,” and “Making It” Through Institutionalized Schooling: Critical Pedagogy as a Transformational Exodus

Abstract

How does institutionalized schooling compromise the social fabric? Many children are learning helplessness and are labeled “troublemakers” as a form of violence which is playing itself out in classrooms across the US. They are becoming “victims” as they are oppressed by the stranglehold of high-stakes testing movements and other rigid, top-down hegemonic structures that fervently strive to dominate, subjugate, and alienate those that supposedly are not equipped to “make it” in the post-modern arena. By the same token, often, those that are “successful” also succumb to acts of violence as they conform or react to oppressive educational practices; thus, this article and educational study reveal the unfolding consequences of this kind of oppression.