Uploaded November 2015 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This public lecture by Dr. Joel Westheimer is part of The Distinguished Scholar Speaker Series in Critical Pedagogy at McMaster University. It brings together leading thinkers to explore the development of critical pedagogies and the mobilization of teaching and learning practices towards matters of democracy, social justice, agency, politics, power, culture, and community.
" No Child Left Thinking: Testing, Accountability and the Threat to Democratic Life" - Our cultural obsession with standards and accountability have had dramatic effects on what is and isn't taught in Canadian and American classrooms. As teachers’ hands are tied to test preparation, students' opportunities to develop the skills of critical thinking that are so vital for any democratic society are severely constrained. This presentation details what we can do about it, how critical pedagogy can be used to challenge a neoliberal education agenda, and how we can restore both sanity to the classroom and dignity and professionalism to teaching.
Joel Westheimer is a University Research Chair in the Sociology of Education at the University of Ottawa, and he is an education columnist for CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning show. He began his career teaching in the New York City Public School system before obtaining a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research explores the ways educational theorists conceive of teaching democracy and the ways school practices embrace or challenge these conceptions. His research is based on parallel and longitudinal case studies of schools explicitly teaching democratic citizenship and a corresponding process of reading and interpreting social, theoretical, and historical sources.
This public lecture by Dr. Joel Westheimer is part of The Distinguished Scholar Speaker Series in Critical Pedagogy at McMaster University. It brings together leading thinkers to explore the development of critical pedagogies and the mobilization of teaching and learning practices towards matters of democracy, social justice, agency, politics, power, culture, and community.
" No Child Left Thinking: Testing, Accountability and the Threat to Democratic Life" - Our cultural obsession with standards and accountability have had dramatic effects on what is and isn't taught in Canadian and American classrooms. As teachers’ hands are tied to test preparation, students' opportunities to develop the skills of critical thinking that are so vital for any democratic society are severely constrained. This presentation details what we can do about it, how critical pedagogy can be used to challenge a neoliberal education agenda, and how we can restore both sanity to the classroom and dignity and professionalism to teaching.
Joel Westheimer is a University Research Chair in the Sociology of Education at the University of Ottawa, and he is an education columnist for CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning show. He began his career teaching in the New York City Public School system before obtaining a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research explores the ways educational theorists conceive of teaching democracy and the ways school practices embrace or challenge these conceptions. His research is based on parallel and longitudinal case studies of schools explicitly teaching democratic citizenship and a corresponding process of reading and interpreting social, theoretical, and historical sources.
