MIGRATING FROM NAIVE CONSCIOUSNESS TO CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN TEACHING/LEARNING: BUILDING A BETTER NIGERIAN SOCIETY VIA FREIREAN CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

Abstract

This paper examined the possibility of evolving a better Nigerian society which involve citizens who could migrate from being robotic and docile, to active participation in the building of the nation. This is basically a shift from naive consciousness to critical consciousness. The paper adopted traditional methods of research in philosophy, viz; philosophical analysis, to examine the critical pedagogical methods which could help migrate from naïve consciousness to critical consciousness; and philosophical speculation which aided in forecasting the development which would happen to Nigerian school system and Nigerian society given the migration. The study adopted Freire’s critical pedagogy as a conceptual framework. The two researchers argued that most Nigerian citizens are docile because of the system of education used to nurture them. This system of education, enacted through conventional pedagogy which instills passivity and naivety in the learner, has invariably made the Nigerian become helpless as he accepts the domination, subjugation and oppression taking place by the political bourgeois in the society. The researchers however posited that the introduction of Freire’s critical pedagogy into Nigerian education system and the consequent infusion of critical consciousness in pedagogues and learners, would make the education system become critical, impactful, productive and in fact, responsive to individual and societal needs. The study showcased questioning technique; problematization; as well as modelling critical thinking skills as possible methods which could evolve critical consciousness in Nigerian teachers and learners, who in turn would create a paradigm shift in the Nigerian society. The paper concluded by recommending that if Nigeria is really to witness a meaningful development, then teaching and learning must migrate from conventional pedagogy to critical pedagogy, that is, from naïve consciousness to critical consciousness, so as to produce agents who are critical enough to confront political arrangements which had hitherto constituted cogs in the wheel of progress for the nation.