[ermir]

It’s because of the influence of the Marxist Paolo Freire whose techniques and outlook are the dominant ones in the teaching colleges. He specifically hated phonics since it’s only used for rote and mechanical reading, which is a tool to make the reader useful in capitalism. Instead, he advocated for political and revolutionary techniques to awaken “critical consciousness” or “conscientize” the reader into being a revolutionary.

[red_admiral]

Although just about every "progressive" educator in the UK/US I've heard or read will cite Freire glowingly, I think we're reading far more into him than is actually there. He very much did advocate for critical consciousness and awakening revolutionary potential, but he is (to use Egan's three-aspect model of academic, developmental and social goals of education) much more on the social than the developmental side of things - the two are not the same! Freire is not so much about every student reaching their own innate potential without "spoiling" them through external pressure, but about molding students to a Marxist view of progress through sufficent application of external pressure. One can disagree with both these approaches while still recognizing that the two are very different things.

The same problem exists to some extent with Marx himself, whether or not you agree with Marxism (I don't), I'm with Freddie deBoer that Marxism is a MATERIALIST not a SPIRITUAL movement; Marx does not want workers to "feel valued" while laboring for their capitalist overlords, he wants them to own the means of production! Some of the "Marxists" in today's university social justice circles would do well to notice that.