Pandemic Pedagogy and the Narratives of Difference: Challenging Inequalities, Emancipating Teachers

This paper provides a critical positionality on ‘pandemic pedagogy’ as a site for critical reflection and various dimensions of struggle. It aims to reflect on the centrality of the State and its instruments and how its hegemonic and neoliberal interests were exacerbated at a time when the world suffers from the COVID-19 public health crisis. The implications of largely market-oriented responses and goals of education that were instilled long before continues to dominate the entire gamut of knowledge production and delivery which privileged certain classes over the other.The paper argues that while societies and their educational systems shifted drastically from the traditional learning pedagogies to online during the pandemic, it appears that that there are still groups of people being left behind and have been marginalized from their struggles of learning. These include teachers and professors who have been forced to move their classes and activities online. Added to this is their challenge to learn more complicated technologies to continue their work. This paper also attempts to decolonize the discourse as this will focus on specific narratives and experiences in the Philippines which will be this paper’s investigation site. The paper will adhere to critical adult education principles (Brookfield, 1994, 2018) to challenges these objectives and systematically identify and analyze the important issues.The paper will conclude with a provocation to challenge the systemic inequalities that prevails in our current education system. This is congruent to the objective of adult education to emancipate and liberate the oppressed, marginalised and underrepresented groups. In doing so, we can provide alternative perspectives that would keep these groups remain hopeful while dealing with the inextricably intertwined consequences.