The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire's Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education

by James Lindsay

Consider an example. In a 2021 education paper titled “Drag Pedagogy: The Playful Practice of Queer Imagination in Early Childhood,” the authors, Harper Keenan (who is trans) and “Lil Miss Hot Mess” (real name Harris Kornstein, who is a drag queen integral to the Drag Queen Story Hour brand and program), present a “drag pedagogy,” which is a theory of education rooted in drag performance. They describe it explicitly as a generative practice that brings up themes of identity to young children in the early childhood education environment. In recent years, a programme for young children called Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) has risen to simultaneous popularity and controversy. This article, written collaboratively by an education scholar and a drag queen involved in organizing DQSH, contextualizes the programme within the landscape of gender in education as well as within the world of drag, and argues that Drag Queen Story Hour provides a generative extension of queer pedagogy into the world of early childhood education.17 DQSH raises questions and dialogue that are then used to present lessons from within Queer Marxist Theory under the programmatic branding of Comprehensive Sexuality Education. Their agenda is explicitly stated not as to increase empathy for LGBT issues, but to use a generative (Freirean) pedagogical approach to encourage children to learn to “live queerly” (italics theirs), which is defined as a (Marxist-style) opposition to any and all norms or conceptions o...