Why Have School?

Some links worth investigating include ...

Paulo Freire (1921-1997)

BC Teacher's Federation on Social Justice

Marxism and Education

The Little Education Report

The one above is Canadian. Rich Gibson is an American with some good links, like ...

Rich Gibson's Rouge Forum

Rich Gibson - Education for a Democratic Society

and, of course

OUR SCHOOLS, OUR SELVES associated with Rabble. ca supporter, founder ... the CCPA. Hoo-rah!

You mean like this?

Perhaps the criticism many are expressing here of the current political indoctrination of students is not so much a criticism of indoctrination, per se, but that students aren't getting the right kind of indoctrination.

Very Freirian. Or Marxian. Or both.

Freire also empowered his students or empowered them to empower themselves. It was reading and writing with a purpose. And that purpose was to change their world for the better, to become truly subjects in their own lives. This was the radical part. There were plenty of literacy projects in Brazil at the time - but Friere's success scared the Generals.

It's been a pleasure reading your analysis N.Beltov.  Thanks for sharing.  I hadn't heard of Freire before.

for RP and others who may be interested in reading more about Freire ...

Biographical Information and general comments.

Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was a Brazilian educator and founder of critical pedagogy. Freire could be described as being both a Christian and a socialist and saw no contradiction between these views.

Godonoo: Paulo Freire's philosophical stance is made up of a configuration of existential thought (i.e. humans in the process of building), phenomenological thought (humans building their consciousness as intentionality), Marxist thought (humans living in the drama of the economic conditioning of the infrastructure and the ideological conditioning of the superstructure) and Hegelian philosophy (i.e. every human, as self-consciousness, is part of the common experience, until s/he raises him/herself towards Science, through dialectics, so that what is "in itself" comes to be "in itself and for itself").

Godonoo: Freire's thinking flows from his life experiences and it is a synthesis of many strains of thought which do indeed lead him to the conclusion that education must lead to political liberation.

"In terms of actual pedagogy, Freire is best-known for his attack on what he called the "banking" concept of education, in which the student was viewed as an empty account to be filled by the teacher. He notes that, "it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads men and women to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power" (Freire, 1970, p. 77) " (Wikipedia entry)

Secondly, Freire wrote about the necessity of a deep reciprocity characterizing the teacher-student relationship. ""Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously students and teachers" (Freire, 1970, p. 72). Freire wants us to think in terms of teacher-student and student-teacher - that is, a teacher who learns and a learner who teaches - as the basic roles of classroom participation. " (Wikipedia entry) The educator must be humble enough to be inclined to relearn that which they think they already know through interaction with the learner.

Godonoo: Paulo remains a father of philosophy, whose reflections assist scholars in explaining the process of humanization which educators confront on a daily basis. Paulo Freire did this by encouraging scholars to reflect on our ontological vocation as subjects in the process of humanization. Freire reminds us of the presence of ideology in all thought and thus, the need to expose these ideologies in out, educational enterprises.

Some concepts from Freire:

Godonoo: Above all, the emphasis that Freire places on dialogue as an essential tool in his methodology and as a criterion for assessing the oppression or openness within a given political structure is evidence of the extent to which Freire esteemed inter-subjectivity.

Godonoo: The term conscientization and the attention that Freire pays to human states of consciousness have often exposed him to the charge of idealist, a dreamer who seeks to change social reality by a simple change of human consciousness. It is fair to say that reflection upon one's consciousness and group consciousness is an essential feature in Freire's thought and methodology.

Godonoo: It Is significant to stress that Freire's constant probing of human consciousness and appearances led to the discovery all over the globe of the social conditioning of consciousness and the power of thinking subjects to act on their own behalf.

From Godonoo, passim. Reflection on his experiences and education , on every job he undertook, was always linked to action and characterized Freire's entire adult life. We could say that the emphasis on reflection in the learning to become teachers is a Freirean idea. In this case the action is to become good teachers. Freire was already a good teacher. Etc.

"... the only way to ensure that you are truly free to think for yourself is to practice intellectual self-defence. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire called this conscientização, which he defined as "learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality." "The Importance of Intellectual Self-Defence", Clay McLeod, p. 15, Social Justice Newsletter, BCTF, Winter 2009.

There are many educational institutions around the world named after Freire: at UCLA, in South Africa, Spain, Malta, Finland and, of course, in Brasil. He has been compared to the Argentinian revolutionary and doctor Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Poems were written in Freire's honour. Prosper Godonoo in a Tribute to Freire's influence on African scholars quotes the following:

Ode to Paulo Freire "This Path Less Trod"

Let it be known
That here walked a man.
Steady in gait
The world his zone.

Clear of purpose,
He trod through the fire
Gathering wisdom,
Disdaining the mire.

Let it be known
That here passed a man
Riding the storm,
Bolts in his hands;

Slaying the myths,
Laying low the veil,
Exhorting the truth,
Unhinging the nail.

Let it be known
That here came a man With
shield and sword,
Cutting through stone.

Our knight came with light,
Showing ways less hard, He
stayed the course through On
this path less trod.

General Comments:

1. We live in a society in which it is controversial to be an advocate for social justice. When we think about it, this is actually quite strange. "It may seem ironic that one has to advocate for social justice, but one cannot assume that an idea or cause will be embraced because it is just, fair, or compassionate. We as a society often put self-interest and personal gain ahead of compassion and the communal good." (Teaching for Social Justice, p. 5)
2. Freire addressed this problem head on. It was his belief that education is not neutral. "It either served to help children conform to society's norms and culture or it could "become the 'practice of freedom', the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in and transform their world." (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) " quoted in handout "Using the BCTF social justice lens to focus our work" .
3. It ought to be said, and said very clearly, that it is probably easy for a teacher to imagine that they are applying Freire's ideas when, in fact, the opposite is the case. Related to this is the mistaken idea that Freire's ideas can be reduced to methodologies that can be applied in some routine or automatic way in the classroom.

Freire's influence on current curriculum:

student involvement in the creation of their own curriculum. Freire's teachers enter into a dialogue with their students, find out what is important to them, and facilitate discussion and learning. " Friere's teachers are mirrors who reflect the students' reality rather than pedagogues who impose their own, often meaningless or irrelevant, reality on the students." Sluyter, p. 20
A Freirian-inspired video curriculum for at-risk high-school students. Describes a three-year pilot project, in a high school on a Navajo reservation, using a video curriculum based on the philosophy of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Discusses the philosophy, development, and implementation of this curriculum. See references Squires & Inlander.

Quotations:

"Silence is the prime indicator of oppression." quoted in Teaching for Social Justice, p. 5

"Each day be open to the world, be ready to think; each day be ready not to accept what is said just because it is said, be predisposed to reread what is read; each day investigate, question, and doubt"
(Politics, p. 181).

For Freire, it was essential "to read the world before reading the word". "The question for me was how to put these two kinds of 'readings' together... Why am I hungry today? Because I don't have food. Why don't I have food? Because I don't have a job. Why can't I find a job?... Each question proposes another, and in providing different kinds of answers (the learner) begins to unveil the raison d'etre for certain kinds of phenomena." (Otchet)

"There is no text without context," he insisted repeatedly. Using "generator words" which express the learners' "actual language, their anxieties, fears, demands and dreams", Freire rooted reading in daily life, critically discussing the meaning of a word before analyzing it as a "graphic symbol". (Otchet)

Thanks N.Beltov.  Very inspiring.  I need to read that over a few more times.

Yes, a doctine of empowerment versus a doctrine of passivity, for example. It's more than ideas but also what is done with those ideas. And it is also about "whose" ideas.

If a person only understands banking concepts of education then all this may sound very alien. Freire is now very mainstream, in fact, since the technology available to young people makes the monopoly of knowledge by teachers highly doubtful. The radical and democratic heart of Freire is something that many are uncomfortable with; the idea of empowering illiterate people fills many, and not just Brazilian generals, with fear and concern. 

Too bad.

Literacy Foundations in BC, for example, can be found here. See also the pdf directly.

skhoolz=failz

emergent self learning=WIN

Its time to destroy the prussian model folks, its on borrowed time, also see this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU

PS Beltov you forgot Illich, the original deschooler

The link doesn't work for me. 

Also why are you assuming that I'm in the rabbit hole or is 'you' a general you and about generalized people in rabbit holes and not directed specifically at me.  Not annoyed or anything, just curious as to where the assumption comes from.   I find the authority comment interesting as well.  What's to say that I'm not actually one of the 'authority' figures that's been asked to come in and help change and develop some ways of actually changing the ways and whats of how education happens in the school.  :)   Part of that process though is getting an understanding of what is already expected to be taught (curriculum) and what and how it's already being taught without falling into a trap of just assuming it's this way or that way already and pushing forward with something not based in reality. 

Thanks Unionist.  I should have realized it just needed the 'l'.  

If we were working on it I would agree with you however I deal with the school system on a regular basis and they are not interested in change, not even on a small level.  I have had to fight to get even a teacher to send home the work that will be done the next day in class so that one of the kids that I work with who can learn with his tutor but can't follow the same lesson when it is taught to a group.  This would enable him to be able to learn what the other kids will learn the next day in the group, because he has been pre taught the lesson, he would start to understand how to listen in a group and then allows him to follow up with the worksheets the teacher hands out instead of being pulled away from the class to be taught again.  They finally agreed after two years two months ago and since then we received 3 sheets.

I see a definite lack of wanting to change and this is with a teacher who is great, she is enthusiastic, cares about the kids and is very experienced at teaching the masses so her kids get good grades.  Yet she can't get the support to be able to do the right thing for the one kid.

I do not want to make it private.  Just the opposite.  Some good quality private schools such as Waldorf have systems which work for every child, world wide.  Even in South Africa during the aparteid when white children and children of colour went to the same school and currently is in Israel with a similar situation.  This should be available to every child publicly funded. 

This is my problem.  Kids think, they may not learn to read, or write or do math but they do think in ANY situation and how they think is influenced by their surroundings, which for more than half of their waking hours at this point is school.  If school just taught reading and math, then I wouldn't care.  It is what they teach beyond that that is the reason I think that the school system should be bombed (and yes I did mean that metaphorically) and replaced with another system that "thinks" better.  The school system itself thinks like this - it is good to test well and bad to test poorly.  You are a good and worthwhile person in the eyes of the authority figures if you can report well back what has been reported to you and what they want to hear.  If you are good at social skills that is noted but not important A's in a classroom are much more important.  You don't have time to learn individualized things about a topic because there are 30 children who need to pick up A,B,C so you have to do extra work on top of A,B and C to be able to learn what is of interest outside of that.  These are just a few things and if you think I am talking about the student I am not, I am talking about the teacher (if you read it as the student please go back and read it as the teacher is a good and worthwhile person if etc).  This is the system and the reason that the above statements read the same for the teachers and the students is because these things are the system that they are exposed to and everyone starts to think like the system.

Ever hear the saying any man can be a father it takes a Dad to bring up a child.  Any school can teach reading and math, it takes a real education system to be a community to a child (and teachers etc).

You say some children are more comfortable doing what they are told but unless you see the alternative you are speaking only of children in the current system, go to an alternate system and see what their students who like doing what the are told are doing and thinking.  I agree with you that schools are not designed to be the best place to teach free thinking but that doesn't mean they themselves can't be an environment to foster free thinking by being free thinking themselves.  Imagine if teachers were in an environment where they were allowed to think freely and teach in a way that made sense to them (both in methodology and things like class sizes), being able to read and write would very easily follow and if it wasn't working for a kid it would be easily adapted to that child when you brought in the proper resources.

If you think a child's ability to think critically is enshrined in the literacy program I beg you to look at what is actually being promoted.  The system itself wants teachers to be able to grade such papers, true critical thinking would be pass/fail (either they did the work or they did not or if they are looking at a thesis, everything revolved around the thesis or it did not) not well this idea is better than that idea that is put across when grading is involved.  It is much easier to site and answer questions on mainstream ideas because they fit into a typical framework but if you are thinking outside the box your grade will be lower because you aren't following the grading syllabus.

Critical thinking is also hampered by introducing concepts to early promoting propaganda.  My mother was so angry they made canadian explorers  part of the province wide ciriculumn in grade one.  She said what am I going to do, say this is Jaques Cartier, he came and slaughtered the FN.  If you have thought these explorers were cool people from grade one when you get to be of the age you can understand what truly happened you will already have been indoctrinated and critical thinking will be harder.  Same goes for media.

I don't know if critical thinking skills are best taught by the school but I do know that exposing a child to a school system that is critically thinking itself rather than the one right now (that is not critically thinking/ free thinking) is more important than directly teaching it. 

In a social context (as opposed to the context of the natural sciences), determining what is "truth" is inherently a political question.

My points came about due to Sven @ #63 using Maysie's post @ #9 and taking it out of context to dispute that we're taught lies about history.  You can call that subjective all you want.  I ain't having no truck with it.

- a bit of both, I guess...

You seemed to be talking, here and earlier, about the way we are supposed to believe things work in our society - everybody doing their best, for the best good of all, etc. The high school civics course stuff. I am one of those who do not believe this idealistic type scenario - I think it is a bill of goods, actually, as we are being controlled by a wealthy elite for *their* good, not 'ours' - the struggle for some kind of real democracy was making good headway until the 60s or thereabouts, but since the neocons got serious about taking over in the 70s, we've been pushed to the edge and aren't far from going over. They can't talk about this openly, of course, so the lies about what they are doing must be maintained. Countless individuals are, of course, doing their best - but the system is designed to divert all efforts into something harmless to the neocon control of everything. The *real* point of school is not to create intelligent, aware, engaged citizens, as they tell you, that's about the last thing wouldbe feudalist lords really want, it is quite the reverse - to create citizens who can't actually think that well at all, who are quite used to the idea of going somewhere every day and doing what they are told without asking questions, who believe and obey the 'authorities' without asking any hard questions, etc. Children are taught that the way to get approval from the teacher is to do as they are told, without asking (unsolicited) questions - you have that attitude well-instilled in you during 10-15 of your most formative years, when the 'blank slate' of the new human brain is getting programmed, and it gets pretty hard to break away and actually start thinking for yourself and questioning the 'assumed' values you have absorbed during these years when you get out of school on your own. There are always exceptions, of course, and always will be, but the rulers can deal with a few misfits as long as most people are properly accepting of the way things are and do as they are expected. The discussion is long and full of caveats, of course, and many teachers are certainly good people doing their best to teach with no idea that they are part of the indoctrination of children, which is why I suggested the book, where I get into these things in some detail.

- I guess the kind of thing you were talking about is the kind of thing I expect a consultant of some sort would be asked to do, after which s/he reports back to those who hired him/her and they decide what they're going to do. I would also think that if you were one of the education-related 'authority figures', you would not need to get a first hand look at what is expected to be taught, you should know that kind of thing already ...  I always stand to be corrected, of course, no offense intended.

At the risk of being accused of 'spamming' again, I have written a book called Green Island in which I offer a fictional version of the way I think a true 'social democratic' kind of society would be organised - the main chapter where I get into some detail on education is here - Hunter River School http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland/ex/gw22a.html .