Fundamental Questions in LIFE: What is my place in the social order? How do I learn my place? How am I connected with others and with the larger society?

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Fundamental Questions in LIFEWhat is my place
in the social order?How do I learn my place?
How am I connected with others and with the
larger society?
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IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK, WHAT WOULD THEY
SAY?The information is up here. Follow
along.

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vdGCJ46vyR9o
• Write down your reactions to this film. I will
  call on you.
• How do these students FEEL about their education?
  
• Is it justified?
• What are their complaints? What are their
  concerns about their lives? About the world?
• Video made by a Cultural Anthropology class at
  Kansas State University Spring 2007

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Freire on BankingApproaches to Teaching

• Teacher teaches, students are taught
• Teacher knows everything, students know nothing
• Teacher talks students listen
• Teacher chooses, students comply
• Teacher acts, students follow passively
• Teacher holds authority, students are alienated
• The lives of the students dont matter
• Receive, memorize, repeat
• Views the poor as manageable, they need to adapt
  to world as is, they get a fragmented view of
  reality.
• For FREIRE Knowledge emerges through
  invention and reinvention in communication with
  others.
• Elements class solidarity, restless,
  hopeful inquiry, engage in critical thinking and
  mutual humanization, consciousness of own
  thinking, reflective about social conditions and
  change.

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Through schools and other social experiences in
their lives, students learn what?

• Any student experiencing banking methods of
  teaching can feel
• Like objects rather than subjects
• Alienated
• Silenced
• Are disadvantaged students
• Taught not to question?
• Taught to internalize failure, blame themselves
  (even though school structures can promote
  failure)?.
• Not educated to understand their position in the
  world?

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How have Classical Liberal ideas played out in
the 20th century? How much have the definitions
of liberty and equality changed? Freire offers
20th century critique of education and schooling
of the disadvantaged. Literacy for Liberty
Aim of Education GROWTH AND
I have learned to think for myself. Have all
students had this experience?
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Paulo Freire began teaching peasants in Brazil
who were illiterate, who had no rights and no
voice in governing. Eventually, Freire became a
city superintendent, and he implemented
democratic school reform for the poor.

• Every person, regardless of education is
  capable of looking critically at the world.
  Freire
• Human beings have equal rights to be free, they
  are capable, can solve problems, can learn from
  each other through dialogue, and are creative.
• Education to understand and transform the
  world. The oppressed need ways to obtain greater
  freedom by working together to change
  institutions that exclude or mistreat them, they
  must seek their own emancipation.

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Key elements of Freires approach to learning
forthe oppressed, disadvantaged, working class
student.What kind of citizen does Freire
envisionthis education producing?

• PROBLEM POSING EDUCATION
• Teachers and students learn together. INQUIRY
  DIALOGUE, ACTION (towards change) REFLECTION
  about conditions (praxis), and in the process
  learn skills and content of disciplines.
• Non-authoritarian.
• Values all kinds of knowledge.
• Seeks to connect knowledge with the reality of
  students lives.
• Authentic liberation (having voice, autonomy,
  some power)
• Responsible for the process of education
  (subject, not narrated by others, or simply as
  objects of banking education)

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How are efforts to improve conditions for
disadvantaged students based on democratic
principles? Who is considered a citizen has been
expanded since Jeffersons time. But what about
the education of low-income and disadvantaged
groups today?

• Liberal Political Philosopher C.B. McPherson
  summarizes real equality to mean
• Equality before the law.
• Basic civil liberties for all.
• Equal rights to self development (one important
  resource is education).
• Equal political voice for each citizen (the
  interests of each member of the community matter
  equally).

FREIRES CHALLENGE ARE MODERN LIBERAL STATES
REALLY DEMOCRATIC?
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FREIRE WOULD APPROVE OF A low income school
looking to engage students with local needs---an
example is Students living near toxic waste
dumpsites might investigate the health,
environmental, or economic impact on the
neighborhood or examine state policies for
locating these sites. Or, students living in a
low-income neighborhood studying why there are no
supermarkets, parks, or after school programs in
their area.
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The pursuit of humanity cannot be carried out in
isolation or individualism, but only in
fellowship and solidarity. Class-based
analysis of Freire

• No one can be authentically human while he
  prevents others from being so.
• Some mens having must not be allowed to
  constitute an obstacle to others having, must
  not consolidate the power of the former to crush
  the latter.
• (Freire, 1970)

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In a high tech world, there are efforts to
provide technology access to the most
disadvantaged students.
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Pluralist Approach to Curriculum for All
Studentswould bring some understanding of
different kinds of experiences, raise social
questions, call attention to injustices.
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What are students learning sitting here?

• If these walls could talk, they cant. But
  students can, so what do students say?
• Large classes-- means what?
• Reading assigned texts
• Cost of college
• Skipping class
• Relevance of subject matter in classes
• Books vs. web
• Writing papers vs. emails
• Time in the day
• Multi-tasking
• World conditionsover 1 billion people earn less
  than 1 per day, many experience war, illiteracy,
  and violence.