Rodolfo Hach

1
Rodolfo Hachén Centre of Ethnolinguistics
National University of Rosario,  

• Learning from Popular Education
• in Latin America
• What Role Can Universities Play?
• 26th April 2012
• Glasgow

2
Rodolfo Hachénrhachen_at_hotmail.comwww.rodolfohach
en.com.ar

• UNR (Argentina) Researcher for
• CONICET y UNESCO Activist for Human Rights,
  especially the right to education, Historical
  Memory and people's linguistic self-determination
• (LaS LenguaS).

3

• I firmly believe in Popular Education and the
  dream of Freire to have a society reinventing
  itself from the bottom up, where everyone has a
  right to an opinion and not only the duty to
  listen to others.

4
Utopía y globalización

• The concept of globalization often seems
  linked tothat of homogenization and with policies
  which deny differences and endanger not only the
  cultural patrimony of humanity but life itself.

5
Chomsky, 2003

• Its no exaggeration to say that the future
  of the human species depends on whether or not
  the rebellion against neoliberalism can become
  sufficiently strong, mobilised and organised to
  counter the wave going in the other direction.''

6
Landner, E.

• The difficulties in formulating
  theoretical and political alternatives to the
  total primacy of the market are due to the fact
  that neoliberalism is presented as an economic
  theory when it should really be understood as a
  hegemonic discourse of a model of civilization

7
Models of Civilization and Genocide

• Humanity has suffered many "models of
  civilization" that tended to destroy
  otherness. In the form of invasions,
  empires, nation states, school systems and / or
  transnational economic projects, the
  techniques of domination have not substantially
  changed.

8
Education in the Service of Domination

• Schools dont educate shepherds for sheep
  but sheep for shepherds.
• (L. Tolstoi)

9
Schools or education can no longer  be
understood  simply as vehicles for the
transmission of the basic skills required
to earn a living or to maintain a
countrys economic competitiveness. For
this economic-technological dimension of our
civilization to be viable it must be embedded in
a human cultural context that sustains it.
(Bruner, 199710)
10
Educación Popular Freire

• An education that enables people
  to  discuss their problems bravely, which warns
  of the dangers of the time so that, with
  awareness, people gain the strength and courage
  to fight instead of having to submit to the will
  of others and have their subjectivity destroyed.
  Education which places people in constant
  dialogue with each other, which predisposes  them
  to constant revision and critical  analysis of
  their 'discoveries', to a certain defiance, in
  the most human sense of the expression in short,
  an education that identifies people  with
  scientific methods and processes.(196985)

11
Another(better)world is possible

• The first time I read this phrase was in a
  book treasured by my grandfather  about the ideas
  of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil
  War. Later I understood that "Education is risky
  because it reinforces the sense of possibility
  (Bruner, 199762)

12
1963

• The same year I was born (1963), Paulo Freire  im
  plemented his first large group educational
  experience, within the National
  Literacy Campaign, bringing literacy to 300 rural
  workers in a month and a half and laying the
  foundations for popular education which, by
  overcoming the banking approach of schools
  in Latin America (and worldwide), rescued the
  active role of education for  the radical
  democratization of knowledge generation. His
  ideas and above all his liberating praxis transfor
  med my conception of studying and learning.

13
to change the ugly face of school

• Freire distanced himself from the
  authoriatarian idea of education. He made
  education relevant to everyone , based on the
  understanding of other peoples language and on
  the social construction of knowledge, within a
  well developed understanding of the identity of
  the popular classes.

14
To change the face of school is, basically, to
change the organization of the curriculum, to
alter the understanding of teaching
methodology, what it means to'teach' and what it
means to 'learn'. And this is not done by
decree. But you cannot democratise  school in an
authoritarian manner because it would be a
contradiction.When you realise that, you find
there are other ways to achieve that goal. The
main one is to be able to convince teachers,
the continuous scientific training/education of
the teaching body. ". (Paulo Freire)
15
Challenge

• To ensure the establishment of Popular Education
  within the framework of an educational
  system which, as in most of Latin America and the
  rest of the world, seeks domestication more than
  liberation.

16
Educación Popular Freire

• An education that enables people
  to  discuss their problems bravely, which warns
  of the dangers of the time so that, with
  awareness, people gain the strength and courage
  to fight instead of having to submit to the will
  of others and have their subjectivity destroyed.
  Education which places people in constant
  dialogue with each other, which predisposes  them
  to constant revision and critical  analysis of
  their 'discoveries', to a certain defiance, in
  the most human sense of the expression in short,
  an education that identifies people  with
  scientific methods and processes.(196985)

17
Educación Popular and diversity

• Diversity is a characteristic inherent in
  humanity. Each group of people speaks the world
  (Charaudeau, 1988) in its own peculiar way and
  herein lies the richness of interculturality.

18
False opposition equality/diversity

• EQUALITY
• is opposed to
• INEQUALITY

• DIVERSITY
• Is opposed to
• HOMOGENEITY
• .

19
Tolerance versus Respect

• Proper Popular Education should promote respect
  for diversity within a framework of equal
  rights. We talk about RESPECT and not
  TOLERANCE because "tolerance permits cultural
  differences, which I think is very positive but
  it doesnt give them any right, it puts them in a
  situation of structural inferiority, constantly re
  minding them that there are limits which,
  if exceeded, can lead to prohibitions. It is
  better to be tolerated than outlawed, thats
  true. But to be tolerated does not mean to have
  the same rights and freedoms as those of
  the dominant group members
• . (Wieviorka en Cisneros, 2004 22)

20
Integration versus Articulation

• Integration is often a form of forced
  "assimilation". The idea of articulation is a
  better approach because it lets us think of a
  complex structure "... in which things are
  related as much by their differences as their
  similarities. This makes it necessary
  to highlight the mechanisms that
  connect dissimilar features, since there is
  no 'necessary correspondence' nor can
  the hegemony of expression be taken for
  granted "(Stuart Hall to Jameson - Žižek,199399)
  In this complex structure of the social, cultural
  operators do not mix, losing their identities
  instead they bring their differences together for
  the benefit of the whole mechanism, a
  mechanism in which there shouldnt and cant be
  any hegemony of power..

21
Inequality

• Racism, class privilege and prejudice, all
  amplified by the forms of poverty they create,
  have powerful effects on how much and how we
  educate" (Bruner, 199745)

22
Original Peoples of America

• Historically decimated, marginalized, robbed and
  kept away from areas of institutional power, they
  await recognition and  enactment of their rights
  in relation to land, identity and education. The
  social inequality which minority languages ??and
  cultures must suffer can be seen clearly when key
  variables such as number of speakers, poverty
  levels and possibilities of access to education
  are cross-referenced.
• .

23
Argentina

• The highest rates of illiteracy are seen in
  the northern provinces Chaco with 12,33,
  Corrientes with 10 Santiago del estero with
  9,54, Formosa with 9,24, Misiones with 9,11,
  Jujuy with 7,85 y Salta with 7,57.

24

Also in these provinces we find the highest
rates of people 25 and over with little or
no education (no more than 3 years of primary
education). While the national average is 12.3,
we see much higher figures in these provinces
Chaco, 27.1,Santiago del Estero, 21.9, Formosa,
21.5, Corrientes, 21.3, 20.7 Misiones,Jujuy,
18.9 and Salta and Entre Rios, 17.6 (Pognante,
2003). The areas most affected by
illiteracy correspond to the historically poorest 
provinces, those where you find the highest
concentration of indigenous populations
of Toba, Mocoví, Wichí, Guarani, Quechua, Pilagá, 
Mbyá, Chiriguano, Chane, Tapiete, Nivacle and Chor
ote. The Chiriguano language is spoken in this
region by 15,000 people (Chiriguanos Tapités Chané
, in the provinces of Salta and Jujuy), Mbya by
2,500-3,000 speakers (Mission), Toba, by 35,000
to 60,000 speakers (Chaco, Formosa,
Salta), Nivacle by 200 to 1,200 speakers (Salta),
Chorote by 1,200 to 2,100 speakers
(Salta), Quichua Santiago from 60,000 to 100,000
speakers (Santiago del Estero), and Guarani
Correntino (Goyano) and Paraguayan Guarani,
1,000,000 speakers (Censabella, 1999)
25
some day we might be able to talk about ethnic
genocide as a thing of the past but cultural
genocide is still active each time we try to
impose better ways of life and congratulate
ourselves when people who are proud and
independent gradually succumb, in the best of
cases, to the the good intentions of making them
as much as possible like us and, in the worst of
cases, leaving them just as they are so as to
exploit them better. (Romano, 2007 190)
26
Nuestra tarea

• So its the job of universities to address
  diversity not saying of but with. We
  shouldnt adopt a paternalistic approach but
  instead create a true climate for dialogue since,
  as indicated by the Nobel Peace Prize winner
  Rigoberta Menchú What we need isnt that you
  give us a hand but that you take away the one you
  already have around our necks...(Rigoberta
  Menchú)

27
Educación Popular and traditional conceptions of
education

• Education, however it is organised, in
  whichever culture, always has consequences on the
  subsequent lives of those who receive it. ()
  education is never neutral, it never fails to
  have social and economic consequences. Try as
  anyone might to argue against it, education is
  always political in this wider sense (Bruner,
  199743 y 44)

28
Prescriptive institutions church, school and
literary criticism(Chartier - Hebrard, 1994)

• With regard to prescription, various
  groupings concentrated attention the discourses
  of school, the churches and literary criticism,
  and each one of them had an institution of
  production and control, a legitimacy, a system of
  exclusion. (Chartier - Hebrard, 1994 18)

29
Liberty as a threat

• Free access to reading, for example, and
  especially its free interpretation, becomes a
  danger which threatens the stability of the most
  powerful institutions which, throuhout history,
  have based their power in their exclusive
  knowledge. The establishement of a unique set of
  knowledge alien to the social group has always
  been linked with power.

30
In the crossroads of education

• Trapped in the well-known crossroads
  between subverting or consolidating the
  established order, schools dont always fail in
  their objective, but this objective answers to
  shemes and suppositions of which they are no
  longer even aware.
• We believe that An education sytem should help
  those who grow in a culture to find an identity
  within that culture (Bruner, 199762) Education
  should promote the sense of AGENCY, REFLECTION
  and COLLABORATION always in conjunction with the
  socio-cultural dynamic.

31
What do we mean when we talk about Educación
Popular?

• In the history of (Latin) America, the
  expression popular education has often been
  used to refer to a variety of political and
  ideological questions. From religious beginnings
  in colonial times it slowly changed in the 17th
  and 19th centuries under the influence of the
  Enlightenment and the beginning of rationalism.

32
Siglo XIX

• The consolodation of Nation States associated
  education with the builiding of a strong
  nationalist image. In the second half of the 19th
  century, in opposition to the dominant ideas,
  there is an upsurge in anarchist and socialist
  groups and popular nationalist governments who
  propose some alternative pedagogical practices

33
Siglo XX

• At the beginning of the 20th century the
  university extension model was introduced to
  Latin America and was synonymous with popular
  education. This was promoted by the work of the
  Movement for University reform. Examples would be
  Popular Universities and Indigenist Projects. In
  the 50s education is seen as decisive in the
  development of human resources and so the
  different education systems are modernised

34
Decada del 60

• In the 60s education is seen as a
  resource for individuals to overcome
  marginalisation. In this period there is an
  upsurge in projects with a more political and
  social focus, directed towards changing the
  degree of participation of the popular classes.
  Inspired by the triumph of the Cuban revolution
  and the new position of the Church (Vatican II,
  The Latin American Bishops Conference and the
  Puebla Meeting), as well as by groups of
  intellectuals and the student sector, Popular
  Education becomes stronger and more resonant
  (..). From the 90s onwards it reconsiders its
  political position society is seen as
  agglomaration of of spaces of confrontation of
  which the school is one. The struggle for a
  public popular education is the central approach
  in this decade

35
The university plays a decisive role, pushed by
workers organisations in Guatemala, El Salvador
and Peru.

• University Extension is particularly popular
  in Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Nicaragua and
  Argentina and indigenist education programmes
  begin to appear in Ecuador and Bolivia.

36
A second stage of popular-democratic projects
are represented by the literacy work begun by
Freire in Brazil (1961) during the government of
Joao Goulart the Reform carried out by the
United Popular government of Salvador Allende in
Chile (1970) the National Revolutionary Movement
(MNR) in Bolivia (1952-1964) the Arbenz
government in Guatemala (1954) the Cuban
Educational Reform (1958) the Educational Reform
in Peru (1968) and Panama (1969), with the
establishment of schools of production during
the government of ??????. The Reform in Bolivia
took place underJuan José Torres (1970-1971) and
in Nicaragua under the Sandinista government
(1979-1991)
37
Popular Education as an alternative to
institutionalised models

• The exclusion of poor people from educational
  institutions, the lack of provision and quality,
  as well as the conception of people and society
  presented by state education, led groups of
  intellectuals declaring themselves to be on the
  side of the majority classes and committed to
  their causes to develop political-educational
  projects directed towards the transformation of
  social structures..

38
Paulo Freire

• He analyses the institutional conceptions
  of education applied in the dependent American
  countries, refering to the rootedness of what he
  calls the culture of silence as a cause of
  subordination and control in the countries which
  had been conquered. His fundamental critique of
  banking education leads him to develop a method
  for teaching literacy to adults which he himself
  puts into practice. Freire recognised the
  political intentionality of education. To say
  your word is the right of all human beings and
  it is in dialogue, in communication with other
  people, that we can reflect on the world which
  surrounds us in order to intervene in it
  critically. Freire abandons the hierarchical
  relationship between educator and learner for a
  dialogical relationship in which knowledge is
  nourished through exchange.

39
We can therefore conceptualize Popular
Education "as a collective process through
which the popular sectors manage to become the
subject of history, director and protagonist of a
project of liberation that takes account
of its own class interests, it should see itself
as part of and support to a collective process
through which the popular sectors, starting from
their own social practice, build and consolidate
their own political and ideological hegemony, ie
developing the subjective conditions political
consciousness and popular organization which
will make the building of their own historical
project possible for them." (Peresson, T.
Mariño, Germán Cendales, Lola. Educación Popular
y alfabetización en América Latina. Dimensión
educativa. Colombia 1983. P. 116.)
40
Dictaduras de los 70 y 80 y proyectos
neoliberales de los 90

• Augusto Boal
• Brazilian playwrite, theatre director, known for
  developing the Theatre of the Oppressed, a
  theoretical concept and method for a peoples
  democratic theatre. He was jailed and tortured
  during the dictatorship, labelled as a cultural
  activist.

41
Theatre of the Oppressed

• Looking at the world, beyond appearances,
  we see oppressors and oppressed in all societies
  ethnic groups, genders, classes and castes we
  see the world as cruel and unjust. We are obliged
  to invent another world because we know another
  world is possible. But its our job to build it
  with our hands and act, both on stage and in
  life. Theatre cant just be an event, its a form
  of life! Were all actors a citizen isnt
  someone who lives in society, its someone who
  transforms it!
• (Boal, 2009)

42
Role of Universities to participate in the
redefinition and promotion of popular education

• We need to redefine Popular Education and
  this time based on the link between different
  specific determinations such as an expression of
  the articulation of different national strategies
  or the product created by different concrete
  groups. It should be designed to promote the
  greatest capacity for transformation in a
  popular-democratic direction, towards the utopia
  of a just society. (Adriana Puiggrós,. Historia
  y perspectiva de la Educación Popular
  latinoamericana. En Mocair Gadotti e Carlos
  Alberto Tórres.).

43
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44
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45
However we conceptualise authentic educational
practice, its process implies hope. Educators
without hope contradict their practice...educators
should always analyse the ideas coming from
social reality. Comings and goings which enable a
greater understanding of hope. Paulo Freire