Twitter Book Club: Paulo Freire (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Ch 3

"Those who have been denied their primordial right to speak their word must first reclaim this right and (cont) http://tl.gd/3boqqmless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"How can I dialogue if I am closed to--and even offended by--the contribution of others?" Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Without this faith in people, dialogue is a farce which inevitably degenerates into paternalistic manipulation." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Trust is contingent on the evidence which one party provides the others of his true, concrete intentions" Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

I see this play out in schools all the time. One teacher says, "I demand respect from my students." If those students display behavior in that environment that resembles respect, in my experience, it is usually only fear. This has always been the core issue I took with my own education. I believe most of my teachers took this view and it was evident when I was a pre-service teacher and I revisited many of their classrooms to do my clinicals. I was told things like, "Don't smile until December," and "Be very firm at the beginning of the year, then when you have their respect you can lighten up on the rules a little bit." I was also told this by mentor teachers at my first school in 2000. This is an obvious oppressive relationship between teacher and student. Fear and respect are at polar extremes. One might say that in a relationship of fear respect is not even possible, reverence maybe but never respect.

"Hopelessness is a form of silence, of denying the world and fleeing from it." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"If the dialoguers expect nothing to come of their efforts, their encounter will be empty & sterile, bureaucratic & tedious." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"dialogue cannot exist unless the dialoguers engage in critical thinking" Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Without dialogue there is no communication, & without communication there can be no true education." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

@anderscj i've always liked that quote - except for the 'true' part. What *is* 'true education'?less than a minute ago via TweetDeck Alec Couros
courosa

@courosa kind of vague, isn't it. I think he refers to education that leads to understanding, not mere memorization & procedure.less than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

@anderscj i think you're correct in the interpretation, I've just never liked absolutist language when it comes to education.less than a minute ago via web Alec Couros
courosa

"In its desire to create an ideal model of the 'good man,' a naively conceived humanism often overlooks the (cont) http://tl.gd/3bp78tless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

I think this is one of the issues that formal education, especially higher education, often neglects. Today most of learning that happens in schools is one form or another of book learning, the learning of concepts, ideas, and facts. It used to be that most people received their education via apprenticeship where the learning of the body was just as important as the learning of the mind. Formal schooling cares little about real-world application compared with ideological or conceptual application. I think this is one of the main factors leading to a recent comment on my blog that I cannot fully explain:

Jack Reylan said...
The Professulas, trial lawyers and union organizers are Obama's core constituencies. Universities, libraries, museums and other public beneficiaries extort their patrons to lobby on their behalf using taxpayer resources. That's what ACORN and PIRG are about. They even encourage students to max out their loans and invest the proceeds so the school can up its total. Obama learned the trick when he worked for Don Kent at tuition-funded Arms Race Alternatives, while they denied admission to Young Americans for Freedom or even the pro-nuclear Social Democrats. Ted Markowitz used the Xerox 9700 to make fliers for the 1982 June 12th nuclear freezers, but persecuted students for smaller infractions. Look how they destroyed a supply side hero like Jeff Bell! Shows how much he valued free speech then and now, and who put him up to it, and what they were really up to, racketeering for federal funds. Sovern incited the 1968 riots so his cabal could get the booty: "UPI June 6, 1992 Sovern took over at Columbia after student protests of 1968 and New York's fiscal problems in the '70s resulted in less financial support for the school, a situation made more dire by recent federal government budget cuts. . . But Columbia will be looking for a new president in a period troubled by criticism for destroying records that were being reviewed for improprieties. Universities in general have been under greater scrutiny for how they charge the government for federally sponsored research." When Obama falls in 2010, we should go through the grant-grubbing Ivy Leagues that produce commie-nutty organizers with a flame thrower! Ivy League universities are not good at getting students jobs, only grants to be commie nutty organizers. If you are liberal, anything you do is inherently ethical for the cause, but if you are a conservative, and believe in GOD, family or business, your very moral fiber, even down to trivial autonomic responses, is subject to persecution as either dangerously criminal or the result of clinical illness. Bush 43 had two Ivy degrees and they treated him as stupid because he was conservative even though he had better grades and entrance scores and took a lot tougher courses than Gore. Professors are the ultimate molestor high priests because they extort and control your transcripts and your grants if you turn them in. Like a cult, they will make your children denounce you and everything you stand for as unworthy. The lowest level university bureaucrats actually suffer the worst affectations and are likey to be the most vicious persecutors of your children. No business ever trusts such left wing graduates who don't believe in capitalism and become crooks because they are taught the only way business makes money is crooked so they seek to avenge their unemployability through their own crookedness. The universities consider real jobs and competition beneath them, so they want their little sissies to live off grants, even in the hard sciences or business. How many of their engineering professors have Professional Engineering certification? Almost none! They love foreign students because they slave up and don't expect professors to actually work for the tuition, like American students do. (Surely You Are Joking Feynman p 215 "If I ask you a question during the lecture, afterwards everybody will be telling me, 'What are you wasting our time for in the class? We're trying to learn something. And you're stopping him by asking a question'." ) No middle class parent should consider sending their kids there, because these schools will destroy your entire family. The only schools that unders

Anyone care to address this comment posted by Jack Reylan on my blog? I don't even know where to begin. http://is.gd/eLP8Bless than a minute ago via TwitterBaranderscj
anderscj

@anderscj Just . . . don't.less than a minute ago via HootSuiteLisa Ray
lisa_ray

@anderscj Explaining the Facts will obviously not change his position.How many others think this way? Scary! Stresses the importance of EDUless than a minute ago via TweetDeckTom Whitby
tomwhitby

@tomwhitby @MPS_News @lisa_ray maybe he needs a government grant :-)less than a minute ago via webanderscj
anderscj

@tomwhitby @MPS_News @lisa_ray Seriously though, it does illustrate the need 4 ed 2 blend trad book learning with real-world experience.less than a minute ago via webanderscj
anderscj

@anderscj It sounds like Mr Reylan was missing great teachers in his life because his thoughts are impossible to follow. Sad. #lostcauseless than a minute ago via TwitterrificMichele Rehder
michelerehder

@michelerehder I don't believe in #lostcause 's, just difficult challenges.less than a minute ago via webanderscj
anderscj

@anderscj I agree. Good luck!less than a minute ago via TwitterrificMichele Rehder
michelerehder

"The revolutionary's role is to liberate, and be liberated, with the people--not to win them over." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"In their political activity, the dominant elites utilize the banking concept to encourage passivity in the (cont) http://tl.gd/3bpagnless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

RT @anderscj: "In their political activity, the dominant elites utilize the #banking conc.. http://tl.gd/3bpagnless than a minute ago via TweetMemeRuthHoward
RuthHoward

"It is not our role to speak to the people about our own view of the world, nor to attempt to impose that (cont) http://tl.gd/3bpe8sless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

This lies at the heart of, if I am to diagnose Mr. Reylan's concerns correctly, the problem that most likely prompted a comment of that nature on my blog. The comment was in response, obviously, to the reaction I had in that post to Obama's speech on education and not on my call for dialogue with parents. The problem is, the President we all thought was a populist really is more of a reactionary than a revolutionary leader. It is apparent that the current education reforms, especially in the name of equity for our children, are an imposition of a very narrow way of looking at the world and a narrow view of what we think learning looks like. It is a
view of teaching and learning that is the result of systemic heredity and it is oppressive to those with learning differences and to those who are not among those who meet the idealized learning profile. By drawing a pedagogical line in the sand Obama and Duncan polarize rather than unite on this issue and it is clear that they also polarize on others as well. I think Mr. Reylan's comment is a counter reaction to Obama's reactionary education reform. Neither reactionary stances move us forward.

"The theme of silence suggests a structure of mutism in face of the overwhelming force of the limit-situation." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The investigator who, in the name of scientific objectivity, transforms the organic into something (cont) http://tl.gd/3c9ec0less than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

Again, another statement that could be applied directly to the current debate on teacher accountability and high-stakes testing. What is amazing is the administration of Hope and Change (and "let me be clear," I support Obama in most other areas of his policy, just not education) has amplified the aspects of NCLB that objectify learning through RTTT rather than engage the people in dialogue on the matter.

"The task of the dialogical teacher in an interdisciplinary team working on the thematic universe revealed (cont) http://tl.gd/3c9hreless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The thematics which have come from the people are returned to them--not as contents to be deposited, but as problems to be solved." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

Twitter Book Club: Paulo Freire (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Ch 2

I think these quotes speak for themselves. No need to embellish them. Freire, lays out as convincing case for inquiry-based learning I have ever seen.

"Education is suffering from narration sickness." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Or else [the teacher] expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The more completely [the teacher] fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The more the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hope (cont) http://tl.gd/3b87dpless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of (cont) http://tl.gd/3b88v2less than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the students' creative power and to stimulate (cont) http://tl.gd/3b8bcrless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"they react instinctively against any experiment in education which stimulates the critical faculties" Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

@anderscj nor should she want to! :)less than a minute ago via TweetDeckAdrienne Michetti
amichetti

@amichetti that was my favorite Paulo Freire quote for the night. Frighteningly simple and true.less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj
anderscj

"Authentic liberation--the process of humanization--is not another deposit to be made in men." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The banking method emphasizes permanence and becomes reactionary;" Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"problem-posing education--which accepts neither a 'well-behaved' present nor predetermined future--roots (cont) http://tl.gd/3b93kjless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"problem-posing education--which accepts neither a 'well-behaved' present nor predetermined future (cont) http://tl.gd/3b93kj via @anderscjless than a minute ago via TweetDeckMary Loftus
marloft

"Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence." Freireless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

RT @anderscj: "Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence." Freireless than a minute ago via TweetDeckDermot Casey
dermotcasey

Twitter Book Club: Paulo Freire (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Ch 1

Twitter / anderscj: Twitter Book Club read ton ... via kwout

Twitter / Miss Bliss: @anderscj love Freire! so ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "being less human leads th ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "for this struggle to have ... via kwout

As I read Paulo Freire I can't help but put his words in the context of the current debate regarding standards, P21, and teacher accountability. It seems as though P21 folks and curriculum standards folks are pitted against each other in this debate in a polarizing way. If the standards movement and high stakes testing represent the pedagogical strong arm of the dominant class then the P21 movement is a counter movement that threatens the cultural heritage embedded in the standards-based structure. However, P21 looks as though it has set itself up to be equally oppressive, it has all the trappings of the standards movement including a "core curriculum," strictly segmented subject areas, predefined skills, etc.

Twitter / anderscj: "This, then is the great h ... via kwout

Twitter / sava: @anderscj ah. pedagogy of ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "Any attempt to 'soften' t ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "to have the continued opp ... via kwout

This lies at the heart of my recent criticism of Diane Ravitch. While I am happy to see that she now views standardized tests as ineffective she is unwilling to take the leap to say that predefined standards and curriculum are oppressive. Being so fully a part of the class of ed reformers who drafted this system of standards-based accountability she cannot let go of the view that elite groups of experts should still pass down scripted curriculum. She just thinks we need better scripted curriculum. Her new tune is still paternalistic.

Twitter / anderscj: "It is a rare peasant who, ... via kwout

I do not know why my iPod thought I meant to type fiestas and I am not quite sure what I was trying to type here. Tyrant fiestas do sound interesting though.

Twitter / anderscj: "One of the basic elements ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "The oppressed, having int ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "[The oppressed] are at on ... via kwout

This is a profound thought for me and a key point for this book. That the oppressed are simultaneously oppressed and their own oppressors is a fascinating concept and, I think, a difficult realization for many. I am reminded of this scene from what was one of my favorite movies growing up, Labyrinth:


It seems to fit so perfect with this line of reasoning.

Twitter / anderscj: "Rationalizing his guilt t ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "The separation of objecti ... via kwout

Twitter / Objectivism Talk: RT @anderscj -"The separat ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "To deny the importance of ... via kwout

This truth, I believe, is what lies at the heart of the teacher accountability debate. It is where John Merrow and Grant Wiggins get it wrong on this post and why the LA Times article listing "ineffective" teachers based solely on objective measures is wrong. According to Freire this kind of action constitutes an objectification of teachers and their students. Objectification is an act of oppression and violence.

Twitter / anderscj: "No pedagogy which is trul ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: ...emulation models from a ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "Pedagogy which begins wit ... via kwout

That should be "makes" not "males." Another iPod typo.

Twitter / anderscj: ..maintains and embodies o ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "It would be a contradicti ... via kwout

I wish conservatives who oppose social justice education would use this line of reasoning to make their argument. I might actually support them in that effort if that were the case.

Twitter / anderscj: 1st "the oppressed unveil ... via kwout

This makes me think of the line in Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society:

"Each of us is responsible for his or her own deschooling, and we have the power to do it." Illichless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

Twitter / anderscj: 2nd stage "in which the re ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: ...to all people in the pr ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "The oppressors do not see ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "the fact that certai ... via kwout

Therefore, as Freire outlines in Ch 2, teachers who wish to liberate their students must become students (or teacher-students) and their students but be allowed to be teachers (or student-teachers).

One of the most powerful things I ever did as a teacher, and I talk and write about it all the time, happened when I taught a class where I exchanged roles with the students. After a week of dialog about learning and what the students in the class need from a learning environment I asked each student to research a topic that interested them deeply then take turns throughout the rest of the semester teaching week-long units on that subject to the rest of the class. I did this out of frustration that last minute I was told I could not teach a class I had prepared all all fall for. The day before school started I just threw up my hands and said, "Well then, I am just going to let the students teach the class." What resulted was learning like I had never seen in my classroom before. Freire has shone a light on what was perhaps the greatest reason for its success. I was, unknowingly, practicing near perfect critical pedagogy. We engaged in dialog, I shifted my role to that of learner among learners, and each student engaged their peers in project-based learning. This is how I want to teach but it is a difficult pedagogy to explain or defend to administrators who are deeply committed to the banking system view of teaching and learning.

Twitter / anderscj: "Accordingly, these a ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "A real humanist can be id ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "The oppressed must see ex ... via kwout

I think the emergence of the Internet as a superior source of factual knowledge to the teacher in the classroom has forced this condition upon us. This is a good thing. Many times teachers are shocked when I tell them that I will often answer student questions with, "I don't know, lets find out." I have been told that this undermines my authority in the classroom and that if I present myself that way I will not be taken seriously by my students or fellow teachers. It means I don't possess the content knowledge necessary to be qualified for the position I hold. I know I held that view when I first began teaching. But to say, "I don't know" is liberating for the teacher as well as the student.

Twitter / anderscj: "Critical and liberat ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "reflection--true reflecti ... via kwout

Twitter / Neil: RT @anderscj: "reflection- ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "Propaganda, management, m ... via kwout

PLN take note.

Twitter / anderscj: "The only effective i ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: "In a humanizing peda ... via kwout

If we did this, I wonder if we would ever need to speak so much again about student engagement or motivation. I think it would be like talking about the role of a buggy whip in the operation of an automobile or airplane.

Twitter / Shelley Gibb: @anderscj liking freire? W ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: @mollybob So far I am liki ... via kwout

Twitter / anderscj: @mollybob Not sure who I w ... via kwout

Twitter / Mary Loftus: @anderscj Enjoying your Tw ... via kwout