In Chapter 1 of Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" Freire defines his theory and identifies the oppressor and the oppressed. He writes of how in order to liberate the oppressed and to provide a meaningful educational experience, the "learner" must be actively involved in the construction of their education. Traditional pedagogies maintain this power dichotomy by teaching with "the banking model of education" where content and information is passed from those with power to those without power. Freire calls for a new and transformative pedagogy to be developed where the oppressed have a voice and learning is based upon personal interests and curiosities and where subject matter is connected to the lives of those doing the learning.
I often think about what it would look like to attempt to apply these ideas where students are allowed a voice and participate and share in the process of learning. We hear many reasons that students are disengaged from school, yet these same students will display a passion and motivation for learning many difficult things when outside the confines and constraints of the school.
"The fundamental goal of dialogical teaching is to create a process of learning and knowing". pg 17 introduction Donaldo Macedo
"“Dialogical education” and situating learning within students’ lived experience have been vastly influential, but the implementation of these ideas has never been unchallenging (Freire, 1973, 1974, 1992)" Blikstein, TRAVELS IN TROY WITH FREIRE
Are these students disinterested because they are used to school being what they feel is a waste of their time? They have "gotten good at school", they know exactly what they need to do, and what they don't have to do? Is there a way to re-engage students, to give them a meaningful
"Digital technologies, such as computers, robotics, digital video, and digital photography, could play a central role in this process: they are protean machines (Papert, 1980) that enable diverse and innovative ways of working, expressing, and building." Blikstein, TRAVELS IN TROY WITH FREIRE
What does choice really mean?
If I look around the room during my Makerspace I see passion, choice, hard work, personal interest and intrinsic motivation. Sure, these are students who have chosen to be here during their 45 minute lunch and recess period. These are students who bring with them an interest in creating with the computer, or building robots, or learning more about physical computing. These students know they have made a choice to be in the room, and they are able to choose what kind of project they would like to work on.
We can't confuse choice with "do whatever you want". If I were to give an open ended choice to one of my classes, many would choose "nothing" or "browsing sneaker images on the Internet". Anything else suggested would be an affront to them, "why do I have to do that" they would tell me, and they often openly admit to being lazy and not wanting to do anything but sit with their friends and chat.
As an educator it is not my responsibility to inspire them, to provide spaces and openings in subjects and content that they haven't yet been exposed to, to open up new worlds for them? But how do I reach all the students and tap into all of their interests within the current structure of the public middle school? I teach all the students in the school, they are required to be in my class, which meets twice a week. My curriculum spans a range of digital content areas, creative opportunities, but there are still a few students in each of the classes of 30 that tune out.
The process of "deschooling"
Can we ever hope to "de-school" working from within the constraints and boundaries that have existed for so long and with which both teachers and students rarely question the inequality and lack of agency that most traditional pedagogies work from? Are there tools and methodologies that can be put in place to allow for the "dialogical education" that Freire so eloquently writes about?
"In addition, the more students learn in this fashion, the more they learn about learning itself: students learning to learn is more generative that students only learning content." Blikstein, TRAVELS IN TROY WITH FREIRE
Reading Freire in March
Other posts by the author
Thoughts On Learning and Engagement and the Pluto New Horizons Mission
I am sitting next to one of my 6th graders, J., as he flips though one of his favorite books. This book accompanies him to MakerSpace every day and if he is in the lab after school he typically has the book so he can refer to it. The book is a large picture book of the planets and their moons. He is showing me some of his favorite parts, and reading passages to me. As he is doing this, he is holding a model of one of the moons described in the book.
Making Stuff Light Up and Move!
My sixth and seventh grade STEAM students immersed themselves in the wonder of electricity this school year. They started out by exploring basic circuits, using blocks that I constructed using the Exploratorium’s ideas from their electricity exploration curriculum.
The overall learning targets for this unit were:
STEAM, STEM, and Making
What do these words mean? How are they interpreted by teachers, by administrators, by students, by politicians?
In the past few months I have been a part of a number of discussions surrounding this question. The conversations are genuine and in most cases have the best interests of students and learning in mind. There is one thing that I have noticed, there can be a wide range of perspectives and responses to these questions.
The Buzz Words
Education is filled with acronyms and buzzwords, some invented by educators and others borrowed from industry and psychology and even popular culture memes. Why is it that an experience as basic as learning has been so sliced and diced into so many pieces that it has become unrecognizable? School vision statements are peppered with the buzz words of the day, false testament that these things are occurring on a regular basis within the walls of the school.
Watching Children Learn
One of the most meaningful things that I get to do as a teacher is to watch my students learn. What makes it most exciting and interesting for me is observing this learning through their eyes and their contexts. I have several Flip Cameras located in the classroom long with my Point and Shoot camera and the students will ask me “where is the camera?” “can we use the camera?” “we just did something really cool, can we record it?"