Presentation given by Dr Tim Herrick (CILASS Fellow and Combined Studies Programme Co-ordinator, The Institute for Lifelong Learning, School of Education, University of Sheffield) at the CILASS Third Mondays research seminar series in April 2009.
2. Introduction 1. Freires thought 2. Freire and inquiry 3. What
can Freire 4.offer us today? Photo by Marcin Wichary 2 3. This is a
conversation,not a lectureIm bringingexperience, notexpertiseYoure
bringingexperience, ideas, and Photo by mwboeckmannpower3 4. One
question to keep in mind: Photo by Worry WortsWhen you learn and
teach,what power do you exercise,Wortsand for what ends? One
question to respond to immediately:Here and now, in this room,what
power do you have?4 5. Paulo Freire: 1921-1997 Published in
Portuguese, 1968; in Spanish and English, 1970 5 6. This pedagogy
makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the
oppressed, and from that reflection will come their necessary
engagement in the struggle for their liberation. And in the
struggle this pedagogy will be made and remade. 6 7. Photo by Ken
Wilcox. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqus and
makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and
repeat.Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention,
through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human
beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other 7
8. Authentic education is not carried on by A for B or by A about
B, but rather by A with B, mediated by the world a world which
impresses and challenges both parties, giving rise to views or
opinions about it. These views, impregnated with anxieties, doubts,
hopes, or hopelessness, imply significant themes on the basis of
which the program content of education can be built.8 9. Every
educational practice implies aconcept of man and the world Man:
subject and object of historyConscientization: the process of
developing self-awareness 9 10. In the area of socioeconomic
structures, a critical perception of the fabric, while
indispensable, is not sufficient to change the data of the problem,
any more than it is enough for the worker to have in mind the idea
of the object to be produced: that objectPhoto by Balakov has to be
made. 10 11. An ethical and political commitment to change
Humanization [is the] ontological vocation of human beingPhoto by
Dunechaser11 12. Influence of liberation theology Human beings are
because they are in a situation. And they will be more the more
they not only critically reflect upon their existence but
critically act upon it.Photo unknown, caption by pauly46412 13.
Photo by Worry WortsIs everything 1.clear this far?How does it
2.relate to what youachieve in yourteaching orlearning, or whatyou
aspire toachieve? 13 14. New structures for learning and teaching
The Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate ResearchRadically
democratising the process of knowledge production at the level of
society14 15. That the qualities of creativity, innovation and
planning have been captured by the business-led aspects of the
teaching agenda denies the extent to which these qualities are
capable of much wider application. 15 16. What about the giant The
educational lizard people? practice of a progressive option will
never be anything but an adventure in unveiling. It will always be
an experiment in bringing out the truth 16 17. I have never said,
as it is sometimes suggested or said that I have said, that we
ought to flutter spellbound around the knowledge of the educands
like moths around a lamp bulb. Starting with the knowledge of
experience had in order to get beyond it is not staying in that
knowledge. What experiences have our students had? 17 18. helping
the masses articulate what theyve known all alongCould they? Should
they? What does this mean for the academy?18 19. This kind of
educational practice is a kind of historico- cultural, political
psychoanalysis Erich Fromm (1900-1980) toPaulo Freire, California,
1968 How much individual change is required for social revolution?
19 20. Photo by Worry Worts Everyone still1. with us? What might2.
your responses be to any of the questions raised? 20 21. To
understand his workAnother photo by Dunechaser is to develop it but
how far can we go? New forms of struggle Dunechaser against
oppression Transformative practice A collectivist alternative to
individualising, marketising tendencies of current higher education
policy 21 22. The democratization of the school is not a sheer
epiphenomenon, the mechanical result of the transformation of
society across the board, but is itself a factor for change, as
wellEducation as the practice of freedom as opposed toeducation as
the practice of domination denies thatman is abstract, isolated,
independent, and unattachedto the world; it also denies that the
world exists as areality apart from other people22 23. Dunechaser
really is quite goodTo the barricades? 23
