Reading Freire (first half) and Dewey

During my field placement last semester, I noticed a similar instance. I was in an ELL classroom (where I will be again this semester), and a degree of banking was used. With this said, my cooperating teacher was very good about explaining the words/concepts to the students (1st through 5th grades) and also encouraging them to make "real world" connections, but there was also an aspect of memorization and "depositing" knowledge that I think is necessary with ELL.

I think Friere would definitely be against the kind of mechanical memorization that the students in my class did. Friere said, "the capability of banking education to minimize or annul the students' creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors"  While I do think that certain teachers rely on banking as the only educational model, and perhaps it could be easy to accidentally rely on banking, sometimes banking is necessary. I think Friere looks passed these instances. In a subject such as ELL, where children are trying to rapidy pick up a new language, a degree of pure memorization and repetition is necessary. It is not the only way to teach, but it is banking, and often times, it works. Banking is sometimes necessary, but should not be the only or most utilized strategy. To answer your question, I think it would take more work for a teacher to incorporate problem-posing, as it seems easier and less work-intensive to simply drill information to students.

I thought you and your class brought up a very important and interesting point about what it means to “internationalize.” I understand the possible negative responses, but at the same time I wonder, then how can we make progress if we (as students, teachers, an institution, etc.) don’t open up channels where students can interact more closely with each other? In addition, I wonder if our definition of internationalization is limited to the idea of bringing in students from countries outside the U.S. (in this case since we’re in the U.S.). So does that mean that this is actually another form of “othering?” In fact, it seems that international students are often defined as students who do not hold their host country’s citizenship status. They are studying in the U.S., but aren’t fully integrated within the U.S. yet. 

As for the question, “is there a single population that is not oppressed?” I suppose if the oppressor is an abstract idea or a cause, then in a sense everyone has probably experienced some form of oppression and maybe will continue to do so. But then, the feeling of oppression gives people reason to strive for a better environment and system and essentially, a “better world.” Of course, even that presents problems because oppression takes on different forms and each person or group has to respond in a way that presents the least damage…

I think Friere would very much agree with your statement that education should be a "means to discovery, truth, and knowledge." [Or did he say that and you aren't buying it?]  At the same time, I agree with him that a politically neutral education isn't possible; existing models of teaching defend the status quo.

His view (with which we can agree or disagree) is I think not that teachers should be spewing out communist propaganda but rather that once students are taught to think critically and creatively, they will demand a transformed society in which there arise new possibilities beyond rich and poor. This is Marxist, to be sure, but also compassionate for all people, as on p 56 "the act of rebellion...can [be] an act of love" (about  freeing the oppressors). [The idea of "transcendance" also makes me think of religious philosophy, something else that has been abused to empower many oppressive regimes.]

Your point on rich students versus poor students is quite interesting. Oppressive systems affect both the rich and the poor, and both the oppressor and the oppressed, so I would say that poor students and rich students who are not taught to problematize or be creative are both being harmed, along with the well-meaning teacher who does not teacher their students to be creative and critical thinkers. However, from what I have seen the best example of "critical intervention" in education systems are found in majority wealthy areas, such as elite private schools and liberal arts colleges. I am struggling myself right now to think about how to apply Friere to the urban environment. For example, if in a field placement last year if someone had told me they wanted to be a police officer, I would have said "great!" But if one of my friends said that, I would have wanted to have a discussion about how police forces exist defend the interests of the elite and oppress the masses, etc. Surely I should engage with my student as I would with my friend, but in the current school structure it would have been awkward and probably futile. This would be true in both a struggling large public school and a rigidly structured highly-performing charter school. I think educational techniques like "theater of the oppressed" might help to address this. But back to the point, my thought is that--given the great potential power of the oppressed--it is very deliberate that critical inquiry-based education is mostly left to the oppressors and their children.

I think you raise an interesting question with Dewey's statement that school life should grow out of home life. Perhaps in Dewey's geographical and/or historical context one could assume that all of one's students were coming from one type of home-life. In our geographical and historical context, we have students coming from many different sorts of backgrounds. So how can entering school be an organic and gradual transition from home life when that means so many different things for different people? At the same time, just because one student's home might have less structure, we shouldn't assume that there isn't other "positive learning" going on there. Children coming from such environments may develop levels of resilience and independence that can be great for real life, and therefore that Dewey might like. Our current classrooms may devalue the skills and experiences of students coming from such--we might say--"oppressed" backgrounds relative to the skills and experiences of students coming from more "traditional" backgrounds.

This post brought me back to a conversation that came up many times in my Critical Issues class: the idea of being unfinished. I firmly believe that we are all constantly learning, moving forward, changing, and that we will never be finished. And as teachers, we much remember to keep this in mind. As rpotter said: "the teacher must establish a partnership with the students and recognize herself as a facilitator of the learning process, rather than one who gives knowledge." We as teachers are not finished products helping our students on the way to also being finished. Instead we should be encouraging constant learning in our students, including by example. As "facilitators of the learning process" I believe it is our role to work with students side-by-side, learning together. Freire writes "both humanization and dehumanization are possibilites for a person as an uncompleted being conscious of their incompletion" (p.43). He comments that the oppressed and oppressors must acknowgledge their unfinishedness in order to move forward in their humanization. 

Freire points out that once the student and teacher (or the oppressed and the oppressor) come to terms with their relationship, the students must take more control in the own learning. The learing process should be a joint one between students and teachers. The relationship should be one of two people learning together, facilitated and guided by the teacher. 

The idea of the active student participant really interests me in the context of a comment made by the classroom teacher at my Praxis. During a break between activities, she started talking about the students that she had just been working with in a small group. She indicated that she had given them books that where above their comfort level for reading, but that she gave them to them anyways because she figured they could "talk it out" as a group. She went on to comment on the fact that in a school setting, students are often instructed to keep quiet, finish their work, and engage with only themselves. She then stated "of course students end up talking and creating what we often call disruptions in the classroom, they are bursting to talk and we tell them not to, who can do that for 8 hours a day?" I think this statement raises the possibility that silence is also an active process, albeit an entirely different form of activity than the active participation that comes with communication/dialogue. That being said, the idea of active silence raises some questions for me.

If  silence and communication are both active processes, can they both be of some value in the classroom? I do not mean in an entire sense where one occurs without the other, but rather in a balanced manner. Of course, there is also a difference between forced silence and chosen silence to take into consideration as well. However, I think both silence and communication have a place in the classroom. I think Freire indirectly speaks to this point in his discussion of developing consciousness, which can come about via internal reflection (and is active in nature). Often in Education classes in the Bi-Co we practice this silence/internal reflection when we take a moment to write before discussing in small and large groups.

Ultimately, you could argue that internal reflection is a form of communication with the self, though it is externally silent. If that is the case, how can teachers incorporate silence into their classrooms in an active way? Should they even be trying to direct or influence students' internal reflection?