This is something that should seem obvious. I cannot say I fully understand the third chapter in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but a few things stand out.
For instance, Freire wrote, "It is not our role to speak to the people about our own view of the world, nor attempt to impose that view on them, but rather to dialogue with the people about their view and ours."(96.) This makes sense to me because it says a lot about many who think they know the solutions to problems yet do not ask others their perspective. There can be a huge disconnect between economic and educational elite and the common people.
What I found interesting that overlaps with our Feminist group was that school girls in Chile have been occupying their school for several months. The police have retaken the school several times, yet they consistently take it back as well. The young students persevere because they believe education is a right and that the country should return that right to its people. This is a huge demand, yet their president currently opposes anything but a for-profit and free-market post-secondary school system.
I appreciate the decoding phase that Freire writes about, because it gives us a concrete idea of what we should be doing so that no one is left out of being understood. It's like uncovering a mystery in the cliched mansion where you neglect to interview the staff. At least, that is my understanding of it.
I continued to think more about the importance of communication this last week. It seems so obvious, yet is required if groups of people want to be effective. I did spend a bit of time at the People's Plaza in downtown Minneapolis. One thing that we were continually reminded to do was to talk to each other and discover why we were there. Everyone had different issues and we were meant to discover how these were connected. We may have not thought about or felt a specific issue was important, yet now we knew someone who did and they would tell us why.
I also attended a march where one of the speakers spoke about community in simpler terms. He said communication + unity = community. We cannot be a community if we are not united in our various causes. This presents a challenge to all movements for change,.
For instance, Freire wrote, "It is not our role to speak to the people about our own view of the world, nor attempt to impose that view on them, but rather to dialogue with the people about their view and ours."(96.) This makes sense to me because it says a lot about many who think they know the solutions to problems yet do not ask others their perspective. There can be a huge disconnect between economic and educational elite and the common people.
What I found interesting that overlaps with our Feminist group was that school girls in Chile have been occupying their school for several months. The police have retaken the school several times, yet they consistently take it back as well. The young students persevere because they believe education is a right and that the country should return that right to its people. This is a huge demand, yet their president currently opposes anything but a for-profit and free-market post-secondary school system.
I appreciate the decoding phase that Freire writes about, because it gives us a concrete idea of what we should be doing so that no one is left out of being understood. It's like uncovering a mystery in the cliched mansion where you neglect to interview the staff. At least, that is my understanding of it.
I continued to think more about the importance of communication this last week. It seems so obvious, yet is required if groups of people want to be effective. I did spend a bit of time at the People's Plaza in downtown Minneapolis. One thing that we were continually reminded to do was to talk to each other and discover why we were there. Everyone had different issues and we were meant to discover how these were connected. We may have not thought about or felt a specific issue was important, yet now we knew someone who did and they would tell us why.
I also attended a march where one of the speakers spoke about community in simpler terms. He said communication + unity = community. We cannot be a community if we are not united in our various causes. This presents a challenge to all movements for change,.
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