I forgot to write a full blog entry before class this morning, but since our class discussion I've been thinking about this statement by Richard Schaull in the Foreward of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I think this statement is very relevant to this morning's conversation:
“There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes “the practice of freedom,” the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of the world. The development of an educational methodology that facilitates this process will inevitably lead to tension and conflict within our society. But it could also contribute to the formation of a new [humanity] and mark the beginning of a new era in Western history.”
I love this quote! I've pretty much continued to think about Critical Pedagogy since I left class this morning as well. This is the quote that keeps coming up for me:
ReplyDeleteIntegration with one's context , as distinguished from adaptation, is a distinctively human activity. Integration results from the capacity to adapt one's self to reality, plus the critical capacity to make choices and transform that reality. (Friere, Education for Critical Consciousness, pg. 4)
I keep thinking of Sara and the list or steps for feminist pedagogy. For me, the above quote is that roadmap.