Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach

of expertise that includes, but is not limited to, understanding and explaining their own lives,
and sharing this expertise becomes an essential element in the classroom curriculum. In
these classrooms, teachers have their areas of expertise, but they are only one part of the
community. The responsibility for organizing experiences and struggling for social change
belongs to the entire community; as groups exercise this responsibility, they are empow-
ered to take control over their lives. Freire believes that there is a dynamic interactive rela-
tionship between increasing academic literacy and the desire to understand and change the
world around us (Freire, 1995, p. 105; Kohl, 1995, p. 6).

FIG. 1.2 Defining a Freirean curriculum.

Paulo Freire was a Brazil educator and political activist. Identify the main idea about edu-

cation in each quotation that follows. Use these “main ideas” to write a paragraph pre-

senting Freire’s philosophy of education.

1. “In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they
   must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no
   exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform.” Source:Pedagogy of the Op-
   pressed,p.34.


2. “In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who con-
   sider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Pro-
   jecting an absolute ignorance onto others... negates education and knowledge as
   processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary op-
   posite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence....The
   teacher teaches and the students are taught; the teacher knows everything and the
   students know nothing.” Source:Pedagogy of the Oppressed,p.58.


3. “Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking notion... adopting in-
   stead a concept of men as conscious beings....They must abandon the goal of de-
   posit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of men in their relations
   with the world.” Source:Pedagogy of the Oppressed,p.66.


4. “Without a minimum of hope, we cannot so much as start the struggle. But without the
   struggle, hope... dissipates, loses its bearings, and turns into hopelessness....
   Hence the need for an education in hope.” Source:Pedagogy of Hope,p.9.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION—FREIREAN CURRICULUM

Questions to Consider:

1. A key idea in Freire’s work is defining the curriculum by thinking about problems. Ex-
   amine a newspaper for current events articles about education in the United States.
   Make a list of your questions about the issues raised in the articles.


2. Should students participate in defining the curriculum? Why or why not? To what ex-
   tent?
   3.In your opinion, do all people have an area of expertise that can be integrated into the
   curriculum? Explain your answer.

Septima Clark’s Philosophy of Education

Septima Clark probably never would have described herself as a philosopher. She was a
teacher and a civil rights worker in the U.S. south during the 1950s and 1960s. In her autobi-
ography,Ready from Within(1986), she explained how she became an activist while working
as a teacher in South Carolina. She sent a letter to Black colleagues asking them to protest a

10 CHAPTER 1