[MD] Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy

[Ron Kulp]

Ant,
Wow, thanks! I will certainly take that advice and read Reimer first.
Thank you for the link.
Ron

> On Jun 26, 2014, at 2:18 AM, Ant McWatt <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Friends, Romans, Countrymen!
> 
> I would strongly advise anyone who is thinking of starting an MOQ reconstruction model for education that they read Everett W. Reimer's classic text "School is Dead; An Essay on Alternatives in Education" BEFORE Dewey and Freire because Reimer puts these two great educationalists in CONTEXT.  It can be downloaded for free from:
> 
> www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/dead.pdf
> 
> Reimer's text took me only about four hours to read but is stacked full of new progressive ideas (unsurprizingly it was written in the late 1960s!) that will make for a refreshing read for anyone disillusioned with the direction of modern education (especially in North America and Western Europe) over the last 150 years and especially the last forty.
> 
> In fact, Reimer's "School is Dead" book will be forming the basis of the new MOQ College of Arts which will be enrolling its first students towards the end of this year (in Liverpool). Paulo Freire is mentioned throughout Reimer's book so his ideas about education (though Dewey and, of course, Pirsig's too) will be the "guiding lynchpins" about how this new university will operate.
> 
> Reimer initially thought in the 1950s - with his friend & colleague Ivan Illich - that everyone in the world should go to school but after spending time - on the ground so to speak - in Latin America, eventually realised the stupity of such a project in so many ways.  For a start, there simply is not enough resources in the world to give every child a SCHOOL education from 5 to 18 and most GENUINE, USEFUL education is actually done at home and at work i.e. in practice. 
> 
> Schools and universities also tend to support the status quo (see how they responded in Nazi Germany compared to the more independent Churches) and - just like right-wingers who ignorantly exploit the poor and marginalised - don't do many children much good in the long run.  Why do you think it's a criminal offence in many countries - such as England - for NOT sending your child/ren to school?
> 
> Think about it!!!
> 
> Ant
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> 
> I used to get mad at my school
> 
> The teachers who taught me weren't cool
> 
> You're holding me down, turning me round
> 
> Filling me up with your rules (...foolish rules)
> 
> 
> 
> [But] I've got to admit it's getting better 
> 
> A little better all the time (It can't get much worse)
> 
> I have to admit it's getting better 
> 
> It's getting better since YOU'VE been mine...
> 
> (Lennon-McCartney, Northern Songs, 1967)
> 
> 
> On Jun 23, 2014, at 8:01 AM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:
>  
> I've mentioned Freire several times over the years. The perennial and, now, generational "educational crisis" in America, I believe, results from a societal inability to answer the fundamental question "why educate?" We talk about testing and assessment and standards but few can articulate a 'purpose' behind the structure, and those that can (and do) are those that have come to see education as a servant to capitalism; the goal of education is to meet labor demands.
> 
> Ron Kulp responded June 24th:
> 
> I had thought so, the more I develop a clearer understanding of Pragmatism and RMP's MOQ, the more it becomes evident that the primary thrust and direction of that solution space lies in critical pedagogy.
> 
> I am currently still in the discovery stage and it's pleasing to see that this is a subject that has some history here.  To me, this is what a MOQ reconstruction Model looks like.
> 
> 
> 
> .
>                         
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html