Classroom Connections Essay

My Outline:

My Philosophy:

                I have to think that the banking model of education is inefficient. We could become more efficient by inheriting Freire’s philosophies and implementing a praxis model in education.

 Paulo Friere states that: The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.

How does the current structure support and negate critical consciousness?

·         Does it differ between schools?

o   Yes.

§  Anyon

My structure

                Student vs. Teacher-centered environment.

The kids need to be involved in their education. Relevant pedagogy.

·         Are we different?

o   I think cultural communication is necessary

§  How is cultural communication used in the current model?

§  How is it avoided?

·         Yes we are different.

·         Delpit

My praxis

How do I make my philosophy congruent with my praxis?

·               How can I translate theory into practice?

o   What do I see? Compared to what I’m learning

• Movie project, thats praxis? Is it respected/ aknowelged?

 

 

·            How can I integrate my theory with actuality?

o   Children are in class for 55 minutes? Is that right I don’t think so.

Friere and Delpit

Describe the major tensions between Freire and Delpit.  How are their approaches different?  Use text to support your thoughts.  How does Delpit shift your understanding of Freire?

While Delpit and Friere both discuss how the oppressed can become free of oppresion their methodologies for doing so differ greatly. Delpit believes for the oppressed to escape they must learn the language of their oppressor or "the silenced dialogue". Where as Friere believes that there needs to be structural change, the oppressed must fight to emancipate themselves and become revolutionaries. This difference is best seen in the conciousness of the oppressed and the oppressor in Delpit and Friere two visions of oppression. Friere believes the role of the oppressor is very clear and intentional while Delpit describes a more ambivalent  unaware description. For Friere the dichotomy of the oppressed and oppressor is very evident. To have an oppressor there must be the oppressed, the process is dehumanizing for both however, the oppressor benefits through material wealth and political power. Friere believes the oppressor exploits the oppressed to strenghten and develop there power. For friere, the first step is for the oppressed to become aware or concious of their oppression. For Friere, the oppressed are least concious of their situation while the oppressor is well aware.. Oppositely Delpit describes the oppressor as unaware... " Those with power are typically least aware of- or least willing to aknowledge- of it existence. Those with less power are typically most aware of it. Delpit's picture of the oppressor is ambivalent rather than aggresive.

Opportunity Cost

"Opportunity cost" is always present when implementing different pedagogical models in curriculum or education. One thing we began talking about in class was that a lot of times the educator holds the majority power choosing what pedagogical models are used in a classroom or learning environment. It is for this reason that I believe as a future educator in my teacher education that educators should experience as many pedagogical models as possible even if they philosophically differ with the approach. By living in the model you are able to figure out where the deficits occur, and where and how the "opportunity costs" change between a banking model opposed to a praxis model or a student-centered environment compared to a teacher-centered environment.

Grandpa T.R.

My artifact has a lot of meaning to me personally, I also think there is a lot of context, code and mythicism and symbolism involved in the picture which hangs in my apartment. My artifact is a framed picture of my Grandpa T.R. He was 17 at the time when this picture was taken by the Saint Paul paper in 1932. He was a record-setting hurdler and a top propect in Saint Paul football and was headed to the University of Notre Dame. This picture was taken just before my grandfather suffered a minor cut on his leg, the cut became infected so badly that  he was hospitalized almost lost his leg.

This was just before the end of his football career(and legacy) and his chance to go to the University Notre Dame and then who knows?

 

I think the story above would be "the coded situation" this photograph and my grandfathers stories of the glory days and his skills have been mythicized overtime to take on a new identity and shape a different history. To decode and split apart the elements of this photograph I think I need to look at the past, present and future in regards to the context and themes of the world at those times.............

Chapter three

Friere paints a beautiful picture of what it means to be a part of true dialogue. There are certain 'musts' for dialogue to occur, first of all, no one can dialogue alone. There must be humility in dialogue, there must be an intense faith in humankind, faith in people and dialogue cannot exist without hope.

Friere points out in chapter three that dialogue is similar to education in the form of praxis. To have real dialogue, like education the praxis of dialogue must involve respect and reflection and re-presentation of information through conversation. Like education dialogue is work towards the truth shared by open-minded parties. It can not be a deposit of information from one person to be consumed by another.

Like is typical with Friere we see a polar opposite of dialogue which is unauthentic word. Unauthentic word involves the speaker speaking to serve a purpose, the object of unauthentic dialogue typically seems to be meaningless. The purpose is to maintain staus-quo or to achieve dominance or hold power over an object, person or world.

I think it is all too often that we experience unauthentic word rather than dialogue in our society. This is exemplified for me by the current state of our governments politics and the manipulative nature of bipartisanism. Unfortunately for our society the sound bites created by politicians that spin through the media monster come off for many people in our society as true. This constant redundantness of our governments politics has created a limit-situation for me in my own life. Maybe it is through true dialogue that we can begin to work on the unauthentic word which is spoken so often in todays society.

Hunger Group Members: Anneka, Jeffrey, David Our Mission: We are working towards reducing the impact of hunger on our community specifically at MCTC and in our Minneapolis Public Schools
http://hungergroup.wikispaces.com/home

Dehumanization

One of the many pieces that stuck with me in the first chapter of Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the act of oppression is dehumanizing for all parties involved. Oppression is dehumanizing for the oppressor as well as for the oppressed. Oppression  for the oppressor detaches them from humanity by shifting the focus from a communal society to a more individualistic existence. Rather than the focus of life being humanity and community it shifts to a materialistic existence. Quality of life is represented by gathering items others can not afford and stacking the deck to keep the status quo. The oppressed are dehumanized through oppression through a lack of freedoms due to circumstance. The first step of the oppressed is to realize who their oppressors are. The relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor is dehumanizing and symbiotic. There must be an oppressed people for the oppressor to exist. I do not believe a solution to this interdependency and inevitability should be violence. I think violence of any type whether vertical or horizontal is dehumanizing. Violence even against an oppressor seperates an individual from their humanity by violating one of the basic human rights, the right to live. While I believe violence is dehumanizing for all parties involved I do believe it is an acceptable reaction in extreme circumstance.