Review: Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education

Review: Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education
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Rose, Mike. Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education. New York:
The New Press, 2012.  Print

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            In Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education, Mike Rose makes a compelling case for the importance of a “second chance” education.  Second chance education targets so-called “non-traditional students” and happens in places like “working class schools, blue collar job sites, adult schools, literacy programs and remedial classrooms,” (117) places that rarely figure in the national conversation about postsecondary education. He emphasizes this point in his one-page preface, titled “Second Chances”:

Back to School demonstrates what education can do, even though it was often earlier schooling that let people down. . . . When we are at our best as a society, our citizens are not trapped by their histories. Sadly this possibility is shrinking, partly because of a damaged and unstable economy but more so because of our political response to the economy. There are better ways to respond and to foster the growth of a wider sweep of our population. I hope Back to School points us in that direction (xiii).

Published in 2012, the rest of the book consists of six chapters and a conclusion where Rose documents the real-life stories of the people he interviewed and relies on his own experience working with non-traditional students to tell their stories.  Rose conducted extensive research and interviewed adult students attending community colleges, occupational and other educational programs.  He interviewed back-to-school adults who ranged in age from their early 20s to their 50s. Many of them were employed at low-skilled, low-paying and often unstable jobs. Most of them were caring for children and families in addition to attending school, while some were living on unemployment or supporting themselves with jobs at their schools.   Not surprisingly, the majority of these adult students expressed an economic motive for going back to school. 

Written in an easy-to-read anecdotal style, Back to School is a must read for anyone who cares about the education of America’s underprivileged class.  Rose writes more like a journalist in this book rather than in the academic language of a professor at UCLA.  In fact, reading Back to School seems more like reading a series of feature articles in a major news magazine.  Maybe that is Rose’s point: to make reading Back to School accessible to as many audiences as possible. 

  Rose uses detailed words to paint sympathetic portraits of individuals who he meets while visiting different community colleges and adult educations centers.  His narratives are up close and personal.  Overall Back to School is a mélange of head and heart—social science research mixed with heart-tugging stories about overcoming systemic and personal obstacles.  For instance, in the introduction of Back to School readers are introduced to Henry who is working toward his associate of arts degree.  Rose describes him as:

a stocky guy, broad across the chest, with powerful forearms from years in a wheelchair.  He wears a baseball cap backward, a sweatshirt—both with the local team’s logo—fingerless gloves, baggy shorts and socks that come up to his knees.  His face is vibrant with earnestness (1).

Henry who did well during his first two years of high school is shot by a rival gang member and paralyzed from the waist down.  Eventually, he comes to the realization that he has no place on the streets.  Henry thought to himself: “I don’t have the use of my legs but I have the use of my mind” (3)  One night, Henry stumbled across the local community college website and the next morning he got on a commuter train and decided to enroll right then and there.

When Henry receives his certificate as a computer security specialist, he decides to take some general education courses, including sociology and history.  Eventually, he decides that he wants to apply to a four-year university, and he tells Rose that he would like to work in conflict resolution, helping “at-risk” kids who are “searching for an identity.”

Helping poor and working-class students like Henry costs money, but Rose seems disgusted with how debates about adult education, in particular, always seem obsessed with the money and quantitative measurement.  “These days,” Rose says, “the economic rationale is the only one that has a prayer of swaying policy makers” (28).  One thing that is really refreshing about Back to School is that it is very personal, and Rose offers an alternative voice to the number- crunching bureaucrats who are only concerned with the bottom-line: statistics.  Rose reminds us that there are real people behind the numbers and that numbers fill in only “part of the picture of complex human reality” (14).

While Rose acknowledges the importance of education as a vehicle of social mobility, he says that society needs to think seriously about the moral and civic components as well. Rose uses stories like Henry’s to illustrate how students at some point can conclude on their own that college is about a lot more than simply earning a credential so that they can make more money.  He says people enroll in college “to feel their minds working and learn new things, to help their kids, to feel competent and to remedy a poor education” (41).  Or, as one community college student tells Rose, to “discover somebody you never knew you were” (6).  Rose implies that if we democratize knowledge in America that our society will produce well-rounded citizens—people who are more likely to vote, pay taxes, and take better care of their health, among other things.  In that way, Rose is presenting a counterargument to conservatives who believe that free market policies or the “invisible hand” of the economy are the only way to solve the socioeconomic issues of working-class and poor Americans.

Unfortunately when many of these students enroll in college they are inadequately prepared for the rigors of academic life.  Rose draws attention to the nearly invisible world of remedial and vocational education.  For example, remedial courses, especially in writing, generally need to be passed before students can take college courses for credit.  Rose argues that remedial education suffers from a kind of “academic snobbery” and that it is out there somewhere in the “hinterlands of higher education” (186).  He also refers to a history of disparaging terms for remedial students from the “shirker” and the “dullard” to the “immature” and the “socially maladjusted.”  Basically, Rose demonstrates how the image of the remedial student has always been sullied by social Darwinist theories about race and class—that is, the notion that poor, immigrant and minority students who are the largest block of remedial students generally do not have the brains or the work ethic to succeed academically.  He says that we tend to perceive remedial students as apathetic, undisciplined and slow and that we tend to blame their shortcomings on individual failings and character defects rather than on institutional failures or difficult life circumstances.  To illustrate his point, Rose says that a student who fell asleep in class will more than likely be seen as being lazy and disrespectful when in actuality the student may have come straight to school from the graveyard shift.  The majority of community college students have jobs.

Conventional wisdom has it that remedial students have problems learning so their curriculum needs to be dumbed-down in order to meet them on their level.  According to Rose, remedial education clings to “bankrupt assumptions about teaching and learning that profoundly limit its effectiveness” (186).  Rose says that educators assume that material must be stripped down to its most basic level in order for students to understand it.  This situation results in a “skills and drills” curriculum that Rose aptly characterizes as limited to “narrow, mechanical pursuits stripped of fuller meaning” (126). 

For Rose, the way out of this dilemma is to add authentic scholastic content to remedial courses. Basic writing instruction, in Rose’s view, should attempt to “explain the origins and purposes of the conventions of literacy” (129).  This explanation would include grammar and punctuation, as well as, discussion about complex ideas such as genre.  Rose says that he wants to get rid of the model of writing that students have come to expect.  He writes:

I wanted them to begin to conceive of writing as a way to think something through and give order to those thoughts.  I wanted them to understand writing as persuasion, to get the feel for writing to someone, a feel for audience.  And I wanted them to revise their writing process, which for most them was a one-draft affair typically done the night before or the morning the assignment was due…I wanted them to see that good writing was more than correct writing (137-8).

Now when it comes to vocational education, Rose believes that schools should also increase their scholastic content.  Rose says, “Imagine how the house or the automobile or the computer could be the core of a rich, integrated curriculum: one that includes social and technical history, science and economics and hands-on assembly and repair” (172).  Basically what Rose is advocating is the integration of vocational training with academic school subjects or an “integrated curriculum” that would bridge the academic-vocational divide that he sees as a major dilemma of adult education. 

One has to wonder if Rose is indirectly trying to remove the stigma that comes from blue-collar skills and manual labor.  The fact is, rightly or wrongly, that blue-collar work does not enjoy the same social and economic prestige as professional or managerial work. Yet, Rose maintains that there is “a level and variety of mental activity involved in doing physical work that is largely unacknowledged, even invisible” (133).  He gives some examples from welding to show that it can be cognitively demanding.  Here, at this juncture, some critics would accuse Rose of trying to link brains and brawn. 

It is clear that Mike Rose has a dilemma.  He has a worthwhile vision of democratizing knowledge for all Americans.  Yet, if his goal to democratize all kinds of knowledge, including vocational knowledge, this desire will require some kind of reimagining on the part of society to buy-in to his vision of the melding of academic and vocational instruction.   How would our educational system look if educators had to use, for example, cosmetology, as a springboard into the standard academic system?  What kind of academic courses would cosmetology students take?  Do they have to take chemistry?

In order for Rose’s vision of an expansion of knowledge in America to come to fruition, there would need to be more of an investment in America’s community colleges.   Here’s why: More than four out of every 10 undergraduate students attend a community college.  Some 1,100 community colleges across the country serve a student population of around 13 million.  They are vital institutions, providing access to higher education for low-income, minority and first-generation college students, the latter making up more that forty percent of all community college students. 

In Chapter 6: “The People’s College”, perhaps the best chapter in Back to School, Rose offers suggestions on how to make community colleges more welcoming, user-friendly and effective.  The title alone speaks to the grassroots work that takes place in community colleges.  This chapter is particular strong because it offers achievable, progressive and practical suggestions for improving the college experience for many non-traditional students. For example, Rose points out that a single instructor could make a huge difference just by holding mandatory office hours so that students can become more comfortable speaking to faculty members.  In addition, if a student does not know how to take adequate notes, an instructor could give students real examples of exemplary and lackluster notes and ask them to highlight what the key differences are between them.  Rose even discusses how the physical environment of the campus can affect a student’s well-being.  Overall, Rose reminds us that by empathetic we can create valuable experiences for all students.

It is hard to read Back to School and to walk away without concluding that these students deserve a second chance and that society needs to find a ways to make more resources available for second chance students and the community colleges they attend.  Mike Rose brilliantly dishes the academic jargon for empathetic storytelling and in the process democratizes the discussion outside the usual cast of characters: teachers, students, administrators and policymakers.  Indeed, the issues raised in Back to School affect us all.

Transformative Learning and Malcolm X’s Prison Studies

      Transformative learning occurs when adult students come to understand that they have held a limiting view of the world or of how things work, and they adjust their thinking to accommodate a more accurate or expansive understanding.   In other words, they turn away from their small myopic view of the world and move towards a broad, overall view or perspective on an issue or problem.  For example, the late African American muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X, through his self-directed prison literacy studies, acquires a new understanding of his political and social reality and thus is “transformed” into someone who is not only able to engage in dialogue about his life as a black man, but also able to reflect critically about the plight of blacks throughout the African diaspora.
     At the core of transformative learning is a change in perspective or frame of reference.  For example, my point of view on gender-related issues was altered when, in the summer of 1998, I registered for a Woman Studies course—not because I was particularly interested in the content of the course—but because I needed to fulfill a humanities requirement for graduation.  As a 20-year old male college junior, I was not prepared for how the course would challenge my own attitudes and beliefs about the intersections of race, gender and class.  The course, taught by lesbian poet Minnie Bruce Pratt, reflected on issues around gender, but also involved some kind of organizing activity where students would go out and pursue social change. 
       In hindsight, I now realize that this course was my first real encounter with consciousness raising and with what Paulo Freire, author of The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, calls “praxis” or reflection and action. (87)  The course changed how I think about all kinds of oppression, and more importantly, how I view myself and how I interact with others in the world. In that sense, my Women Studies course approached transformational learning as a social emancipatory endeavor where I could critically reflect and develop strategies to challenge oppressive power structures around race, gender and class.  Moreover, my professor, through the use of dialogue and through problem solving, helped us to realize that we do not just have to sit back passively and accept what is, but that we can change the world by participating in hopeful solutions.  Her demonstration of the teacher-student and student-teacher relationship was on full display as she shared her own story of how she as a white southern woman was used as a pawn in the lynching of black men.  Her willingness to share her own story undoubtedly liberated us to share our own.  Pratt’s pedagogical approach was social emancipatory and rooted in the teachings of Freire.  They included the following tenets:

Teaching students to use critical reflection in order to develop abilities to change social power structures and students’ own circumstances; The problem-posing approach, which invites learners to focus on issues that require solutions and the use of dialogue to achieve goals; “a horizontal student-teacher relationship where the teacher works as political agent and on an equal footing with students (Taylor 8).
The difference between my experience with transformational learning and the psychocritical view of transformational learning theory espoused by Jack Mesirow is that my bout with it placed an emphasis on social change rather than individual transformation.  In other words, my experience was particularly Freirian because I not only had to reflect on issues around race, gender and class, but I had to act on them in some way.  So while Freire does agree with Mezirow that critical reflection is an important part of the transformational learning process, he sees its purpose based on a rediscovery of power such that the more critically aware adult learners become, the more they are able to transform society and subsequently their own reality. 
      Freire, in his work in literary education, contributed three key concepts to adult education.  First of all, he thinks it is not transformative for teachers to give students knowledge and have students memorize it. He suggests that students have something to give back and this kind of memorizing and regurgitating does not work in adult education because students have something to contribute to the learning environment. The second step is critical reflection and the third step is a power-balanced student-teacher relationships.  In other words, the student and teacher work on the same level. There exists a real partnership between student-teacher and teacher-student. Using this idea to create an environment that people feel comfortable to share and communicate in, is especially important in adult education.
      In addition, Freire argues that education is a political act that cannot be divorced from pedagogy. Freire defined this as a main tenet of critical pedagogy. Teachers and students must be made aware of the "politics" that surround education. The way students are taught and what they are taught serves a political agenda. Teachers (however uncomfortable it might be for some of them) sometimes have political notions that they bring into the classroom.  Freire claims that "education as the practice of freedom” is problem-posing in that student-teacher and teacher-student work hand-in-hand for liberation and to solve problems. (81)
      However, in terms of actual pedagogy, Freire is best known for his attack on what he called the "banking" concept of education, in which the student is viewed as an empty account to be filled by the teacher.  He insists that "it transforms students into receiving objects.  It attempts to control thinking and action, and leads men and women to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power" (77).   To demonstrate his point, Freire uses economic and capitalist terms to illustrate the cold and impersonal nature of the "banking" concept of education.  His stark description of students as objects or "receptacles" to be filled illustrates how this model of education is dehumanizing and oppressive. (72)
      Ultimately, it seems that the banking model's aim is to control thinking and behavior and stifle the creative process.  Instead of encouraging students to focus on social issues that have implications for their lives, the teacher-student relationship maintains the status-quo.  It certainly is not transformative because the banking model does not set up the kind of dialogue between students-teachers where students can ask questions and create meaning for their own lives, a key component of transformative learning.  Some of the ways that transformative learning can be demonstrated in the classroom is through  “journal writing, simulations and case studies, critical incidents, role-playing, metaphors, personal biographical sketches, life histories, narratives, visioning, and both small and large group discussions” (Fleming & Garner 25).
      Freire also argues that the dominant class creates a “culture of silence” which instills a negative, silenced and suppressed self-image into the oppressed. (33)  The learner must develop a critical consciousness in order to recognize that this culture of silence is created to oppress.  Also, a culture of silence can cause the dominated individuals to lose the means by which to critically respond to the culture that is forced on them by a dominant culture.  Furthermore, this culture of silence, Freire suggests, is embedded into the conventional educational system and eliminates paths of critical examination for the oppressed. 
      Nowhere is this culture of silence so easily demonstrated as it is in the early life of the late African American muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X.   In his autobiography, it is clear that Malcolm X is a bright, proud, and confident student. In the eighth grade, he gets top grades and shares a competition with another boy and a girl. His teacher, Mr. Ostrowski, encourages all of his peers to become, among other things, “a county agent…a veterinarian…a nurse. When Malcolm X tells his teacher he has been thinking about being a lawyer, his teacher tells him: “a lawyer – that’s no realistic goal for a nigger…why don’t you plan on carpentry” (Malcolm X 132)? Consequently, Malcolm X recounts, “I drew away from white people.  I came to class, and I answered when called upon” (Malcolm X 132).   In other words, Malcolm X internalizes a culture of silence.  Instead of challenging the oppressive and dominant culture that stifles his dreams and aspirations, he is silenced and muffled by it.
      Thus, Malcolm X learns that society and his teacher have low expectations for blacks.  Slowly but surely, he begins to know his personal and social reality.  These expectations are made even more startling when Malcolm X reveals that the teacher really liked him and that he had “gotten some of his best marks under him” (Malcolm X 130).  This comparison reveals that his teacher’s advice wasn’t personal.  Instead rather it was a condemnation of an entire race.
      After this incident with his teacher, Malcolm X comes to know, at least in part, the impact of racism on his social and political reality, but he does not take any action to change it.  Malcolm X reflects on it, but instead of acting on it in a positive way, he drops out of school in the eighth grade.  At age 20, Malcolm X is sent to prison for larceny and breaking and entering.  Perhaps this outcome is to be expected.  After all, at this time, Malcolm X is a teenager, and he might not have had the ability or the knowledge to name or to give words to describe or express the dehumanization he feels.
      Ironically, it is in prison where Malcolm X’s life is transformed in two ways: his conversion to Islam and his rigorous self-directed education leads him to a life of political activism.  When Malcolm X concedes that he is frustrated because he is not able to express and communicate his thoughts and ideas to Nation of Islam Leader Elijah Muhammad, he embarks on a mission “to acquire some kind of homemade education.”  He acknowledges that, “I saw the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary—to study, to learn some words”  (Malcolm X 431).  This realization by Malcolm X that he needed to improve his language and literacy skills is crucial in his personal transformation because by broadening his word-base, Malcolm X is able—maybe for the first time in his life—to “name the world, to change it” (Freire 88). 
      For Freire, words are the building blocks of dialogue.  In fact, he calls the word the “essence of dialogue” (Freire 87). Words, in fact, become a crucial tool for Malcolm X as he transforms his life through his prison literacy studies.  For example, one of the first things that Malcolm X does when he begins to tackle his illiteracy problem is to copy the entire dictionary.  By taking on this arduous task, Malcolm X initiates the process by which he will be able to “name the world” and “make dialogue possible”  between him, his supporters and his detractors.  (Freire 88)
      Malcolm X demonstrates praxis by not only reflecting on his illiteracy but also by taking action to correct it.  In this way, Malcolm X’s simple act of picking up a dictionary is evolutionary, self-empowering, and ultimately transformative.  It set a trajectory for the remainder of his life that he probably never could have imagined.
      For Malcolm X, social emancipatory learning does not take place in a classroom but in the confines of a prison cell and in the stacks of the prison library.   Perhaps, this is what social and cultural critic bell hooks means when she says, “One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library” (Hooks 95).  In fact, it was in the prison library shelves that Malcolm X found books like Will Durant’s Story of Civilization, H.G. Wells’ Outline of History and Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. DuBois that help him question white supremacy and domination.  Furthermore, Malcolm X’s, social emancipatory learning, a form of transformative learning, is “race-centric,” in that, it puts black people at the center of his personal and political transformation. (Taylor 9)  He even acknowledges that, “Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the world’s black, brown, red, and yellow peoples every variety of sufferings of exploitation” (Malcolm X 442).
      He acquired a new understanding of his political and social reality and thus became a new person—one who is not only able to engage in dialogue about his situation, but also able to think critically about how he sees himself and his community in a racist and oppressive society.  But more importantly, with this new consciousness, Malcolm X is able to go out in the world and effect social change through his speeches and his willingness to challenge the dominant ideology of his time: black inferiority.
      Basically, his consciousness changed from one in which he internalized society’s opinion to one in which he is free to embrace his own humanity and his blackness.  Words and literacy play a crucial role in this paradigm shift.  And in the process, Malcolm X becomes political and conscious.
      Through books, Malcolm X found his voice and validates Freire’s claim that “Human beings are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in action-reflection” (88).  In his autobiography, Malcom X reflects on how reading opened doors for him and changed the course of his life.  Like Freire’s illiterate peasants, reading and writing gave Malcolm X the wherewithal to liberate himself.  As Malcolm X puts it, “As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive” (448).

      Works Cited

Fleming, Cheryl Torok, and J. Bradley Garner. Brief Guide for Teaching Adult Learners. Marion,      Ind.: Triangle Publishing, 2009. Print.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniversary ed. New York: Continuum, 2000. Print

Hooks, Bell. Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem. New York: Atria Books, 2003. Print.

Taylor, Edward, “Transformative Learning. “Third Update on Adult Learning Theory. Ed. Merriam, Sharan B. Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. 5-15. Print. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education #119

X, Malcolm and Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: One World/Ballantine Books, 1992. Print.

Prison U.

I have often seen and heard the slogan: Educate to liberate.  Yet New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is giving a whole new meaning to this clarion call.  He has proposed a plan that will bring professors into prison classrooms, and for prisoners who desire it: a college degree.

Talk about transformative education.  His proposal has the potential to better-prepare prisoners for life after prison and cut the recidivism rate.  If prison studies can show prisoners who have dehumanized or oppressed others how to become more fully human as a form rehabilitation, then I am all for it.  For example, if education could help prisoners see themselves as productive, worthwhile human beings, and not the dregs of society, that so many of prisoners no doubt have internalized, that in of itself could be liberating.  If they could as Freire puts it: "reject this image and and replace it with autonomy and responsibility," then that would be transformative for themselves and their communities. 

I can imagine that prison might be a good place for praxis.  There would be plenty of time for reflection, and pursuing a college degree is a good form of action.  More importantly, prisoners might develop their own voice through education.  They could put in words or name the situations and circumstances that may have led to their incarceration in the first place.

 

Report: The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color--A Review of Research, Pathways and Progress

About two weeks ago, President Obama announced a public-private partnership, called my Brother's Keeper, to help young minority men to stay out of trouble, succeed in school and find good jobs.

During the kick-off of the initiative, President Obama said, "So often, the issues facing boys and young men of color get caught up in long-running ideological arguments — about race and class and crime and poverty, the role of government, partisan politics."

This semester I am teaching a course at Medgar Evers College, a predominantly black institution, in central Brooklyn.  My class of 29 students consists of about 4 young men.  About 70% of the college's enrollment is female.  It's great to see so many young black women in school, but I cannot help but wonder with whom are these young women going to marry and raise a family if the educational and economic plight of minority men is not set on a new trajectory.  Young women all of races are outperforming their male counterparts at almost every level of education.

As someone who is fairly well-informed about current affairs, I have been reading and hearing news reports about the crisis in minority male achievement for years.  One thing that teaching has done for me is to really allow me to see firsthand some of the challenges that these young men face.  What I know for sure is that too many young men are inadequately prepared to become productive members of society.

When I asked a young man in my neighborhood, a recent high school graduate, what he was going to do after high school. He replied, "Get a job with transit."  For years, having a job with transit was one way for young minority males in New York City to become part of the middle class.  The one problem: Now these jobs are increasingly difficult to acquire because of technology and because of austerity and job cuts.

In my family, my grandfather in the 1940s was able to provide a decent living for his family because he worked for Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore.  Today, Bethlehem Steel is no more, and Baltimore's largest employer is Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital.  Even to be a secretary at Johns Hopkins, you need a college degree.  As a consequence, a significant amount of young minority men are left out a job market that requires a significant amount of post-secondary training.

According to a report commissioned by The College Board Advocacy & Policy Center called "The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color--A Review of Research, Pathways and Progress," there are six post-secondary pathways available to high school graduates:

1. Enrollment in a two-year or a four-year college or a vocational school
2. Enlistment in U.S. Armed Forces
3. Employment in U.S. workforce
4. Unemployment
5. Incarceration in state or federal prisons, or in local jails
6. Death

Obviously, some kind of transformation is needed in the lives of these young men. It is imperative that society assists them realizing their full human potential.  We need to change the narrative surrounding young men of color.  Policymakers and the communities in which these young men reside need to make these young men a priority.  Here's why:

As of 2008, only 41.6 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds in the United States had attained an associate degree or higher. More alarmingly, only 30.3 percent of African Americans and 19.8 percent of Latinos ages 25 to 34 had attained an associate degree or higher in the United States, compared to 49.0 percent for white Americans and 70.7 percent for Asian Americans. (Lee and Rawls 2010).

Language, Society and Culture Conference

(Bronx, NY) On Friday, March 7, 2014, I attended the Language, Society and Culture Conference at Bronx Community College.  Some of the highlights of the conference were the sessions on "Using Digital Storytelling in the ESL Writing Class" and the talk, "Storytelling and Academic Discourse: Including More Voices in the Conversation," by Dr. Rebecca Mlynarczk

Both of these sessions were meaningful to me in several ways.  First, both sessions reinforced what I am studying in my "Adult Learners of Language and Literacy" and "Second Language Acquisition" courses. 

Our discussion at the session on digital storytelling and on bringing the world of the students into the academy certainly speaks to the one-sided narratives that Freire indicates as the basis of the banking model of education. Dr. Shoba Bandi-Rao, who led the session on digital storytelling, suggested that "academic discourse can seem like a foreign language" for many non-traditional students.  She said their stories and their language are not valued on college campuses. 

Her digital storytelling project was an attempt to affirm her students in the process of becoming English language speakers by using "problem-posing education" as a way to free her students from the rote memorization often associated with language learning.  Instead, she de-mythologizes the learning process by using creative methods for student to speak and write their truth.

Hi James, I have enjoyed exploring all the links to videos and news articles that you have posted on your blog. The design of your blog is very impressive. What I would like to see more of is your own reflective comments on the readings assigned for our course. I am looking for longer, more complex blog commentaries from you. Please consider these blog comments as an opportunity to consider and express your reactions to what you are learning and to engage in dialogue with me about those reactions. --Barbara Gleason

Freire Quote from "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"

In his book, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," Paulo Freire argues that in traditional education, there is a narrator (the teacher) and a listening object (the students.)  "Education is suffering from narration sickness." (57) Freire insists that this situation minimizes students' creative power, and "serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed." They "react almost instinctively against any experiment in education which stimulates the critical faculties and is not content with a partial view of reality. (60)


My whole life I have heard it say that knowledge is power.  However, I have really never questioned how that knowledge is acquired until recently.  I had never heard of Paulo Freire, but reading his book has been a real eye opener for me.  It has given me a lot to think about in my dual roles as a teacher and a student.  How do I become an individual who helps to transform others and who is transformed at the same time?


Last semester, my class read Plato's "Crito" and Noam Chomsky's "Drug Policy As Social Control."
Students were asked to ponder several questions: What is the relationship of the individual to the state?  How much interest does society have in controlling individual behavior?  These are critical questions for any society.  However, for many of my students, critical thinking about these issues was transformation because they lived experiences .  I heard testimony about being "stopped and frisked" and the emotional toll it took on these young men.


In a sense of the "culture of silence" in which these students were submerged was brought to the surface through education and verbal and written dialog.  Students were able to look critically at their world and gradually come to perceive their own personal and social reality.  Through reflection and action or praxis.  The fact that they were able to do this by critically analyzing an ancient text is even more remarkable because they, you could argue, were able to use what could be perceived as the oppressor's text as a source of liberation.