Liberation

Over the past couple of nights I have had the pleasure and sheer delight in reading this weeks reading assignment. This week our chapters focused on the theory Critical Pedagogy and the discourse used to communicate it. My particular interest was stimulated from having some technical high profile terms for a discourse I had already been speaking about. I thought the different perspectives from both McLaren and Freire were closely related.

Some of the discursible words I learned were racialization, dialectical, emancipatory knowledge, social functions of knowledge and ideology. All of these terms add to my discourse of an educational doctoral student as well as a student of this emancipatory concept or what Freire refers to as "logos". In laymen's terms, all of these words acknowledge wisdomor emergence of conscious, as a ongoing lively process that is created and mediated by one's own experience within the world. This gift of knowledge frees man to be confident in his role and relationships outside of his being. Although some my never reach this level of conciousness, the goal of a critical pedagogists is to seek understanding of the "how" and "why" of the social and personal educational process.

Freire touched my heart with his explanation of a critical pedagogist because he spoke of emancipating the oppressed. My personal social and cultural reality confronted oppression on a daily basis, so I was elated to read about similiar "humanization" from someone else. In my gut, I have always felt that freedom in America has always been a facade for capitalism. Our pseudo freedom has always been marketed as equitable and limitless, meanwhile my dehydrated education has never revealed the enchanted path I needed to take to free me from poverty. Who came to the rescue for me? God, my mom and grandma and four teachers. What about the others I grew up with? Did they have an angel of a teacher to "save or free" them from their reality? How have we operated so long with this dormant mortal depository of education?

After reading Mclaren and Freire, it becomes more clear that opressed people don't even know the questions to ask to change the pattern of dominance. The un-information provided has always been enough to survive in the system, but not to thrive above it. McLaren does a wonderful job in his explanation of critical pedagogy to include the issues of race, culture(subordinate or subset) gender, ideology and class. Without considering these factors the hidden curriculum becomes the respected and natural curriculum. I like this line from the reading the most that states, "empowerment as the processof appreciating and loving oneself". Isn't this the true calling of an educator?

Purposeful,
awoman