[AAACE-NLA] Boomerang Brings Deja Vu

[Andrea Wilder]

Tom,

Thank you so much for this.  How wonderful to have the memory of these 
conversations.

Andrea

On Apr 27, 2007, at 12:48 PM, tsticht at znet.com wrote:

> Andrea: I worked with Paulo for one week each year for 8 years in Paris
> where we discussed applications for UNESCO literacy prizes. Much of our
> conversation centered on particular candidatures, in the context of 
> which
> we all make our views about the candidature known. In his discussions,
> Paulo would often talk about the larger sociopolitical contexts of the
> candidature, and in so doing relate this to his philosophical positions
> spelled out in his numerous writings. He also often objected when a
> candidature stated that the program followed the Freirean method, 
> which he
> thought did not exist. He generally spoke less analytically and more
> passionately about candidatures he liked. During tea or coffee breaks 
> or
> lunch our conversations were often more mundane - how we liked our tea 
> or
> coffee, with or without cream, sucre, goings on back home,etc.; the
> problems of air travel; political happenings at UNESCO and other 
> places.
> But overall, his philosophy and ideas regarding adult literacy 
> education
> expressed in his writings and his oral expressions were pretty 
> consistent
> as I listened to them.
>
> Tom Sticht
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Quoting Andrea Wilder <andreawilder at comcast.net>:
>
>> Tom:  Having both listened to and read Paulo Freire, in your opinion
>> were there any important differences between his ideas expressed in
>> writing and his ideas expressed in speech?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Andrea
>>
>> On Apr 24, 2007, at 9:36 PM, tsticht at znet.com wrote:
>>
>>> George: You work at a level of abstraction and interpretation of
>>> Paulo's
>>> writings that are outside of my own rather concrete observations of
>>> Paulo's
>>> work. I listened to him for three days a week for eight years and 
>>> read
>>> about
>>> what he actually did in teaching literacy. That is the basis for my
>>> placing
>>> him in the line of those who applied Functional Context Education
>>> principles in their teaching. Paulo did not invent
>>> learner-centeredness,
>>> though he greatly popularized the ideas in his writings and
>>> presentations
>>> around the world. My review of historical pioneers in adult literacy
>>> in the
>>> U.S. reveals others long before his work who based their teaching on
>>> the
>>> expressed interests of their learners. I have found his work was
>>> functional
>>> in its search for social justice, as was other's work in my 
>>> historical
>>> line-up. Instead of any paradigmatic shifts, Paulo was quite
>>> conventional in
>>> how he actually taught literacy, using the syllabary approach to
>>> teaching
>>> Portugese literacy. Septima Poinsette Clark focused on social 
>>> justice,
>>> overcoming oppression,and the interests of learners (paticipatory
>>> programs)well before Paulo's work. One of Paulo's practices was in
>>> teaching
>>> adult literacy was the use of the pictures to teach "reading the 
>>> world"
>>> before learning how to "read the world." But this approach was
>>> extensively
>>> used in World War II. It has also been used under the name of the
>>> language
>>> experience approach. But Paulo's rhetoric caught the attention of 
>>> third
>>> world countries trying to emerge from colonization and became a
>>> favorite
>>> rhetoric, even if not always the same practice, for literacy 
>>> campaigns
>>> and
>>> programs in these countries. My work in the military was not in the
>>> tradition of the Post WWII UN modernization efforts but rather in the
>>> tradition of the WWI and WWII military programs that taught literacy
>>> within
>>> the functional contexts of military life. My work developing programs
>>> in
>>> civilian contexts was more in line with human capital development and
>>> the
>>> intergenerational transfer of literacy from parents to their 
>>> children,
>>> what
>>> today is often aimed for in family literacy programs. You may find 
>>> the
>>> historical review in the Functional Context Education notebook for
>>> 2005 of
>>> interest. Thanks for your comments. Tom Sticht
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Quoting gdemetrion at msn.com:
>>>
>>>> Tom and others,
>>>>
>>>> I view Frieire's historical impact from a dynamic perspective in
>>>> fundamentally challenging the then pervasive modernization thesis.
>>>> Your
>>>> early work on literacy as I understand it was broadly in line with 
>>>> the
>>>> presuppositions of Post WWII UN modernization efforts at and the
>>>> political precepts of the Kennedy administration.  That's not a
>>>> criticism
>>>> it's an observation.
>>>>
>>>> Thus it's not just time sequencing and some broad affinities at the
>>>> level
>>>> of functional-contextual pedagogy but cultural-political impact and
>>>> the
>>>> fundamental paradigmatic shift that emerged as a result of Freire's
>>>> understanding of the politics of literacy.  In the US there have 
>>>> been
>>>> liberal and radical appropriations of Freire's vision, the former
>>>> stressing the critique of "banking" pedagogy, the latter, the
>>>> politics of
>>>> capitalism. As I interpret Freire his politics informed his pedagogy
>>>> as
>>>> its undergirding filter, though there was as well a theological
>>>> underpinning in the then emergent liberationist theology. In that
>>>> respect
>>>> he focused on agape love as the ultimate source of unity among 
>>>> people,
>>>> but was not short on using such terminology as the oppressed and the
>>>> oppressors.  This is usually not emphasized much, but it is a 
>>>> critical
>>>> aspect of his work.
>>>>
>>>> I've spent some time on Freire with critical appreciation of his
>>>> underlying project.  My objection here is neither to defend nor to
>>>> critique him, but to place the discussion of the relationship 
>>>> between
>>>> functional context theory and critical pedagogy in its historical
>>>> setting
>>>> circa 1965-1975 and in that respect to note the paradigmatic
>>>> differences
>>>> in their fundamental political orientation.
>>>>
>>>> George Demetrion
>>>>
>>>
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