Myles and Paulo

Andrew and I had a rousing discussion about Horton and Freire and their radical views on education and social diversity. I have a snippet from the book which I marked which resonated with me in a manner that might help answer his questions. 

It's a longish statement that I marked, but the whole book is one long statement back and forth from these two. Kinda boring to tell you the truth. Not as deep or colorful as an actual book would have been. 

During their conversation, Myles says, “the government is trying to launch a literacy campaign without having any reason for it except that it’d be a good thing if people could become literate. There could be found pockets in the country where you could have successful literacy programs, but just to assume it anywhere and everywhere . . . I think the poor and the people who can’t read and write have a sense that without structural changes nothing is worth really getting excited about. They know much more clearly than intellectuals do that reforms don’t reform. They don’t change anything” (p. 93). Then later in the same soliloquy he says “So to embolden people to act, the challenge has got to be a radical challenge. It can’t be little simplistic reform that reformer think will help them. It’s got to be something that they know out of experience could possibly bring about change” (p. 94). 

Another aspect of their conversation comes about a little later when they are discussing if anyone can just teach biology, that no teacher can be truly non-bias or non-prejudice about their perspective when teaching. That there will be a social position with whatever is taught. 

These two parts of their discussion resonated with me in terms of their views on change and the educational system. They both seem to believe that radical change is necessary for transformative changes in society and that it’s necessary, if not natural for teachers to be a part of that change due to their position and the tendency against social neutrality. 

Myles says, “when I first started thinking about the relationship of learning and social change, it had nothing to do with Highlander. It’s was years earlier when I was debating with myself this whole idea of neutrality. Academicians, politicians, all the people that are supposed to be guiding this country say you’ve got to be neutral. As soon as I started looking at that word neutral and what it meant, it became very obvious to me there can be no such thing as neutrality. It’s a code word for the existing system. It has nothing to do with anything but agreeing to what is and will always be-that’s what neutrality is. Neutrality is just following the crowd” (p. 102).

It’s these passages that helped me understand more the guiding premises of these two educators and what they were trying to achieve. 

References

Horton, M., & Freire, P. (1990). We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change (J. Gaventa & J. Peters, Eds.). Temple University Press.