Expanding Into East Portland

This week, some of us will be meeting with key members of a few of the disadvantaged communities of East Portland.  We will be starting the preliminary activities of organizing a new Flying University Project group on the East side.  As one of the organizers, I have been thinking a lot and (as usual) reading a lot.  One book has seemed especially relevant to me, namely, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire.  The relevancy of this book lies in my desire that the Flying University Project function as one of the nuclei of a social movement - a movement of self-organization, self-attainment and self-improvement among peoples who have historically been marginalized either economically or through the violence of war and conquest.

I am almost finished with Chapter 4 of the book, and although it is a challenge to digest, I see it as a key to the building of collectives of people who are participatory, collaborative, decentralized, and democratic in their pursuit of their mission goals.  I see also that others have seen the value of Freire's little book, and that these others are using it to build collaborative collectives of people who are working toward their own liberation.  Freire's premise is that democratic education is education as the practice of freedom, and is the only kind of education that can enable those who have been dehumanized to regain their lost humanity.  Liberating education is problem-posing education which activates students to engage critically with reality in order to transform it.  The education offered by oppressors, on the other hand, seeks to domesticate students in order to make them passive subjects.

How does liberating, democratic education work in teaching math?  That's something I am still trying to figure out.  However, I do know that Freire used his democratic, participatory, problem-posing methodology to organize Brazilian sugar-cane workers to teach each other to read within a 45-day period.  That's an impressive achievement.  I will let you all know how my understanding of this approach develops as I continue to study it and try to implement it.  Stay tuned...