Class Agenda 5.5: Pedagogy of the Oppressed and your philosophy

1. Announcements: Tutoring Writing, Letter to Bert due date, 099 Class Visit, Podcast date

2. Class Activity: Your Philosophy of Pedagogy


Reminder: In your Case Study, you will discuss how your own tutoring work fits into the themes of writing pedagogy we've discussed over the semester with Active Voice and Tutoring Writing (this aspect of the assignment will be similar to your 'Letter to Bert' assignment). What distinguishes your Case Study, however, will be the ways that you bring also bring your ideas about 'teaching writing' into conversation with your 'philosophy of pedagogy' --  that is, what you believe to be true purposes of both education and teaching. If teaching writing helps us to teach students to think for themselves, we must also ask: what is the value of such independent thought? What are we trying to ultimately achieve?



Activity Goal: Students will decide what ideas might incorporate from Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed into their philosophy of pedagogy reflections (these reflections will make up part of the thesis statement of your "Case Study" assignment).

Activity Description: In our last class we 'read closely' a couple passages from Friere, and spent some class time working through Friere's language, which can be both dense and provoking. Today we will spend some time working through more passages with two goals in mind: producing a working summary of several passages, and deciding if the ideas we find in those passages might be possible fits for own philosophy of pedagogies. Last week the class was split 50/50, for example on incorporating the concept of "liberation" from this work into your own thinking.

Before beginning our group work we will briefly look at one early passage in the chapter as a class. We will produce a summary together and then decide, perhaps via quick vote, whether we would accept one the ideas from the passage into our thinking. [BANKING V PROBLEM POSING, 81/79 on PDF]

First, Let's split into four small groups of about three (depending on our numbers). I will assign each group a passage for summary and interpretation. Then each group will produce a working summary that they can quickly relate back to the class. Each individual in the group will then decide on whether or not they would incorporate the summarized idea/passage into their own philosophy, either in whole or in part, while being able to say why.

Finally, time-permitting, each individual will begin to compose a paragraph that connects their thinking to Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Group One: 74: "The truth is..." paragraph
Group Two: 78: "Education as the exercise..."
Group Three: 79: "Those truly committed..."
Group Four: 83: "In problem posing education..."
Group Five? 84: "Problem Posing education affirms..."

3. As a class, let's look closer at a passage from 85.

4. Now, let's look ahead to the "Letter to Bert."