Then the teacher added a wrinkle to this assignment. We not only had to consider Ken Robinson's ideas, but he added Paulo Freire to the mix. I had never heard of Freire before, and once I found out that he was a Marxist it coloured my opinion of him right off the bat. I tried to look at his writing objectively, but I found it dark and not appealing at all.
So I'm completing this assignment tonight, and I've got a pretty good handle on it, I think.
The things I look at from the left on the internet all paint Critical Pedagogy as something warm and fuzzy. I don't see much written on it from the right side of the spectrum, but I did find one article in relation to Eric Cantor and Paulo Freire from 2013 that was posted on FR:
Eric Cantor throws in the towel, praises Bill Ayers’s favorite radical Marxist
FR posted article
And tonight I found this article from the right side of the spectrum.
I'm sharing this for thoughtful comment. I'm interested in hearing from people that know about Paulo Freire and also those that don't. And if anyone is familiar with Ken Robinson, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on his ideas, too.
Good film here if you have never seen it.
http://www.obamasrealfather.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jrrnkKmUzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmP2GeUdrg4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBtwR36G2Pg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOmzTLdr_m4
‘Cultural Marxism’
Interesting term. Mention it too often, and you might get called an R-word. “Frankfurt School” will up the ante even more. It’s about indoctrination and propaganda, and it’s working. The Left owns the media and academia. Any hope will involve bypassing those institutions. They are gone.
Bump
I wonder if there’s any serious organized opposition to this stuff within academia. Those U of Minnesota teacher certification requirements are incredible.
BTTT/BFL
The termites are busier than ever.
This sounds like something out of the old Soviet Union!!
Remember 60 million Russians were liquidated before it imploded due to the lies it was built upon.
If this isn’t a call to homeschool, I don’t what is. Get your kids out of the government indoctrination centers, do it now and do not look back.
Our universities, many of them taxpayer supported or supposedly religious, have been turned into Ayers-style Marxist reeducation centers, suppressing free speech and enforcing collectivist, anti-capitalist economics.
Remarkably, people who think of themselves as "conservative" readily pony up the $30 or $40 grand annually to subject their kids to this abuse. I'm beginning to think the Left thrives because the Right is brain-dead.
Read up on Paulo Friere.
Basically, inspired by Fanons’ post-colonial African Marxism.
If you look at their plan from back in the 50s, you can see it unfold under Obama.
Bascially, drag down capitalism by engorging the lumpenproletariat.
Here are some modified excerpts on a presentation I gave several years back on Friere:
Brief bio highlights:
Appointed “Director of the Department of Education and Culture of the Social Service” in home state 1946
1962 applied his theories to teach impoverished workers to read and write in 45 days
After military coup, was jailed & then exiled in 1964
1967 Wrote “Education as the Practice of Freedom”
1968 Wrote “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”
After fellowship at Harvard, moved to Switzerland as Education advisor to World Council of Churches (ecumenical organization)
Also advised on education reform in several poor countries
1979 returned to Brazil, joined Worker’s Party
1991 Paulo Friere Institute form to foster “popular education”
Died in 1997
Major postulates of “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”
“Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which argues against the “banking concept of education” in favor of a liberatory, dialogical pedagogy designed to raise individuals’ consciousness of oppression and to in turn transform oppressive social structures through “praxis.” “ (http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/~stevens/critped/freire.htm)
What does this mean?
Education aimed at the lumpenproletariate ( the poorest of the poor).
Note the predominance of postmodern, feminist, anti-racist, post-colonial, & gay issues in education.
Also note that this relies on the existence of a lumpenproletariat - raise their standard of living and you put yourself out of business.
Along with the three R’s, they are to be radicalized through deconstruction of the moneyed power structure (critical pedagogy)
Note how history texts basically emphasize the evil of Columbus (killing millions through pestilence), but promote leftist and marginal historical figures because they are “diverse”. Also note how they will not tolerate any deconstruction of those they promote (they’ll call you a racist).
Students will “discover” their own learning with teacher as facilitator (dialogical pedagogy).
(Influenced such movements as “invented spelling”, teaching of ebonics, investigations in math as opposed to rote learning of multiplication tables, open classroom experiments, etc.) Basically, why Johnny can’t read or add.
Liberation Education - Education as “consciousness-raising” (students encouraged to link personal experiences to social and political trends and knowledge)
The poor’s political education is more important than the “mere” transmission of knowledge and skills.
Strongly influenced by anti-colonial texts such as “The Wretched of the Earth” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wretched_of_the_Earth )
We all know how decolonialization of Africa turned out - Marxist and Muslim dictatorships, and horrors of Nigerian, Somalian, Sudanese, and Zimbabwean politics.
A little glossary of key concepts in Frieran theory:
Alienation - Domination of people by power elites
“Banking” Education - Tabula rasa (the young mind as a blank slate)
Codification - Representation of learner’s situation
Conscientization - Movement toward:
Critical Consciousness - Awareness that challenges the status quo
Empowerment - Result of liberatory education - consensus
Liberatory (Popular) Education - Worldview: Challenge rather than adapt
Participatory Research - Production of knowledge by learners
Philosophical Underpinnings
Liberation Theology - Jesus as Redeemer and liberator of the oppressed
(This is contrary to Catholic doctrine as inciting hatred and violence in the class struggle. (e.g., World Council of Churches funding of violent and Anti-Semetic groups), and focuses on materialism (economic class)
Plato - Socratic Method
But biased toward only questioning capitalism
Rousseau - Child as Active Learner
Dewey - Criticism of the transmission of “mere facts”
Hegelian Phenomenology - examining consciousness’ experience and eliciting the contradictions that come to light (dialectic)
Vygotsky - Zone of Proximal Development
Marx / Lenin - lumpenproletariat as anti-colonial force
Sir Ken is one among many people who see the symptoms of the underlying education problem, and think that giving speeches will cure the disease.
The problem is deep-seated and fundamentally institutional. We currently have an government-owned K-12 education system with about 50M students and 10M adults largely run according to the dictates of a central education authority, the Department of Education.
Large institutions work for mass production. McDonalds works because every Big Mac is pretty much the same (by design) as every other Big Mac. No innovation is required. Just follow the rules precisely and the Big Mac will come out the same every time.
Children are not Big Macs. Every child comes out of the womb unique, and acquires more differentiating attributes every minute of its existence. To think that one standardized process would work for 50M unique children is insanity. To support the learning of an individual child requires individualized attention.
This homogenization of education leads to a culture of infantilization. In Ben Franklin’s day, kids moved on to adulthood in their early teens. Now, thanks in large part to our modern education system (and our modern economy), kids barely leave home before they’re 30.
Our whole society needs a “Reset” button.
*ping