WEBVTT - Pedagogy of the Oppressed Ft. Andrew 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:11.639 Oh, it could happen here. Which is the podcast that 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:16.200 this is? I'm Robert Evans with me? Are other people? Hello? 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:23.840 Other people? Hi? Hello? Uh so this podcast things falling 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:28.160 about part putting back Together? YadA, YadA YadA. Today our guest, 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:32.240 well not our guest. Our host is uh, the inimitable 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.920 Andrew Andrew. Hey, Hey, how's it going? What are we 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.160 talking about today? What are we learning? I'm good? I'm good? 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:44.040 Um today open to tackle another book kind of um. 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.960 This one's not fictional like the past two. UM. So 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.680 I do hope to like explore some of those in 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.280 the future because I think some good conversations come on 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.760 to those. This week, we're gonna be talking about Paulo 0:00:55.840 --> 0:01:02.000 Frere and the pedagogy of the oppressed. Oh yes, for 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:06.360 those who don't know, Paulo Freire is Brazilian educator and 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.959 one of the leading advocates of well was a Brazilian 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.840 educator and leading advocates of critical pedagogy. Pedagogy is basically 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.600 like the study of education philosophy of education. Um. He 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:24.360 was born in nine and his experiences kind of led 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.800 him to that path because during his childhood and adolescents 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:33.240 he was falling behind in school because he was poor. 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.080 His poverty and his hunger affected his ability to learn. 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:41.120 And so as he got older and he got opportunities 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:42.840 and he was able to study and so on, and 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.160 he basically realized he needs to do more to uplift 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:49.760 the lives of the poor, improved lives of the poor, 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:57.080 um in order to facilitate better educational outcomes. As he 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.840 says and went court, I didn't understand anything because of 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:03.280 my hunger. I wasn't dumb, it wasn't a lack of interest. 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.400 My social condition just didn't allow me to have an education. 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:12.160 Experience showed me once again the relationship between social class 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:17.840 and knowledge. So as he progressed in his studies and 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.720 his writing and stuff, he eventually contributed to a philosophy 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:26.120 of education which blended classical approaches coming from Plato and 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:32.120 modern Marxist and post Marxist and anti clonial thinkers. When 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.160 I was reading the book, it really sort of struck me. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.040 I've got a lot of um and a lot of 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.960 France found on vibes from his work. He died in 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:50.160 um r I p um, but his greatest contribution um 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.520 to me at least and to most people. It is 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:57.000 his book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In the book, 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:02.839 he sort of explores a detailed Marxist class analysis UM 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.720 in the relationship between like the colonize and colonize, the 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:10.840 oppressed and the oppressed. And he talks about the banking 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:15.240 model of education that traditional pedagogy has spouses because it 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:19.800 treats the students as like this bank, this empty vessel 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.000 to be filled with knowledge. Instead, he argues for a 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:29.440 form of education of pedagogy that treats the lunar as 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:34.160 a co creator in knowledge. As far as I'm aware, UM, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.280 and I guess it's kind of is illustrated in the 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.360 book itself. But as far as I know, Fair wasn't 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.840 an anarchist or libertarian socialist of any variety. But he 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:49.720 still ended up coming to some anarchic conclusions with regard 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.640 to the education system and learning and stuff. I mean 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:55.800 and I guess have been writing about, you know, like 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.600 youth liberation and the school system and even experimenting with 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:03.960 new more roles of schooling for a long time. UM. 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:09.440 The Freer movement, for example, experimented with implementing modern schools 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.760 in UM in the US and in Spain. And a 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:17.520 Goldman was very much involved in that process. And UM, 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.440 I don't think that the experiments were necessarily free of error, 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.440 but I think they did a good job of trying 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.880 something new, trying something with more liberatory in the sphere 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.640 of education, because I mean, for the past several hundred 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.560 years now, UM, we've kind of been going with this 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:39.760 sort of um Prussian model of education is very strict, 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:44.720 very regimented, very divided model of education. The rules um 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:51.320 to sort of ferment nationalism and division, class divisions and 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.760 stuff within the populace. So I think that any experimentation 0:04:55.800 --> 0:05:00.280 in the more limitary and direction is a positive. In 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.280 the preface, um Fair sort of goes into why this 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.599 book came about. He's talking about his experience as a 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.840 teacher in Brazil the time, the observations he made well 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:16.479 in political exile, and so what he realized as a 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.040 teacher when he was teaching his students is that they 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.400 had a sort of a fair of freedom. It's not 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:24.440 like a real fair of freedom, it's more a fair 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:29.120 of the risks associated with freedom because of the experiences 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.760 and stuff that they've had. Um. What he considers the 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.039 most vital, however, to the education system. It's sort of 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:43.560 just establishing conscientious out or critical consciousness within students, a 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:50.719 consciousness that commits to social change and human liberation. According 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:55.479 to Fair, the educational model can only really be successful 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.200 if people are radicalized through it, if people are able 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:03.960 to see the issues in their current society, think about them, 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.720 stew upon them, criticize them, compare them, and look at 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:12.200 ways to solve them. And if they don't come up 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:16.680 with that sort of critical consciousness then as well for not. Basically, 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.320 education system is kind of spinning on top of mud. 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.320 I find it especially interesting that I ended up reading 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.960 this when I did, because, as we've seen in the US, 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.680 a lot of conversations are now attacking anything even approaching 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.840 critical consciousness with this. You know who'll debate going on 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:41.160 about critical race theory and this sort of even though 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.160 critical race theories are being taught in primary or secondary education. 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.719 This attack, this full front of attack and anything that 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:56.279 resembles critical thinking and critical study of history and of 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:09.920 the present m hm. So in chapter one for It 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.600 makes the case for why the patagogy Deppress is necessary. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.160 He says, a human kind central problem is how we 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:22.600 affirmor identity as human beings. Everyone is trying to reach 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:24.760 that sort of affirmation, that sort of human identity, that 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:30.760 sort of human nous um. But oppression and systems of 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:35.600 oppression interrupt that process. They prevent people from expressing and 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.680 establishing their full humanity. Where they're talking about racism keeping 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.800 people from reaching the full potential, or sexism preventing people, 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:49.280 or you know, a patriarchy with the whole limitations and 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:55.840 such puts upon people's sexuality and gender expression and gender identification. 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.200 One of these systems of oppression are put in place 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:04.400 to restrict, to confine and bound us below you know, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:10.160 our full potential. And so a lot of that and 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:15.720 a lot of the you know, cultivation and forging of 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.000 one's awareness of you know, the systems around them and 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.840 how to operate within them takes place in the education system. 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:27.080 And so the education system is should be one of 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:31.640 the critical junctures in which we which our fight for 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:38.520 oppressed people. There's a sort of dehumanization that it could 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:44.880 as a result of oppression, whether it be in the 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:52.200 form of comparing people to animals, as racists often do, 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:58.080 whether it be in the form of decreating people too 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:04.560 it's of childlike status which itself is a is a 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:09.840 form of oppression because the fact that you know, childlikeness 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.880 and youth is considered to be something less than It's 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:18.040 just another way they where people are oppressed, and another 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:22.120 way in which people are prevented from asserting their autonomy 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.880 and their humanity. Oppressors. They tend to treat people as 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:31.360 objects to be possessed, to see freedom as threatening, and 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.800 in turn, oppressed people end are becoming ill neated from 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.439 each other through oppressure and begin to see their oppressors 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.480 as something to strive towards for. It talks about how 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.040 they oppressed. The whole vision and the whole understanding of 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.680 what being human is is being like oppressors. And so 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:54.560 a lot of people and you see that even today, 0:09:55.040 --> 0:10:00.280 you know, um, when they strive for freedom, they strive 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.439 to become entrepreneurs. You know, they strive to become business owners. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:09.600 They strive to become billionaires and CEOs and all these 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:14.720 sort of images of what, you know, what being human 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.320 looks like. Because people are striving to be free, and 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.160 if the only way you can get a measure of 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.440 freedom is by becoming an oppress yourself, and it makes 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.520 sense a lot of oppressive looking to try to do that. 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.200 Of course, as Fair himself says, and he oppress says 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:35.480 themselves are not fully free either, because by denying the 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:41.560 oppressed people their humanity, they robbed themselves of humanity. The 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:46.880 fight for liberation, as Fair argues, must consist of two stages, 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.520 reflection on the nature of oppression and the concrete action 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:56.000 needed to change it. And that's sort of reading that 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:00.440 that that line are paraphrasing, but it reminds me of 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:06.839 the process of prefigurative politics, where not only are you 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:12.280 bringing about the consciousness of people to recognize these systems 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:17.280 of oppression and understand how they operate, but the concrete 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.720 action to change it is one that is intended to 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:25.120 reflect the society that we wish to establish in the future. 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:31.400 Fare does one um that, you know, leaders and stuff 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.720 must engage in dialogue with oppressed people rather than becoming 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.840 like oppressors. But as the book goes on, I think 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.640 he relies a bit too much on this concept of 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:47.520 leaders as well. He wants against them existing above the people, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:52.920 but he's still sort of uphold that distinction between the 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:57.880 leaders and the people. As the book progresses, um he 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.400 begins to compare the concept of the banking model to 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.559 the concept of the problem posing model of education. As 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:10.079 he calls it. In the banking model um quote, he 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:16.880 the teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.400 and predictable. Where Else he expands upon a topic completely 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.000 alien to the existential experience of the students. His task 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.720 is to fill the students with the contents of his narration, 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.520 contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.400 that engendered them. I could give them significance. Words are 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.680 emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:47.040 alienating verbocity any being that sentence is quite proposed. But 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.640 on the contrary, banking education maintains and even stimulates the 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:58.720 contradiction to the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:03.000 society as a whole. The teacher teachers, and the students 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.440 are taught. The teacher knows everything, and the student knows nothing. 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.840 Teacher thinks and the students are thought about. Teacher talks 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.480 and the students listen meekly. The teacher disciplines, and the 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:18.640 students are disciplined. Teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.000 the students comply. The teacher acts, and the students have 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.800 the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher. 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.079 Teacher chooses the program content and the students, who were 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:33.240 not consulted, adapt to it. The teacher confuses the authority 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.720 of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.160 they set in opposition to the freedom of the students. 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.280 The teachers the subjective learning process while the pupils and 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.840 their objects. I think um Flaire needed to incorporate some 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.000 more gender neutral language and that so I had to 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:56.040 kind of correct him there. Um. But that quote, that 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.320 that quote in full, it really reminds me, um of 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:04.040 my schooling experience. UM. As some people they knew I 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:08.040 was actually home schooled for the majority of my learning experience. 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:13.439 I actually didn't know that. Oh oh now you know, Yeah, 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.000 so I was. I was home schooled, um for I woulday, 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.160 the majority of my education experience. And then after I 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.480 went into college and stuff. But before then, I didn't, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.600 um make it through the school system. And even though 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:27.480 it was a really long time ago, my memories are 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:32.080 still crystal clear of that process. You know, UM, I 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:37.280 remember seeing students being disciplined, Um I myself was kind 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:46.480 of a teacher's pet. But that doesn't surprise me, and 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:52.640 the best possible way I'm not sure I to take it, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:58.000 I'll take it in a good way because me not 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:07.400 me also doesn't surprise teachers or cops. Yeah, this is 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.000 my pre anarchists. I wasn't you know, I didn't. I 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.600 wasn't jumping out the booth canal with a black flag, 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.800 you know. Unfortunately a cab includes the person who tried 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.760 to get me to read Catcher in the Rye was 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.440 a good book. It was a good, perfectly fine book. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.840 I'm just being an asshole. But but like Andrew, what 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.360 are you alluding here? Is that like stoicism is something 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:39.640 that is weaponized in the education system. Stoicism, stoicism being 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.160 like no emotion delivering like right right, right, because I 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:49.760 was thinking the philosophy, but because you're like a vessel 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.880 for quote unquote facts and knowledge to be like injected 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:58.000 into you for you to like hold as as Yeah, 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.840 it's we're seeing a resurgence in this type of saying 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.400 all the albeit probably a little bit less eloquently stated 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.560 in some of like the anti schooling anarchist literature. That's 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:10.400 been coming out in the past few years, or at 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:12.760 least has been gaining more traction the past few years. 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:18.760 M Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because this and that's kind 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:20.920 of that's kind of the funny thing about it, because 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.040 most people in their school and experience can recall it 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.920 being in some ways negative, even if they look at 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.880 it in a positive light. We can at least, even 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.320 if they don't go in that fully radical direction, most 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.080 people can look at some of the elements to their schooling, 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.880 of the education and see that that wasn't right. You know, 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.720 it's something messed up about that, even something as simple 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.560 as having to like ask, you know, the teacher to 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.160 go on and use the toilet. It's just this is 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:53.240 those sorts of little ways of control, like as I 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.360 was seeing in my school and experience back when I 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.600 was in primary school. I was very adorable. I'm sure 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:05.879 I could guess, but I remember seeing these students being disciplined. 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.760 They had the bell had rung for um, you know, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:11.399 the end of break, and he supposed to, you know, 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:15.919 fire back into class. But I think there was a 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.479 school next door that was having some kind of events 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.720 and they were playing like music, and so a bunch 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.480 of students in my class. Not me, but a bunch 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.520 of students in my class were you know, um, dancing 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:30.920 at the side of the school, enjoying the music, having 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.000 a good time or whatever. Um. They heard the bell 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:35.840 and they didn't go because they were, you know, they 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:40.920 were having a good time. They were like six seven eight, um. 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.040 But then afterwards the teacher, after you know, I sit 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.399 down and stuff, leacher goes and finds them and brings 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:52.200 them in. And this is prior to at least of 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.000 my knowledge, prior to the corporal punishment being phased out 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:01.280 of school. So I just remember seeing them having to 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.080 you know, like lay out their hand and receive punishment 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.359 for daring to have joy after hours, you know, daring 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:13.000 to enjoy themselves. Um, what it was supposed to be 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:17.320 class time and they're supposed to be in class. I'm 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:22.520 sure people have similar experiences, at least of a kind 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.359 of punishment and controul. I mean, this is not the 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.240 same kind of punishment, but I think to your point 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.760 of being controlled, like even just like not even being 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:35.399 aware of it, just like being forced to stand up 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.000 and say the pudge of allegiance. In America, for example, 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.439 it becomes this like repetitive culty thing every morning that 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.239 you're expected to do and if you don't do it, 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:48.639 um personal experience. If you refuse to do that, you 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.200 have to go to the principal's office and explain why 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.280 it happens over and over again. And I think it's 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:58.560 like you're you're questioned and you're punished even for like thinking, 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:07.040 not like differently, or questioning not even thinking, just questioning reality. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.359 yeah yeah. And in Syria when I was I went 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.240 to school in Syria when I was really small and 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.119 me my sister ate really slow and we would get 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.800 hit with a ruler on our hands because we did 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:24.800 we didn't finish lunch fast enough. Um. So yeah, mine 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.360 isn't that intense. But the school I went to when 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.840 I was a little kid in Oklahoma, number one, they 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.760 paddled us. That was legal as a public school. But 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.600 my first grade teacher was obsessed with the fact that 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.840 like it was bad to be left handed, and you know, 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.240 she couldn't, she couldn't do the ship that they used 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:43.160 to do right. They used to like funck kids up 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.080 for using their left hands. But she would every single 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:48.160 day like chide me and tell me that I should 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.240 use my right hand to write and stuff that it 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.639 wasn't like proper that it was like bad that I 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:54.480 could if you if you if you're not aware, if 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:56.560 you're not left handed, when you're like do stuff with 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:58.680 a pencil and you're left handed, you get a bunch 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.879 of like, yeah, pencil stuff on your on the side 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:03.960 of your hand. Right. It's just like because of the 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.359 way that unless you're using like those weird left handed 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.520 notebooks and ship which no one ever has. UM, and 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:12.240 she would like she gave me so much ship for 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.520 being dirty because like I would get stuff on my hand. 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.520 It was just like when I tell people that, it's 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:21.000 like really, this was like the nineties. Yeah, there's there's 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.040 a few of those folks left. I think she was 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.199 extremely Catholic, UM, and I know none seems to go 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.720 on that stuff. I didn't know that Catholic people cared 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:36.080 about the left handed thing. Catholic Catholic schools. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.040 I wouldn't say that, like it's I don't think there's 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.520 anything and like the Catechism about not being left handed 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.919 right right. I mean like in some very strict Muslim culture, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.200 a lot of it is like phased out but for example, 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.080 your left hand isn't meant to be used as the 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.399 primary hand because it's like a dirty hand, like the 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.960 one you wipe yourself with. Ye. Yeah, there's a lot, 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.920 but like I know you were handed though. Yikes. Oh yes, 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:08.040 ye yikes, thank you, thank you. You should be concerned. 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:11.960 I have to makes a number of things frustrating, like 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.919 shearing sheep anyway, whatever. Mm well, everything is designed for 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.040 right handed people for sure, Like it has everything it is. 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.560 You try to speak, but we are the master, right Okay? Sorry? 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.080 Speaking of hands, just out of curiosity, did you all 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:30.120 have the hand up hand out experience? Hand out? What's 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:35.960 hand out? Basically? Um, it's just sort of a tool, 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.879 you suggest, sort of a sort of repetitive kind of 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.679 follow instructions kind of thing. So like if the class 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.159 getting too rowdies, like hands up, hands out, hands up, 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.399 hands out, and the teacher does not stop saying it 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.240 until everyone is quiet down, and it's just like like 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:57.320 a robot, just reason. And I don't think i've experienced that, 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:02.560 I mean, are you? Um? I wasn't an assistant teacher 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.199 at one point, and for very very young children, I'm 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:09.159 talking like four to five year olds and I understand 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.639 their frustration of like you're just trying to get something 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.040 done and everyone's gonna while now they just had snacks 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:19.199 or whatever, and everyone's kind of wild out. But I 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:23.040 think that says more about like the methods we're using 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:25.920 than about the shouldering themselves. You know. It's all about, 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:28.760 like you have to you should adjust more to like 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:33.320 their cycles and their needs, their stage, rather than trying 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:39.200 to force and shove them into this sort of militarbotic Yeah, yeah, totally. 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:43.840 It's yeah, they're not allowed to actually develop naturally or 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.520 like be themselves in a setting like that. Yeah, exactly. 0:22:57.640 --> 0:22:59.840 I think what happens like kind of throws me. It's 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:05.080 like or people have these experiences traumatic and not as 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.480 dramatic in the education system, a lot of people, but 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:11.760 some people they come out radicalized by it, and other 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:18.200 people end up being the like most stringent and most 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:24.200 passionate advocates of it. Like even like this Catholic school 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:28.360 teacher you're talking about, Robert, Like at some point she 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:33.120 was also in the education system, and it really makes 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:35.720 me wonder like what she went through to have to 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:38.120 come up with that kind of mindset. Yeah, I mean, 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.200 I think she'd grown up in Oklahoma too, so it 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:47.480 must have been a nightmare, like everything in that state. Yeah, 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:51.280 like why does it have a panhandle anyway? Um, I 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:54.200 mean the there is a reason for that, and it's 0:23:54.240 --> 0:24:00.680 not fun, but okay, I'm assuming it's slavery. Any fucked 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:03.439 up geographic thing going on in the South, the reason 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:09.080 is generally slavery. Yeah, right, right, right right. And so 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:12.359 she spends a lot of time talking about this banking model, 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:13.919 and we could go on and on about it. I 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:16.760 spent a lot of time just talking about the education 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:19.840 system all my problems with it, and at some point 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:23.160 I would like to do an episode about differ rare 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:27.840 schools and part of how those sort of transpired. But 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:34.600 what Fair proposes um as an alternative is the problem 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:43.199 posing model, which is, basically, through dialogue, the teacher and 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:48.200 the students ceased to exist. The teacher of the students 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:50.840 and the students of the teachers ceased to exist. So 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:54.480 instead of there being these two separate categories they are 0:24:55.160 --> 0:25:01.360 teacher students and student teachers. There's no operation anymore between 0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:04.840 the one who teaches and the one who has taught. Rather, 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:08.320 there's a dialogue between the two as they become part 0:25:08.320 --> 0:25:12.119 of this process where all of them can grow. You know, 0:25:12.119 --> 0:25:20.520 you let go of this sort of authoritarian arrangements and 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:28.119 allow people to teach and be taught two, learn and 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:35.840 be learned. Two really draw out what it is that 0:25:35.960 --> 0:25:38.920 we have to gain from each other. Rather than being 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:44.480 sort of docile listeners, the students and the teachers, the 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:48.959 student teachers teacher students, they become co investigators in dialogue, 0:25:49.680 --> 0:25:57.000 they become critics. They become radicals who are able to 0:26:00.040 --> 0:26:05.320 open up and depathologize the way that reality works with 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:10.440 human beings exist in the world. Banking education tends to 0:26:10.480 --> 0:26:16.360 inhibit creativity and try to domesticate our consciousness. Throw back 0:26:16.440 --> 0:26:21.399 to when I was talking about human investication the other day. Um. 0:26:22.320 --> 0:26:27.199 But in contrast, in the problem posing model tries to 0:26:29.119 --> 0:26:34.960 it really bases itself on creativity and stimulates rather than domestication, 0:26:36.000 --> 0:26:39.440 a sort of a full flourishing of what someone could 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:45.520 be unbound and unshackled. So, in summary, banking theory is immobilizing. 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:52.600 It's it's fixating. It doesn't acknowledge people as people but 0:26:52.760 --> 0:26:58.040 rather objects, whereas the problem posing model it takes people's historicity, 0:26:58.240 --> 0:27:02.119 it takes people's humanity the starting point upon which they 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:06.680 can grow and learn from each other. I think that's 0:27:06.680 --> 0:27:10.080 what frustrated me the most about the education system in 0:27:10.119 --> 0:27:12.720 the time that I was in it, and even when 0:27:12.760 --> 0:27:14.680 I got back in it in college, even though it's 0:27:15.480 --> 0:27:19.600 not as bad in some ways, because you know, in 0:27:19.720 --> 0:27:23.200 college they tend to emphasize dialogue a bit more on 0:27:23.280 --> 0:27:29.160 certain classes. But I find the issue is that there's 0:27:29.200 --> 0:27:33.119 this assumption in you know, the earlier sections of schooling, 0:27:33.119 --> 0:27:36.280 in the secondary school and primary school and even preschool 0:27:37.000 --> 0:27:39.920 that the children, the youth, you know, they're not there 0:27:39.960 --> 0:27:44.360 to have anything to add. They're just there to recogitate, 0:27:44.440 --> 0:27:49.960 to to study, and to repeat what they've studied for approval, 0:27:51.760 --> 0:27:55.000 not just something I definitely did back in the day. 0:27:56.440 --> 0:28:00.520 If what's lacking is dialogue, a dialogue that buyers you know, 0:28:00.640 --> 0:28:07.080 hoop and trust and critical thinking, then liberation you would 0:28:07.160 --> 0:28:13.280 also be lacking. There can't be dialogue without love for 0:28:14.520 --> 0:28:18.760 the world and for people, and for knowledge and for 0:28:20.200 --> 0:28:24.040