Popular Education For Critical Consciousness

In today’s society, education has shifted the way in how one thinks, making a basis were they acquire everyone in a classroom to grasp the knowledge being presented to them at the same pace. Those that are unsuccessful to comprehend in the way that was instructed to them are viewed upon as the most needed and deficient. Having a structured way in how one should apprehend certain information, sets barriers in the process of thinking. It prevents the mind to think of other solutions, and to stick to the certain idea.

Adult learning is having a clear picture of how adults learn and how this in turn affects the program planning process. Many adults are not sure about what they want to do with their lives after high school. There are many programs that will help you to decided, what you want to do with your life. This is where adult education programs can help you decided on the importance of education. There are three content areas that connects with adult learning and planning education within the adult. Knowles state that the adult learner, learns from their experiences. Experiences is how adults live their everyday lives and make concise

In his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Brazilian educator, philosopher, and author, Paulo Freire, informs us, the readers, of the difference between an oppressive education system and a libertarian system. Freire first published this book in Portuguese in 1968, just four years after his imprisonment and exile on the charge of spreading revolutionist teachings. He uses verbose language to further emphasize the importance of learning and a passionate tone to show his anguish at the loss of knowledge and education. In his lament for the awakening of his people, Freire’s effective use of the rhetorical situation persuades his audience to reject their country’s current oppressive system and to fight their oppressors who refuse them the right of free thought.

Paulo Freire’s essay “the banking concept of education” and Richard Rodriguez’s essay “the achievement of desire” talk about the topic of education. Education is explored in many different ways. In Freire’s essay “the banking concept of education” he expresses his dislike of the education system and the distribution of power and authority in the class room. In his essay, he says that all the power belongs to the teacher. Richard Rodriguez’s essay “the achievement of desire” he states that the power belongs to the student. In many ways, these two influential writers are similar and at the same time have

There is one thing that is universally sought after in this world, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, location, and upbringing. There is one thing that every single human being hungrily craves. There is one thing that can make the potential difference between a life of abject poverty or comfortable prosperity: knowledge. The human mind’s thirst for knowledge can never be fully quenched, and it is always left wanting more; although, this isn’t necessarily a detrimental thing. Many different and unique styles of education have emerged as an attempt to satisfy the universal desire of knowledge, but it is often debated which style of education is the most effective. There is a very wide range of teaching styles on the spectrum of education,

Knowles, M. S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education from pedagogy to andragogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Cambridge Adult Education.

Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and philosopher, examines why that is by looking at the different forms of oppression in schools dating back to the 19th century in chapter two of his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire compares two concepts of education that are present today, banking and problem-posing. In the banking system students are looked at as banks and teachers as customers. Teachers simply "deposit" pre-selected information into students who are then expected to memorize and repeat what they are told. Freire believes this way of teaching needs to be eradicated and replaced by a problem-posing system where teachers are influenced to emphasize critical thinking among their students. When students are taught to think critically they start to speak up and release their rage, they do not stay quiet. People of color refuse to ignore racism when they are taught how to identify and combat it. Schools hold the key to the liberation from

"Education is life--not a mere preparation for an unknown kind of future living…The whole of life is learning; therefore, education can have no ending. This new venture is called adult education--not because it is confined to adults but because adulthood, maturity defines its limits." (Lindeman, E.1926p.6)

Today's workers need to prepare with continuous job training, growth and development. Given the increased age, experiences and diverse lifestyles of the working population, it is understandable that adult education practices must move beyond the traditional model of teachers and learners, while new skills, working with local companies to match their needs and sending staff into factories and other workplaces to spread the word about state and federal retraining assistance. While trying to decide how to rebuild your life after loss of employment and lack of job opportunities following the current recession, or devastated from a divorce? Adult students faced with other struggles; studies have shown that older adult students face different hurdles, family problems, and poor self-image. These along with poor time management, weaker academic preparation and a need for remediation an increased focus on adult learners and their needs can help. (armour)

Basically, this article by Malcolm Knowles is a conglomerate of all aspects of adult learning. It outlines aspects of adult learning, theories of adult learning, and expands on them. The main idea of this article is to create awareness on the existence of adult learning, and to help instructors of adult learning to know how to go about it successfully. Additionally, the article is of help to adult learners to enable them to learn the most they can (Knowles, 2007).

My impression of adult education has changed immensely. First and foremost, the first lesson learned that teaching adults are a separate, intensive, and long debated process. Portions of certain theories learned illustrated below. I have extended knowledge about Meizrow (Transformational Learning) and Knowles (Andragogy). The six key features of Adult Learners are:

Paulo Freire is a Brazilian educator and philosopher who is a leading advocate of critical theories. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he believes problem-posing education can fulfill the expectations in a proper classroom environment, by transforming the world which results in a balance of humanization between men and women, and by enabling students to become subjects by which the teacher learns from. My advanced culinary arts class is a good example of problem-posing education because of the way the students and teacher engaged with each other and promoted critical thinking skills.

According to this theory, critical awareness requires recognition that the social status of an individual, including educational and economic prospects and opportunities, is largely result from its race, gender, and class so the critical theorists want to raise the consciousness of these people dealing with education, knowledge, the school, and teaching and learning. Furthermore, they see the curriculum into 2 parts: the official curriculum which requires teaching subjects and specific skills, and the Hidden curriculum which imposes approved behaviors and attitudes on students through the school environment. They believe that teachers should empower themselves, because they can transform schools into democratic public spheres.

John Dewey once said “Education is not preparation for life; Education is life itself." Meaning that learning is an active process that should occur to enhance one 's living and understanding thereof. When one only views education as a temporary thing they miss the big picture , and fail to grasp the what life truly is. Paulo Freire believes in having the opportunity to discover for oneself all that the world has to offer with the slight guidance from a teacher. He also says that “Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by recoiling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.” Freire introduces the idea that we can and should all learn from each other, that no one person is ever higher in the world of education. We all have a unique perspective and take on things, and teachers should allow us to discover and interpret for ourselves.

When we understand the importance of popular education we are able to realize that this form of education helps to raise critical consciousness and freedom by co-learning in order to achieve social transformation. Taking a class on popular education has allowed for me to recognize that there are different ways and practices in which we can learn that move away from the dominant educational system to better reflect our social identities. After developing the knowledge and skills on what popular education is and how we do popular education, my classmates and myself were able to put these skills into practice and collaborate on a workshop. Once we decided on an issue that we wanted to focus our workshop on such as food literacy, we worked together to design and facilitate this workshop for the class in order to gain an opportunity on the processes of popular education by also experiencing the challenges as well. For the purpose of this paper, I will be reflecting on putting popular education into practice by using my workshop as a framework to understand both the learning processes as well as the challenges that I faced. In addition, I will also reflect on the changes I would make moving forward in order to continue to develop my popular education skills in the future. Throughout this reflection I will focus on aspects such as the banking model, equity, participation, story telling, community and so forth. The course readings will also be applied In order to further explore