BECOMING HUMANFrom Freire to Vanier

This session objective

• Explore inclusion from an existential perspective• Reflect

• Share

• Impact

Who is Paulo Freire?

• Brazilian Educator and Philosophers

• Author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed

• Influence by Marx and Jesus

Freire’s ideas

• Education as a process of pathway to liberation.

• Two steps to liberation• Awareness that one is oppressed—awaking of critical consciousness

• Acting upon the culture to change it.

• Literacy as an awareness of the world around you and your ability to understand it (read) and to transform it (write).

• Traditional education is transactional.

4 consciousness

• Magical consciousness

• Naive consciousness

• Critical consciousness

• Political consciousness

Dialogue

• Firstly, the power relationship must be transformed from hierarchicalto mutual.

• Secondly, recognize the equality in human dignity between the student and the teacher.

• Finally, respect, openness and tolerance must be present duringdialogue.

Who is Jean Vanier?

• Founder of L’arche—communities inhabited by people withdisabilities and their caregivers.

• Philosophers and Catholic theologians.

Vanier’s ideas

• Compassion

• Community

• Forgiveness

• The Way of the Heart

• Sacredness

Leaders

• “Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people—they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.” Paulo Freire

• “Those of us with power and social standing have subtle ways of hiding our inner handicaps, our difficulties in relationships, our inner darkness and violence, our depression and lack of self-confidence. When all is well, we may fall into conceit or pride; when there are difficulties or failures, we can fall into self-deprecation and depression” Jean Vanier

• “If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed” Paulo Freire.

Learning to become

• “No one is born fully formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.” Paulo Freire

• “The excluded live certain values that we all need to discover to live ourselves before we can become truly human.” Jean Vanier

Oppression

• “Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence; to alienate humans from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.” Paulo Freire

• “The mature heart does not seek to force beliefs on others; it does not seek to impose faith. The mature heart listens for what another’s heart is called to be. It no longer judges or condemns. It is a heart of forgiveness.” Jean Vanier

Take a stand

• “The educator has the duty of not being neutral.” Paulo Freire• “In order to stand by the downtrodden, never to exclude but to include

them in our lives, we need to be freed from our compulsive needs to succeed, to have power and approbation. We also need to be free from past hurts that govern our livers and cut us off from some people. We all need to grow to freedom.” Jean Vanier

• “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.” Paulo Freire

• “There has always been a fear of the dissident, that is to say, of the one who seems to threaten the existing order. Those who fear the dissident are those who have a vested interest in the maintenance of that order; frequently, money and power, or the need to control others and to feel superior to them, are at the root of such interests.” Jean Vanier

Becoming

• “Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent re-creators.” Paulo Freire

• “As we become more conscious of the uniqueness of others, we become aware of our common humanity. We are all fundamentally the same, no matter what our age, gender, race, culture, religion, limits or disabilities may be. We all have vulnerable hearts and need to be loved and appreciated. We have all been wounded in our hearts and have lost trust in what is deepest in us. We all want to be valued and to be able to develop our capacities and grow to greater freedom.” Jean Vanier

Human dignity

• “How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own? How can I dialogue if I am close to—and even offended by—the contribution of others? At the point of encounter there are neither yet ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only people who are attempting, together, to learn more than they now know.” Paulo Freire

• “The point of inclusion is the belief that each of us is important, unique, sacred, in fact. We can only relate to others and begin to include them in our lives and our society if we have this primary belief. That means that we bring each other to birth as we respect and love one another and as our value is revealed to us through the love of others. We close up it we are seen as having no value.” Jean Vanier

• “The teacher is, of course, an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.” Jean Vanier

Trust and love

• “Fear is at the root of all forms of exclusion, just as trust is at the root of all forms of inclusion.” Jean Vanier

• “Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause—the cause of liberation.” Paulo Freire

• “Only by abolishing the situation of oppression is it possible to restore the love which that situation made impossible. If I do not live in the world—if I do not love life—if I do not love people—I cannot enter into dialogue.” Paulo Freire

Success and failure

• “We tend to reduce being human to acquiring knowledge, power, and social status. We have disregarded the heart, seeing it only as a symbol of weakness, the centre of sentimentality and emotion, instead of as a powerhouse of love that can reorient us from our self-centeredness, revealing to us and to others the basic beauty of humanity, empowering us to grow.” Jean Vanier

• “Fear of failure, of not coping with a situation, of not being able to relate to another person, is at the heart of this fear of the different, the strange, the stranger. It is as if we are walking in unknown territory.” Jean Vanier

Sources:

Goodreads. (n.d.). Retrieved August 16, 2016, from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/41108.Paulo_Freire

Vanier, J. (1998). Becoming Human. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc.

Contact information:

204-999-6990

judegosselin@hotmail.com

www.gosselinjude.weebly.com