Allyson Krupar PhD Candidate Pennsylvania State University 314 Keller University Park, PA 16801 AllyKrupar@psu.edu Skype: Ally_Krupar

PARTICIPATORY PEDAGOGY IN

DISCOURSE OF PRACTICE: APPLYING

FREIRE IN TRAINING FOR TRANSFORMATION

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH CURRICULUM

¡ Curriculum genre § Instruct § Impel § Motivate

¡ Discourses: § Paulo Freire – ideas about learner participation in the

classroom § Dialectic relationship between curriculum practitioners’

belief Listening surveys § International development / adult education –

participation, social justice focused, preference given to supporting and building local infrastructure

BACKGROUND

¡ Data sources: § TfT curriculum § Discursive community § Implementers’ notes § Interviews with select implementers – self selected

¡ ‘Language as social practice’ (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997), context is key

¡ Happy Consciousness

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (CDA)

¡ Verbs § i.e. Identify, Help, Understand, Arise/ emerge

¡ Superlatives § i.e. Most, Strongest, Always

¡ Pronouns of inclusion § We, they, them, their, you, us, I, one, his, her

¡ Demonstratives § these, this, that, those

CODING DATA

¡ Generative themes and the stance of the participants and facilitators.

¡ Third person reference terms § Team § People § Community / the community § Animators

¡ We/ I – pronouns of inclusion ¡ Who is the subject? (passive voice use)

§ Who has agency?

THEMES

“Everybody thinks the education they provide is relevant, but who decides what is relevant to a particular community? Many have stressed that the community themselves must choose the issues which are central in their education and development programs. Paulo Freire has taken this concept much deeper, by pointing out the l ink between emotion and motivation to act. Much education has tr ied to ignore human feelings and concentrated only on reason and actions. But Freire recognizes that emotions play a crucial role in transformation. Feelings are facts. Only by star ting with the issues on which the community have strong feelings – hope, fear, worry, anger, joy, sorrow – and bringing these to the sur face, wil l we break through the deadening sense of apathy and powerlessness which paralyses the poor in many places. […] The role of the animator is to help people find new hope as they tap into their natural energy and break through this apathy together. Paulo Freire calls the issues that generate this natural energy and hope ‘generative themes.’” (pp. 16-17).

DATA – CURRICULUM SAMPLE

I have exper ienced Frer ian pedagogy - h is book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” has been an inspi rat ion for my involvement in advocacy for soc ia l and pol i t ica l change. When I f i r s t exper ienced h is teaching, I got t ransformed (my l i fe and career ) . I or ig inal ly s tudied as a Profess ional Nurse; dur ing the L iber ia c iv i l war, I worked to save l ives and had the pass ion to a l lev iate human suf fer ing and to help soc ia l ly depr ived people advocate for thei r r ights . For seven years I had the bel ieved that I was help ing the poor ; not unt i l I exper ienced the teaching of Paulo . […] I was analyz ing the s i tuat ion of the poor in re lat ion to my profess ion; I was t r y ing to understand whether my inter vent ion as nurse was help ing the poor or increasing thei r pover ty? My analys is brought me to the conclus ion that I was contr ibut ing to the condi t ion of the poor g iven the fact that when a poor man gets s ick , he comes to the hospi ta l , he undergo several tests to help me understand h is condi t ion and to d iagnose h is i l lness ; on the basis of laborator y resul ts , drugs are ordered. Th is poor man pays for the ser v ices and h is drugs . He returns to h is v i l lage face wi th the same s i tuat ion and poor l i v ing condi t ion (hygiene and sani tat ion) . He takes h is medicat ion and gets wel l ; he goes back to work on h is farm for the next two to three weeks and earned some money to feed and send h is ch i ldren to school . Suddenly, he fa l ls i l l again and he goes back to the hospi ta l to seek t reatment and fo l low the same rout ine and pays t reatment and ser v ice cost and th is goes on and on (a rout ine) . In the above scenar io who am I? I saw mysel f as a d ist r ibutor and a sale agent for the b ig pharmaceut ical companies producing drugs . I was taking money f rom the per ipher y to the center, money f rom the poor to the r ich and making the r ich r icher and the poor poorer. Hence, I became a t ransformed person help ing to create awareness among the poor on why they are the way they are” ( Inter v iew 04, 26 Februar y 2014) .

DATA – INTERVIEW SAMPLE 1

I ’m the brand-new PhD. I 'm real ly smar t and I have developed th is program with them. And I keep say ing to them, what do you want to learn? Let 's understand? And they said , “we want to learn about the Bib le .” And I sa id , “wel l , what about your chi ldren?” I mean, a l l of them had lost a chi ld . “So, you want to learn about maternal and chi ld heal th?” “We want to learn about the Bib le . ” I am ser ious . I t was the most eye-opening exper ience of my l i fe . I had a choice . Not real iz ing I had an agenda, I def in i te ly had an agenda. I had a choice ; do I push my agenda, which was MCH? Or do I real ly hear what they are say ing. So I sa id okay, i f you real ly bel ieve in th is , you’ve got to go where they say they want to go. So, l i tera l ly, I had not read the Bib le . So I sa id okay, I know Jesus had a mother, her name was Mar y and i t ought to be easy to f ind. So […] we were going into the f i r s t day of the workshop, the f i r s t day of the workshop was “Mar y was b lessed among women and you are b lessed to be women but Mar y had responsib i l i t ies and sacr i f ices and b less ings .” And then I d iv ided them into groups to d iscuss those three character is t ics . Couldn' t br ing them back . They were ta lk ing. They were cr y ing. I mean i t was amazing. I t was amazing to have gone down the path they wanted and then I ended up developing a leadership curr icu lum around women in the Bib le for them. And eventual ly we got to the heal th . But I real ly bel ieve that i t was because we star ted where they were . To me that ’s a poignant example of real ly bel iev ing in par t ic ipator y learning. […] Now you asked the quest ion about developing generat ive themes with the community or group with the community i tse l f . Q : Yes , so that 's an example I would th ink . A : You would th ink but the decis ions to do that were real ly mine. So i t was l is tening to the community but then going back and developing i t mysel f .

DATA – INTERVIEW SAMPLE 2

¡ Us / Them ¡ Balancing participatory curriculum

development § Risk of transmitting practitioners ideology

¡ Organizations define the generative themes for the learners, identifying them prior to community work or with facilitators in the process of engaging community members

THEMES

¡ Insiders/ outsiders in the curriculum ¡ Genre of curriculum/ textbook ¡ ‘Participation’ § Continuum § Authority: The use of pronouns within the

curriculum vacillates between distancing the facilitator from the learner and aligning both as a team (Rogers 2011). This relates to the dialectic between the facilitator and the learner, the contradictory intention to develop content with the learner and enforce the facilitators’ authority.

IMPLICATIONS

Abr idged Bib l iography Coles , G . S . (1977) . Dick and Jane Grow Up: Ideology in Adul t Basic Educat ion Readers . Urban Educat ion , 12 (1) , 37–54 Gof fman, E . (1981) . Forms of Talk . Phi ladelphia : Univers i ty of Pennsy lvania Press . Graebner, D. B . (2014) . A decade of sex ism in readers . The Reading Teacher , 26 (1) , 52–58. Fre i re , P. (1970) . Pedagogy of the Oppressed . New York : Cont inuum. Hope, A . (2001) . “Tra in ing for Transformat ion” Stor y. Grai l Programmes . Hope, A . & S. T immel . (1999) . Train ing for Transformat ion: A Handbook for Community Workers . Book 1 . War wickshi re , UK: Pract ical Act ion Publ ish ing. (2003) . A Kenyan Exper ience for Fai th -Based Transformat ive Act ion. Development: Local/Global Encounters , 46 (4) , 93–99. Lee, J . A . B . (2013) . The Empowerment Approach to Socia l Work Pract ice . New York: Columbia Univers i ty Press . Norr is , S . & R. H. Jones, Eds . (2005) . Discourse in Act ion: Introducing mediated d iscourse analys is . London: Rout ledge Quig ley, B . a . , & Hols inger, E . (1993) . “Happy Consciousness” : Ideology and Hidden Curr icula In L i teracy Educat ion. Adult Educat ion Quar ter ly , 44 (1) , 17–33. Rober ts , P. (2000) . Educat ion, L i teracy, and Humanizat ion: Explor ing the Work of Paulo Fre i re . London: Berg in & Gar vey. Rogers , R. (2011) . An Introduct ion to Cr i t ica l Discourse Analys is in Educat ion . New York : Rout ledge. T isdel l , E l i zabeth (1995) . Creat ing inc lus ive adul t learning envi ronments : ins ights f rom mult icu l tura l educat ion and feminis t pedagogy . ERIC Clear inghouse on Adul t , Career, and Vocat ional Educat ion, Center on Educat ion and Tra in ing for Employment , Col lege of Educat ion, Ohio State Univers i ty. LC6261 .T5 1995 Women on Words and Images. (1974) . Dick and Jane as V ict ims: Sex Stereotypes in Chi ldren’s Readers . Pr inceton, NJ .