Paulo Friere's "Cultural Action For Freedom"

In Paulo Friere's "The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom" (1970) he suggests the idea that illiteracy is a form of cultural oppression (a rather risky assertion in 1970's Brazil). To me, this makes perfect sense, since adult literacy rates (and all forms of education, for that matter) almost always follow class lines. It's interesting, too, to read his examples taken from the state-sanctioned reading programs of Third World countries, which sound like not-so-subtle indoctrination more than anything else: "Peter is smiling. He is a happy man. He already has a good job. Everyone ought to follow his example." Some of it sounded frighteningly similar to Orwellian "double-speak."

I also found it interesting how very Marxist his perspective is. To think of educating the workers of the world as akin to empowering them is pretty much directly from the Communist Manifesto. The quotes from the workers about how they feel like they have something to say now that they can read and write were pretty telling; it’s no wonder Friere’s programs were not popular with the “powers that be” in Latin America. As soon as the weapon (a.k.a. the language) that is used against the poor is taken up by them in defense, the oppressors lose much of their power over the oppressed.

I had a serious “a-ha” moment when I got his notion that “marginalization” is not the right metaphor for the disempowered members of a society, since they are necessarily within that society in order to be oppressed by it. Therefore, empowerment is not about bringing them back from the margins, but rather about teaching them the mechanisms that hold them down (or the rules of the “culture of power,” as Delpit puts it).

I had never thought about literacy as a weapon of power before, but it makes a lot of sense to me now. Even in the First World, most of these issues ring alarmingly true.

References:
Friere, P. (1998). The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom. Harvard Educational Review, 68(4), 480-498.

What is differentiation?

After attending a class on "differentiation and inclusive classrooms" this past Wednesday, I was left still struggling with a question that one might think would have been answered by the class itself: What really is differentiation? That question is really a big way of asking a lot of other, more specific questions that I have swimming in my head: what does differentiation look like, how can I do more of it, am I already doing it in ways I'm not conscious of, is differentiation about the teacher or the learner (or both!), what factors inhibit effective differentiation, and so on and so on.

One thing that I took away from the class was the idea that behavior is a factor in differentiation. I think I understand that to mean that, for example, student-teacher interactions should be unique to each student - which, of course, they are inherently - and that our cognizance of how those interactions affect students (academically, socially, psychologically) is crucial to making the most of our relationships with them. This means knowing students well is part of differentiating our own behavior towards them and helping them direct their own behavior in productive, successful ways.

Does this seem accurate? I know I can point to examples in my own class of ways that I have used to motivate certain students that didn't work to motivate others, so is this differentiation? And I can recall the point when I started putting more pictures on my handouts because one of my failing students told me he remembers images better than words (he can still remember the names of painters and paintings we discussed two months ago, but he can never recall what year World War II ended). Is this differentiation, even though it's now a strategy I use with all students and not just him?

I'm really eager to get the answers to these questions. I don't know how to point to my own practice and say, "Yes, that is differentiation," or "This project/lesson/assignment needs to be better differentiated," so it's difficult to replicate what works well and/or revise what needs help.