A non-liberal arts education? Or a non-traditonal liberal arts education?

Socrates, no doubt, was well-versed in the canon of the time. He certainly knew his Homer.

But that is not the same as him having had a traditional liberal arts education. (Note that you haven’t defined it yet, but I doubt that the field of study in Ancient Athens was the same as in the medieval monasteries that produced Erasmus or the same as in Booker T. Washington Comprehensive High School.)

Jane Austen as a girl in the 18th century didn’t receive a traditional liberal arts education, Mary Wollstonecraft didn’t either as far as I can tell, and in particular their knowledge of science and mathematics would have been limited compared with boys from an equivalent background. China has produced its own array of internally famous philosophers within a different education system too.

Obviously it is difficult to make a major contribution to say political science, philosophy, etc without ever having studied at least some of these areas, and without the ability to make your contributions in a way that others can understand. If that’s what you mean by “traditional liberal arts education” then I can agree with you.

Kind of sounds like homeschooling. But, generally speaking, those who promote Friere’s educational philosophy are the type who denigrate homeschooling. Not saying that’s 100% so, just generally so.

This misses an important preliminary question – can education be made to serve a particular politics? Just because education is political doesn’t mean that the end outcome will be one that the political masters like. The law of unintended consequences hurts dictators as well as democracies.

I believe teaching anything, even the abhorrent, in a substantive manner makes it impossible to bend that teaching to a political end. This seems to be an alien idea to both sides of the political debate, who believe it better to keep “bad” ideas out of the minds of impressionable youth.

The problem, though, is people who want to make sure people believe they know everything they need to when they really don’t. That’s what’s so dangerous about this formulation:

The point of Friere’s work is to encourage and empower people to find out what they actually need to learn (insyead of what they are told to learn) and to learn it for themselves, working together.

Now, I don’t know Freire’s work well enough to judge whether the above is a misstatement or oversimplification of it, but the idea as stated is a sure way to keep people oppressed, not free them from it.

I’m glad you challenged my “ALONE”. Quick response: do you know of any other way to free a mind? Socrates, no doubt, was well-versed in the canon of the time. He certainly knew his Homer. I don’t see how someone with just his innate gifts can resist dangerous brain-viruses. Wide-ranging learning provides anitbodies.

I think this is dependent on our attitude to criticism and how open we are to debate, especially attack-motivated debate. The bruising approach of defending ideas against well-motivated attackers is what I think drives really quality work in the end, at least for most of humanity. Without this, it is so easy to take the path of not asking ourselves the difficult questions and not checking our own statements.

The second, which I throw out for any deep thinkers who might be interested, has to do with the source of those previous categorizations. And this is where I see the danger in the “anti-Freirian” camp.

Why only the “anti-Freirian” camp?

I believe that he would fall somewhere along the line of all education being political. Can’t be avoided. So, then the question becomes whose politics are served?

This misses an important preliminary question – can education be made to serve a particular politics? Just because education is political doesn’t mean that the end outcome will be one that the political masters like. The law of unintended consequences hurts dictators as well as democracies.
Did Gandhi’s law teachers at that London university intend for him to become a committed pacifist who led a movement to overthrow the British Empire?
Martin Luther King’s teachers at Booker T. Washington Comprehensive High School may have meant for their students to become leaders in the fight for civil rights, but I don’t think the original Martin Luther’s teachers meant for him to challenge the Catholic church.

As far as I can tell, once you teach someone to read and provide them with access to books you drastically lower your control of their education, no matter what your intent in deciding to educate them was. If you can’t even censor their reading, you’re really stuffed when it comes to control.

A lot of political theory about education appears to be based on glib explanations of society where the theorist never really looked for any disconfirming evidence.

I think that you are right on point. But, I am not certain that Freire would disagree with you. The word that introduced me to Freire was “praxis,” which (and I am restating very poorly) links something like learning and action. And by action, he is not talking about making posters or projects. He is talking about a link between knowledge and using knowledge (I think). He also talks a lot about the importance of dialogue. This is very different from moving the central spotlight from the teacher (obscuring the learner) and placing it on the learner (obscuring the teacher). If fact he talks about teacher-students and student-teachers–acknowledging a profound give and take. I believe that he also acknowledges something more of a parent-type role initially (that is the teacher takes a leadership role), which then devolves to something which allows growth of both teacher and learner.

He is not writing “how-to” books on instruction, so I find his writing to be very dense, but thought-provoking, things to be chewed on over time, and returned to over the course of experience. This is one reason I don’t see a lot of danger that Freire’s thinking is going to overtake American classrooms. I don’t observe that we are very big on deep thinking. In the same way, we have picked up bits and pieces of Montessori (every kindergarten has small chairs and tables–they used to all have “housekeeping areas,” although I suspect these are not considered “content” oriented enough today), but I would say that few have studied deeply–and many more have used some thin replication to excuse classrooms in which there is a lot of aimless wandering.

Reading through this thread, I am disheartened by the number of posters who–without having read Friere–have matched him (based on someone else’s description) with some movement or other (he’s a Marxist, he’s a progressive, he’s like the NYC Dept of Ed) that they have already codified and rejected. This raises for me two questions. One has to do with our approach to knowledge. Do we approach knowledge in the way that Quincy cites, with an attempt to know both self and other on a deep level, or do we settle for superficial categorizations that fit with (and don’t disturb) previous structures? The second, which I throw out for any deep thinkers who might be interested, has to do with the source of those previous categorizations. And this is where I see the danger in the “anti-Freirian” camp. Is public education providing glib explanations of history that serve primarily to support current decision makers? I believe it was Brecht who said “to say that art is not political is in itself a political statement.” I think that Freire is pretty clear in applying the same thing to education. I believe that he would fall somewhere along the line of all education being political. Can’t be avoided. So, then the question becomes whose politics are served?

There is no question in my mind that Freire was a revolutionary (and I think he would not disagree either). We in the United States don’t have (or ought not have)a problem with revolutionaries per se, having been born of a revolution ourselves (and a revolution born of philosophers as much as unfair taxes). Revolution may or may not be the appropriate path of classes in the United States systemically denied, through generations, access to the full fruits of democracy. But, let’s be clear. Freire was talking about something far more meaningful than allowing eight year olds to wander in a classroom hoping to alight on something relevant to their lives. He is also not talking about a leaned-down manual curriculum “more appropriate” for the working classes. As I understand Freire, he talks about education as a life-long process of exploring meaning–involving both the teacher and the student in acquiring new understandings.

I appreciate this discussion–it motivated me to pull out and read a few pages of “Pedagogy” yesterday. Like I said–it’s dense stuff. But I cannot imagine an ed school not including Freire in the curriculum.

the pedagogy put forth by Freire and restated by Mr. Downes would be just about the *worst* way to overthrow a social order.

Of course.  If the masses had the ability to overthrow a social order, the Marxists would never be secure—indeed, might wind up on the outside from the start, because people who can think for themselves don’t need Marxist “leadership”.  Thus the tight controls over “education” in Marxist societies.

If I were out to overthrow a social order, I would start with learning about it, inside and out. Exploring it, seeing what and why it worked. Only then can weakness be found.

From The Art of War:

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

Combine that with the reality that “you don’t know what you don’t know”, and the pedagogy put forth by Freire and restated by Mr. Downes would be just about the *worst* way to overthrow a social order.

Can you support this word “ALONE”? Did Socrates have a traditional liberal arts education? Leonardo da Vinci? Jane Austen?

The examples you gave are proof that a rigorous education can lead to free-thinkers, but they’re not proof that *only* a rigorous education can lead to free-thinkers.

I’m sure Obama’s “English professor” buddy Ayers is a huge fan.

Who’s the “oppressor”?