1. Watch this video entitled "Oppression in Education" by the Forum
Theater Troupe (directed by Julian Boal, son of Augusto Boal)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecwFetYMy5Y&feature=related
Next, read the Ayers and Alexander-Tanner comic strip on reader page 961.
What closing thoughts on teaching does the comic strip leave you with?
What closing thoughts on teaching does the dramatic performance piece
leave you with?
2. Freire’s pedagogy of literacy education involves not only reading the
word, but also reading the world. This involves the development of
critical consciousness (a process known in Portuguese as conscientização).
The formation of critical consciousness allows people to question the
nature of their historical and social situation—to read their world—with
the goal of acting as subjects in the creation of a democratic society
(which was new for Brazil at that time). How (if it all) does Augusto
Boal's piece enhance/contradict/complicate our thinking about Freire's
original formulations on critical consciousness/critical literacy?
Have fun!
Friday, November 18, 2011
Blog 11
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ReplyDelete1. Julian Boal's Forum Theater video shows us how important students' autonomy works in education. The video begins and ends up with scenes in which students fall down after a brief period of free learning, because of the teacher's oppressive interruption. In this video, the students' preferred free ways of learning are frustrated by the teacher's oppression. In the comic strip by Ayers' and Alexander-Tanner, education is compared to a journey of discovery and surprise on which teachers and students walk together, always believing that their journey is just beginning. For the teacher's part, teaching is a life of challenge, "always questioning, always exploring." The desirable teachers are those who enlighten and liberate their students. Together, the video and the comic strip show that education in a democratic society is at its best a journey of learning for enlightenment and liberation on which teachers and students walk together. On this journey, teachers help and encourage their students to think about how to build up a better world.
ReplyDelete2. In his "Poetics of the Oppressed," Augusto Boal goes a step further than Freire. Freire emphasizes the development of critical consciousness which enables people to view their historical and social situation in a new critical way. So, people's literacy refers to their ability to read not only the word but the world. This approach toward literacy does aim at building up a democratic society in which people do act as subjects. But Boa's idea of literacy puts greater emphasis upon their active participation in the process of building a democratic society. Because of the great variety of languages in Peru, the ALFIN project aimed at teaching literacy in all possible languages as well as in both the first language and Spanish. In the theater sector, Boal experimented on how to use the theater as language in literacy education. Here, the spectators do not delegate power to the characters to think or act in their place; they are not content with dramatic action but real action. They not only read the world but also act to change the world.
1. I thought the comic strip was interesting, because it’s true that I never thought of my teachers outside of the context of school. Even now, I still find it strange whenever I see one of my professors or even one of my GSIs outside of an academic setting. I think part of the reason that I never thought about the lives any of my teachers had outside of teaching is because I was always told to treat my instructors with unquestioning respect. Even though I never questioned this attitude, now I question the reasoning behind the institutional barrier between students and teachers, and how students might benefit from being allowed to think of their instructors as normal people rather than figures of authority.
ReplyDeleteI thought the dramatic performance made a strong comment about how even though an individual teacher might try to apply the theories of educational reformists such as Paolo Freire, real educational reform has to be institutional.
2. Again, to me, the main challenge with what Freire proposes is that his ideas are theoretical. I think the video shows that while there are many options for new teaching models, and even though there are many teachers who want to try these models, these teachers still face institutional barriers. Similarly, even if a teacher embraces the idea of student teachers and teacher students, the main question for the administration will still be, “How can we test the students?”
1)
ReplyDeleteThe dramatic performance left me with very sad thoughts regarding the inflexibility of the education systems and its flaws. Most teachers, are teaching because they actually do care, but the restrictions placed upon them by the curriculums that they are forced to follow, ultimately place limitations on them which constrain them from teaching in a style that they know will be more beneficial and fun for their students. My 12th grade math teacher was the worst teacher I have ever had. Every time I would walk into class, he would tell us to “take our textbooks out”. He would read straight out of the textbook, and he would freak out if we were ever ahead or behind because he had to stick to his syllabus. This made learning boring and a chore for me and the other students and it further did not allow my teacher to fully explore his teaching abilities.
This comic strip did a very good job at pointing out that teachers are always learning, and how we can’t expect them to know everything or be “perfect”. It made me think about the curriculums that they are forced to follow, and how they did not have the opportunities for trial and error to find out what works best for both themselves and their students. Teachers try to get tenure, which assures job stability, which moreover often limits their ability to experiment. We forget that teachers are people sometimes, and that people are constantly growing and learning.
2)
I think that Boal’s piece enhances and in many ways compliments Freire’s theories regarding the formation of the critical consciousness. As Freire emphasizes the importance of personal learning techniques focused on “reading the word”, Boal’s discussion on learning through acting and theatre similarly echoes the same beliefs. Through acting the participants are learning how to stop being the “spectator” and begin seeing the world. Participants are encouraged to use a new type of language, different form their native tongue, and use their bodies and personalities in a new, and interactive way. Ultimately, both Boal’s and Freire similarly encourage personal, interactive practices in order to enhance literacy development.
1. The comic strip was a short, good “recap” on the semester. It summarized much of Freire’s pieces about teacher-student and student-teacher relationships, and the need to always be questioning and exploring together. The dramatic performance covered similar information, but was presented with an antagonist to reiterate many of the current issues in education. The video presented a teacher who was exploring new ways of learning and engaging her students, only to be met with bureaucratic opposition from the institution. Though it was sad to be reminded of the current state of education, I think it’s necessary to always remember what we are starting with in order to measure how far we have come/how far we have to go. It also served as a reminder that not everyone thinks alike, everyone has different perspectives, and dialogue amongst these groups is necessary to move forward.
ReplyDelete2. Boal’s piece definitely enhances Freire’s concept of developing a critical consciousness by taking into account other forms of literacy, besides reading and writing. It incorporates theater and photography among other media to provide additional ways of expressing oneself, and additional ways of critiquing the world. Boal treats the theater as a rehearsal for engaging in real change, for being active in society. Freire often talked about teachers and students blurring the lines between their respective “occupations” and then discovering the world together. This is exemplified in Boal’s theater, in which spectators become actors and indeed participate in the production. It allows participants to think about what is occurring in the drama, act in it, and change it, rather than relegating the thinking/acting/changing to the actors and absorbing the drama passively. As Freire described, passive learning does not empower people, or students in Freire’s original description.
1. The comic strip left me with the realization that teaching is a yearlong job and does not end with the end of the school year. In addition, it added insight to the other end of the teacher-student encounter in non-school settings. On the other hand, the dramatic performance piece left me with a different view of teaching. I realized that teachers are limited to their creativity and different approaches to teaching just as much, if not more, than students are limited in their creativity in their approach to learning. The woman in the blue effectively removed the different approach to teaching, even though the students were learning better and having more fun, and the teacher enjoyed it more, just to make sure the students earned a remarkable score on their testing. The video depicted the struggles of educators in a unique way and brought the challenges of the modern education system to light. They symbolism at the end of the students and teacher all falling down as a result of their creativity being shot down fit very well into the subject of the video. As the education ranking of the United States continually decreases and falls behind many other nations, legislatures and congressman are constantly decreasing the amount of funding schools receive and demanding that classrooms teach to the tests, without a care to whether the students are really ingesting and enjoying the curriculum. The video successfully demonstrates the strains put on both educators and students, and it urges that the current education system be reformed before the United States’ education system causes us to “all fall down.”
ReplyDelete2. In encouraging viewers to become proactive spectators instead of passive witnesses, Augusto Boal’s piece enhances Freire’s pedagogy of literacy education by facilitating the critical consciousness of the individuals. The spectators turn into readers of the world that utilize conscientização and, in effect, Boal transforms indifferent people into the hands-on democratic society makers, or subjects, that Freire discusses. In addition, he also adds to Freire’s pedagogy by extending the definition of language beyond those that are spoken and written. As a result, Freire’s problem-posing model of education is developed on the stage in the context of a different form of language, in which the problem-posing model is especially more effective than the banking model that Freire introduces.
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ReplyDelete1. The comic strip shows how our educational system should be more like. I agreed with the scene in which the teacher remembers how it was awkward seeing their teacher outside of school, because it can be weird. Those feelings are realized because we are always told that teachers know everything and we should listen to what they say, and believe them. When we see them outside of the school setting we realize that they are just people. The comic strip also empathized how the line between students and teachers should be blurred more, like in Freire’s pedagogy.
ReplyDeleteThe dramatic performance emphasizes how our educational system places students at the bottom. Teachers are the “know it alls” while students need to be the “receptacles” of the teacher’s knowledge. It also shows how education can be a game for some and only one person can win. The principal (or whoever the lady was) did not allow the teacher to use other teaching methods with her students, rather she told her to use traditional methods in which the students were told to sit down and open their textbooks. The teacher wanted to implement different techniques but she was shut down by those above her, something that happens more often than we wish.
2. I think that Augusto’s piece compliments Freire’s education pedagogy. Augusto is all about using different multimodal ways to teach students such as theatre and photography. These other ways of teaching not only teach students academic material but also how to understand the world and how to express it to others. The part that stood out the most to me was the line in which Augusto expresses how “a symbol only functions as such if its meaning is shared.” We cannot expect everyone to understand something that they perhaps have no relation to. It goes back to the idea that the meaning of something is not only in what is seen but also in the background and the history of the story. It also adds to the meaning of literacy and that literacy is not only reading and writing, but that we have to be open to a wider form of literacy in order to understand something which might not have the same meaning to everyone.
1. The comic stripleaves me with the idea that no one ever stops learning from others and that there are always new things to be learned. I especially, liked how at the end of the comic strip the little boy ask why the wheel goes around and the teachers says that he doesn’t know but tells him that they will both find out together. I feel that teachers or tutors that have this type of mentality are amazing. They get out of the regular banking model and work with the students. They are comfortable to admit that they don’t know everything and that there is room for collaboration with the student. I also liked the part that talked about how teachers are “regular people” with lives outside school. I could relate to it, because I remember when I was at a restaurant and saw my third grade teacher there and was shocked. I didn’t think she went to the same places I did and that she had a boyfriend. This comic trip served as an important reminder about when thinking of teacher/student relationships. School isn’t teachers’ entire lives and they are knowledgeable about other issues outside of class.
ReplyDeleteThe dramatic performance piece leaves me with an idea that it is hard to be able to create change and implement new teaching strategies, because of the higher positions that other administrators hold. In the video, it seemed like the teacher felt overwhelmed by all the people’s input that she had to listen to, such as the administrator, the students, and herself. It made me think about how complex it is to be a teacher, because although, they might want to be more interactive, they might not be able to do so since there is a specific way that certain schools want their teachers to teach.
2.Boal’s piece enhances Freire’s formulations of consciousness/critical theory, because it encourages the spectator to “free himself.” It seems that Boal’s piece is about taking action and liberating oneself. This idea goes well with Freire’s because it further encourages action and development of each person. Both these ideas go with the notion of creating change and developing new ideas, which adds to creating new ways to teach.
1. After watching the dramatic performance I was left frustrated with the limitations placed on teachers in the world of academia. While many teachers have creative and unique ways of interpreting information and relaying it to their students, emphasis on standards and test scores limits the ways in which they are able to run their classrooms. As in the video when all of the students fall down, stunting their movement and freedom, I feel that the way the education system works today is limiting student learning. I think that the comment strip offered a strong commentary about how students and teachers fuel off each other, learning and evolving simultaneously. As a student, it is sometimes difficult to realize that while your teacher is feeding your knowledge, you are also teaching them. However, the world of academia today does not always respect this inverse relationship.
ReplyDelete2. I believe that Baol’s interpretation of development and learning is a nice complement to Friere’s pedagogy of literacy education by enhancing one’s social consciousness. Baol encourages people to become active participants in their education rather than being passive spectators. Baol’s use of theater as a form of learning reflects Friere’s idea that teachers and students can transcend predetermined boundaries and learn together. In a sense, Baol expands on Friere’s theories, taking them a step farther. He expands the concept of literacy development from reading and writing.
1. After reading Ayers and Tanner’s comic strip I definitely agree that teaching should never be a static dialogue between teacher and student. Instead, teaching is a journey, in which the teacher not only teaches the students but the students also teach the teachers along the way; the learning process never ends. This comic strip also presents an interesting take on the teacher-student relationship. In school we are so used to the teacher vs. student dynamic where the teacher spills out lessons and instructions and the students comply to his/her commands. I agree that it is very strange and awkward to see my teacher outside of the normal classroom setting. The teachers presented in this comic strip are not afraid to admit their vulnerability and I think that it does take a special kind of teacher to be able to admit that she also doesn’t have the answer to a question.
ReplyDeleteWhile the comic strip left me feeling positive and hopeful, the dramatic performance left me feeling uneasy because it exposed a different side of teaching—one that can stifle a student’s creativity and conform him/her into becoming mere “receptacles” for learning. In the performance, a new elementary school teacher tries to implement an innovative way to teach her class only to be shot down by the principal, who tells her that she must stick to the curriculum and teach the class in a more traditional manner (i.e. teach straight from the textbook). Each student learns differently; there are visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners, etc. To teach in only the traditional manner excludes all of these students.
2. I think that Augusto Boal’s piece further enhances Freire’s pedagogy of literacy education. Through acting one is able to freely express himself/herself while simultaneously being an active agent in the process. One is able to understand his/her place in society and the world and spread this consciousness through this form of artistic expression. Boal argues that through this form of literacy one is no longer a passive spectator, but an actor who “ceases to be an object and becomes a subject [and] is changed from witness into protagonist” (126). In the end, the spectator becomes liberated because he is able to think and act for himself. Similarly, Freire’s pedagogy is focused on the development of a critical consciousness in order to understand your place in the world.
1. This theatric video demonstrates the contrast between “traditional” routes of teaching in school and novel, “unconventional” ones. There are strong arguments in support of both and I’d like to gloss quickly these arguments in order to support ultimately the use of unconventional teaching methods.
ReplyDeleteThe traditional approach towards education emphasizes doing things in the past that worked. That is, don’t try a novel approach since there have been years of success through others. They appeal to things “tried and true.” This approach has the older lady who is in the administration, who only wants to maintain order and keep things the way things are. She assumes that doing things like how we did it in the past will maintain the achievement in the past.
In contrast, the “unconventional” approach brings in just the novelty needed to affect the change that may be needed. That is, the traditional approach has some bad quality, and an unconventional approach is just what we need to change the bad. Moreover, an unconventional approach may have other good qualities unforeseen by what we “normally” have done. Unconventional approaches break the box of what was done in the past.
With these contrasting views, how do we make sense of this? The traditional approach will respond that the unconventional approach can bring in other bad qualities to education that the traditional approach addresses. In the video, the lady in the administration said that the students were not to be yelling and making a riot in the classroom. She was assuming that education is best when the students sit down and focus.
But ultimately, it is often just the traditional routes of learning in school that denies some students access to learning. Why not learn through a novel, more physical, loud manner? What is so wrong about that? The unconventionalist was say, “necessarily, nothing is wrong with it.”
Although the traditional teacher may advocate that “tried and true” is used for a reason, the slideshow demonstrates that in contrast to a Freirian “container” understanding of education, education and learning is dynamic and interpersonal. Like the comic suggests, teachers are people like everyone else, and within the many people involved, we must account for the human condition and the dynamic mosaic of the human experience in our understanding of education. This is why the traditionalist approach towards education is flawed. It cannot account for the humanity involved in education. It assumes that we are containers of knowledge, absent emotion, beauty, and a fundamental lacking of perfect description. We are human.
2. Julian Boal’s piece enhances Freire’s idea of critical consciousness in that it demonstrates how we should approach education in a way that will result in students who are critical and can evaluate for their own their social and cultural background. Boal’s piece on what it means to teach in an environment absent strict and rigid standards is precisely analogous to the evaluation an agentive citizen should have towards his cultural background. Just as teachers should question the effectiveness of convention, so should people question the assumptions of their culture. It is this consciousness that can be achieved both by Boal’s approach towards education, as well as Friere’s philosophical conceptualization.
Question #1:
ReplyDeleteThe comic strip leaves me with two thoughts: the first one is that human never stops learning whether he or she is a teacher or a student, and teacher is also a human like students. They may do the same things that the students are doing. Teachers should always use the opportunity to learn together with the students because although they may be younger and know less, they can always teach the teachers something that the teachers may not know, for example technology trend. Although teachers may hold their status as educators, the status itself should not stop them from continual learning. The second one is that although they are teachers, students need to understand that teachers are humans, and they are doing other stuff outside of their work in school. The drama leaves me with the thoughts that teaching is a very hard profession because there are many things that teachers can and cannot do. There are rules and certain curriculum that the teachers need to follow, and at the same time they need to be able to motivate the students to want to learn. Even though some method teachers are using maybe good to increase students’ performance, it cannot be used to the whole school because it may cause distractions to other classes.
Question #2:
Augusto’s piece further expands the transformation process that Freire talks about. Freire argued that someone should be critically aware of his or her surroundings, and they also need to become the subjects in the creation of democratic society. Subject itself is a word for explaining a person who is “taking an action”, and on the other piece, Augusto explains the stages of how the spectators turns into the actor, person who acts. They are not passive agents anymore because they are taking the actions in applying the things that they learn. It is very important for the students to be able to apply the stuff that they learn to school into real life because if not all the learning will be useless. They can only be accepting on the education without taking any action in it. The effective types of learning is when the agent who receives education can apply what he or she learns in their everyday lives, and in order to do so, they need to act on it. Nothing will change just by reading a book, but something will change when a spectator decides to be an actor.
1: As I was watching the performance, I thought of the ways that I was taught, especially in elementary school (because of the ring-o-round-a-rosie intro). I remembered my teachers being very different from the curriculum based principle that was depicted in the video. It was exactly because my teachers used unconventional and fun methods that I was able to retain so much of the information that they were teaching whether it was from the history of piracy to math. The comic strip also resonated with my thoughts that I got from the video. In the comic, the illustrator argued that the more desirable teachers were those that freed the students from the mundane style of learning. Furthermore, it seems to argue that students and teachers should learn together through the use of unorthodox methods of teaching that will cause both parties to personalize the way that they are learning.
ReplyDelete2: I believe that Boal's work compliments and perhaps even enhances Freire's pedagogy of literacy education. Freire's focuses on personal learning techniques reading the world. Boal refers to things like the ALFIN project and theatre that cause the audience and participants to do more than observe; they are called to interact. Through this Boal says that that they are forced to stop being a spectator and get personally involved. Therefore, Boal compliments Freire in that they both argue that personal interaction is needed to develop literacy development. However, Boal enhances Freire's theoretical argument by creating practical solutions.
1.
ReplyDeleteThe comic strip leaves one with the feeling that teaching is an exploratory journey with endless limits. The strip has a theme, that Teachers must see their students as
individuals, and what works for one student may not work for all students. This situation consequentially blurs the relationship between teacher and student, parent and grownup, because the
teacher is continually learning from the students, as much as he is teaching them. Ayers remarks to himself, "I'm the grown-up!" in one scene, and in another panel the students take the
role of deliberating to the teachers. This theme is carried out to its fullest when we learn that the student who is delegated to speak later becomes a teacher himself, bringing the strip
to its ouroboric conclusion. This contrasts to the ideas present in the dramatic piece, which paints a picture of soul-crushing conformity at the elementary pedagogic level. The elementary
administrator, a multi-year veteran of the school and a white, traditional-looking maternal figure (the actor chosen for the role was not indeliberate) uses her position of power to force
the young, racially ambiguous (again, deliberate), inspired teacher to supersede her own dynamic style for the administrator's preferred, cut-and-dried textbook readings. An interesting way
to think of the two pieces is to see that their themes could well have been from the same teacher, just placed in different settings. Ayers, without the freedom given to him (or his own
expertise at keeping the administration in the dark) may have instead written a plaintive book, calling out the unjustness of the standard teaching model and the close-mindedness of his
superiors. What is common among both is the elevated status given to dynamic teaching methods, methods which are tailored to the individual student.
2.
What is contradictory about Boal's work in comparison to Freire's pedagogy is the effect that the invisible theater has among it's audience. If, as Freire describes it, education is about reading the world, then the audiences for these performances, many “illiterate” in the sense that they do not have formal education, are nevertheless able to pick up on the messages inherent in the display. Teaching the student to be able to read the world seems illogical if everyone already possesses this skill; Additionally, in the first example of the photographic literacy course, both teacher and student are uniformly understanding or uncomprehending of some of the pictures produced; it seems that the literacies posited by the educators themselves do not assist them in reading every person's own language. With this is mind it is clear that Freire's pedagogy must be expanded and eclipsed by the pedagogy of teaching the student to create messages that can be read, a production of literacy.
Question 1
ReplyDeleteThe comic strip and dramatic performance left me with completely opposing views on teaching. The comic strip leaves a reader with an optimistic and uplifting view of teaching. The student which is graduating comes to the same conclusions in his speech as the teacher does sitting in the audience. This ironic occurrence of the parallel conclusions mirrors the conclusion itself of teachers and students being real people and needing to dynamically explore the world together. It displays not only the idea that students and teachers always need to be learning and teaching each other, but the fact that it indeed happens as both student and teacher simultaneously and independently come to the same conclusion. The dramatic performance leaves the viewer with a pessimistic view of teaching. The ending pains the viewer to watch as the understanding teacher, embodying the protagonist, gives in to the traditional, unforgiving, and rigid education system claiming, “We all fall down.” It portrays the current teaching system as imprisoning and destructive. The system is put in a position which kills joy, youth, and real learning. The truth of the matter seems to lie somewhere in between these two portrayals of teaching. It’s idealistic to believe that all students and teachers are constantly learning and teaching each other, yet it is incredibly pessimistic to believe that the systems kills learning and joy.
Question 2
Augusto Boal’s piece very much enhances Freire's formulation on literacy as the development of critical consciousness. Boal’s discussion of “the theater” exemplifies the idea that meaning is created by the viewer. The audience will only walk away with only the meaning that the individual viewer has projected onto the “performance.” The idea that literacy is simply one’s ability to proficiently function within a societal construct is vividly displayed in Boal’s writing.
1. After watching the video “Oppression in Education” I liked how they portrayed teaching in an acting classes versus an actual core academic classroom. The downside to this video that bothered me was how teachers aren’t free to teach in their own way when it might benefit the students because they are held on a tight leash by the curriculum. I think that teachers should chose how they want to teach the class because they know their students better than any other. So if it benefits the students, then why not? When I was a student I had teachers I absolutely hated because I didn’t like their teaching style but this video shows how it really isn’t their fault and they are just following what they are told to do. On a different note, this video does a great job at portraying how teachers aren’t ominous and that they are learning just like the students are. This kind of reminded me of Freire’s text about the problem-solving method and how students and teachers are always learning from eachother and how it is the most beneficial way to go about education.
ReplyDelete2. I think Augosto Boal’s piece enhances Freire’s piece because I think they both urge the benefit of learning through different means of literacy. For example, rather than using the common definition of literacy ( reading and writing), I think both authors are trying to encourage different uses of literacy to enhance educational development amongst students. The concept of “reading the world” applies to both Boal and Freires argument and a good example of this is the video of “ Oppression in Education.” In this video, the students or “spectators” are more involved in what they are learning which could be a better way for them to learn and engage in the topic. Unfortunately sometimes these methods are not able to be portrayed the right way since some school curriculums might abstain from using such methods of teaching. In that case, the teacher must use standard literacy ways to go about teaching education. But if they could teach using other means of media for example, it could truly enhance the students education.
1. The comic strip reminded me that teaching involves two-way communication. Students are not merely one-dimensional “receivers” and teachers are not merely one-dimensional “givers.” Teachers, like students, are regular people with lives outside of the classroom. I get the feeling that the author advocates that students and teachers relate to each other as one person to another, instead of people just doing their job. This truth that teachers have lives outside of school became very real to me when one of my friends who recently graduated college took a job as a high school teacher. It’s quite a funny experience when we are hanging out and we run into one of his students.
ReplyDeleteThe dramatic performance presented a scene in which a new teacher experiments with new teaching methods that cater to her “very boisterous” students. The new teacher has the students shout out their names and act out how the heart works, as opposed to the traditional “sit down and take out your textbooks” approach. The students are very willing to cooperate with the new teacher’s methods, and it appears the methods are effective, as they learn each other’s’ names and learn how the heart works, while also getting out their energy. When the principal forces the students to take the traditional learning approach (i.e. stick to the curriculum), the students complain that they learned better through the new teacher’s way. I sympathized with the new teacher for being bold and taking ownership over her students’ learning; she truly wanted her students to learn the material, and not just stick to her job description to stick to the curriculum. At the same time, I could also sympathize with the principal. Although she was presented in a repulsive way with her fake smile, annoying voice/laugh, thinly veiled barbs, I could see why she would want to stick to the curriculum. It’s unclear how well the new teacher’s methods work, and even if they work, it’s unclear how well knowledge learned through activities would translate to textbook/test-taking knowledge. I think the new teacher’s methods would be useful, just not as a complete substitute. As unpleasant as it is, I think the students do still need to learn the discipline to sit down and do their work quietly. Chances are, when the students eventually get jobs, no matter how smart they are, at the workplace they will need to be able to do their job without getting in the way of others.
2. Baol’s piece enhances Freire’s formulations on critical consciousness/critical literacy by casting spectators as active agents, which is very similar to Freire’s advocacy of students not merely being students, but active student-teachers. Through acting, a person must apply what they learn, and in doing so, they form a “critical consciousness” which enables them to read their world for themselves, rather than having it read for them or to them; they go from “witness to protagonist.” Because the actor himself/herself is the subject, they are freed from their powerlessness as a pure spectator as they now have ownership over their learning process. Thus, Boal’s work enhances Freire’s formulations by providing a problem-posing-like analog specifically for theater.
Thomas Cycyota
ReplyDeleteSorry this is late. I ran out of time last night and figured I should make it worth reading instead of rushed….
1.
I enjoyed the dramatic performance because I did not like it. It disturbed and frustrated me how restricted the learning environment has become in schools. The teacher in this class would go to the ends of the earth to make her students learn, but because of the institution that limits her, one based on test scores and standardization, she cannot. She must read from the textbook, crushing imagination and creativity in learning.
I see parallels to this in my volunteering at SMDP. Even if a teacher wanted to do something creative, they have neither the time nor the resources to accomplish it. SMDP, based on its teaching methods, does not concern itself with instilling a joy of learning in the students that pass through its doors. The goal is facts and methods and measurable accomplishments, even if that means endless worksheets and harsh methods. A setting like this can never allow a student to truly become involved in the learning process, and it crushes me to see these kids limited as such. They have such potential, and can accomplish great things with the proper guidance. If they never saw another worksheet, it would be for the better.
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Boal’s piece, which analyzes the use of theater in promoting literacy, complicates Freire’s thoughts on critical consciousness because it changes the role that each person plays in society. No longer is each person only responsible and capable of being aware to their surroundings, or “reading the world,” but this article suggests that each person must reproduce that world through acting. To truly internalize one’s sense of the world, or to develop a critical consciousness, the common people “frees himself from his condition of spectator and takes on that of actor, in which he ceases to be an object and becomes a subject.” Freire’s view, in other words, is to removed from that of actual everyday life; one does not observe their own life to obtain a consciousness. This critical consciousness must be performed, just as one’s own life is performed and acted out every day. It is not a script, but an active, moving, dynamic role.
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ReplyDelete• Closing thoughts on teaching from the comic strip:
I think that the comic strip does a good job and addressing the typical notions of teaching from a general perspective. I like how the author divided up the piece in a coherent fashion - especially starting close with "popular myths about teaching" and dispelling those notions. I feel like the examples of thinking outside the box to teach the students concepts (for example, using the skateboarders to teach the class) is a pretty hollywood-esq image that some people get when they think of the right way to teach, but it gets its point across well. Overall the comic makes me really consider the role of the teacher more, from their perspective.
• Closing thoughts on teaching from the video:
I like the way the group kind of narrated the struggles of a teacher that might have a fresh, innovative perspective on teaching that could work effectively against the traditional "curriculum norm" that is imposed on the school system today. I think it was great how the teacher was approached by the principal and asked to stop, but then went back to try to do her own thing again but got shut down once more - and then the final "we all fall down" illustrated the failure of the school system due to its lack of flexibility in methods.
2.) The gist of Boal's piece focuses on the use of theatre as a means of literacy to help service the oppressed, so that they can express themselves and discover new concepts. If we think of theatre and drama as a potential way of literacy, this works with Frier's formulations on the critical consciousness/literacy by expanding the knowledge for these students. Just as textbooks and classrooms may provide some students with the necessary knowledge and background in order for them to formulate this idea of the critical consciousness, Boal argues that theatre can too be a method for its development. For example, if a student is able to learn a concept of history through theatre, why would this be any less effective than learning the history through textbooks in a classroom? Boal argues that by having the students be active participants in the acting experience, it helps them embody the ideas that they are trying to convey and can actually do a better job than traditional methods at formulating this critical consciousness.
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ReplyDeleteThe dramatic piece left me feeling discouraged, and angry, because I’ve seen this exact situation play out. I’ve seen young teachers lose their jobs, or their joy of teaching, because of the “rules” they have to follow in the classroom. And I’ve definitely seen how harmful the effects of standardized testing can be on teachers, students, and entire schools. I think about going into teaching a lot, and a situation like this is one of the things I worry about most—not whether I’ll be able to reach students, but whether I’ll be allowed to.
On the other hand, the comic leaves me with the opposite feeling. It’s a hard job, but there is hope, a lot of it, in teaching. The comic sort of pokes fun at the issues that the drama encompasses, instead offering the bright side, and options for overcoming it. Changing teaching one teacher at a time.
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I think Boal’s piece ties in really well with Friere’s idea that education must involve reading the world. Drama is a means that many people use to express themselves; and alternatively, audiences can really get a lot of information from performers. While I can see the complications that arise in Boal’s piece, I think the take-away is that it’s important, if not crucial, for students to learn to interact in their world, with others, and to be able to express the knowledge they gain from doing so.
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