Exploring alternative curriculum in adult & community education – what can we learn from Freire? 17 April 2013

It starts with a story…

the education we have… “Again, we in rural areas are forced to do useless subjects. When we go to tertiary level, some students are given bursaries because they have done useful subjects. We are forced to do useless subjects and the certificates we have seen are valueless.” Nelson Mandela Foundation, Emerging Voices. A report on education in South Africa rural communities. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council. p.99

the education we have… “That means your education is meant for purposes within the school premises. When you are out of school your education becomes useless, compared to a town fellow.” Nelson Mandela Foundation, Emerging Voices. A report on education in South Africa rural communities. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council. p.100

the education we want… “The kind of education we want involves people listening to each other. The learning we talk about is always a learning that is put into practice. At the same moment of learning, we apply it. To share it and apply it is what makes it a living learning. This is not an education to make individuals better in their individual jobs and careers – it is with the people.” Figlan, L. et al., Living Learning. Pietermaritzburg: Rural Network & the Church Land Programme. p.48.

It also starts with a choice... “…an explicit political choice to place public education at the service of poor and working class communities.” (Lindquist Wong, 1995, p. 123)

...democratising education 1.Transform the role that schools play in learner’s lives and in communities 2.Transform the relationship between educators and learners 3.Reconceptualise knowledge production 4.Reorient the understanding and use of the curriculum 5.Reconstruct the content areas of the curriculum

Interdisciplinary curriculum reform “Continuing Teacher Education Groups” 1.Study of reality – educators worked collaboratively to understand their community, and 2.Identified significant issues from which a generative theme was chosen 3.Working together across disciplines content areas were organised together with  a list of generative questions for learners  a wide range of knowledge resources 4.Finally there was the application of knowledge in activities and projects

… what can we learn? The necessity: 1.For an unambiguous choice… education in service of whose interests? 2.Of questioning whose knowledge is being privileged? 3.For educators to “re-form” themselves as “liberating educators” (Shor & Freire, 1987) 4.For a curriculum grounded in daily life and experience, and in doing 5.For a curriculum that is dynamic and responsive to local issues and priorities 6.Of recognising that democratising the curriculum development process will take time

… let’s start this journey after all, we make the road by walking..