MOLINA, Alondra L.

Liberation of Education

Are we really having a practice of freedom in education nowadays? Do we really need to practice

freedom in order to have a balance student and teacher relationship? According to Bell Hooks,

educating as a “practice of freedom” is a form of teaching and consequent learning that is engaging

and exciting for both teachers and students alike. In this “practice of freedom,” both parties are

equal “players in contributing and sharing in the learning experience (Bell Hooks, 1994). Students

are not just taught information that they are expected to commit to memory and recall when asked;

rather they learn to think critically in a non-conformist, unconfined way ( Bell Hooks, 1994).

Teachers who educate as a “practice of freedom” teach “not merely to share information but to

share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of students” (Bell Hooks, 1994). Public education is

increasingly shaped by numbers and regulations, whereby children are being molded to fit the

educational curricula, rather than the curricula being shaped by children’s unique needs, talents,

and curiosities. Educator and activist bell hooks writes that the act of teaching itself can be a tool

of transgression. In her words, “I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for

me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer. . . . Education as the

practice of freedom . . . education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning

is a place where paradise can be created” (Bell Hooks, 1994).

The transformative experience of a truly liberating undergraduate education requires a faculty

member and a student engaged in learning together (Robert Scott, 2013) Liberating education

fosters the ability to distinguish between what is true and what is false, and it involves a number

of different analytical perspectives: the scientific, the artistic, the humanistic, the quantitative, the
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qualitative. It helps students understand that to measure something indicates it is valued, but that

not everything of value can be measured (Robert Scott, 2013).

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free”

— Rabindranath Tagore

In this statement, I believe that liberation can bring such a big impact in the field education. But is

it effected? Are we really free indeed of we proceed to this kind of process? Freire taught us that

education can, and must, be a tool of liberation, which respects the knowledge that learners bring

to the classroom and models a power-sharing between learner and educator that can be taken out of

the classroom and into the community (Freire 2000).

In contrast to Freire's visions of a liberatory future, French philosopher Michel Foucault offers a

sober analysis of a conflictive past. In works such as Madness and Civilization (1965), The Birth

of the Clinic (1973), and Discipline and Punish (1979),, Foucault analyzes the history of various

institutions subjectification to understand the development of underlying power relationships in

human society. Whereas Freire stressed the potential for human beings to become Subjects who

free themselves from unequal power relations through a liberatory pedagogy, Foucault understands

as part of a long historical process of social formation where the subject has little, if any, self-

determinate agency. With teachers no longer dominating discourse, students are more free to select
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their own topics and themes (Kelm 1996; Tella 1992) Easy transfer of documents and one-to-many

communication facilitate collaborative thinking and writing (Barker and Kemp 1990; Flores 1990).

The written mode of communication helps students to better analyze the ideas being expressed

(DiMatteo 1990; DiMatteo 1991; Kroonenberg 1994/1995). Collaboration with students around the

world combined with autonomous access to information facilitates a problem-solving approach to

learning (Barson and Debski 1996; Barson, et al. 1993; Vilmi,1995).

Freire himself criticized the view that a democratic education meant that teachers should

abdicate leadership and authority:

I have never said that the educator is the same as the pupil. Quite the contrary, I have always said

that whoever says that they are equal is being demagogic and false. The educator is different from

the pupil. But this difference...must not be antagonistic. The difference becomes antagonistic when

the authority of the educator, different from the freedom of the pupil, is transformed into

authoritarianism (Freire 1985:76). Elsewhere, Freire refers to this approach as "a radically

democratic position", because it "demands directivity and freedom at the same time, with no

authoritarianism from the teacher and no licentious freedom from the pupils" (Gadotti 1994:57).

Let us not be afraid to imagine these connections in public schools: progressive, student-centered

education that values our learners’ spirits and voices more than merely evaluating their deficits. Our

children — all of our children — hold the entire world in their hands. Let us give them the strength
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and gentleness to hold it well. But, let us teach our children to know what’s right or wrong and do

not let this opportunity make things go wrong or go on the other way around.

References:

Barker, T. and F. Kemp (1990) Network theory: A postmodern pedagogy for the written

classroom. InC. Handa (ed.) Computers and community: Teaching composition in the twenty-first

century. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann: 1-27.

Foucault, M. (1977) The eye of power. In C. Gordon (ed.) Power/Knowledge. New York, Pantheon

Books: 146-165.

Foucault, M. (1986) Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16, 1: 22-27.

Freire, P. (1985) Pedagogia: dialogo e conflito. (Pedagogy: Dialogue and conflict). Sao Paulo,

Cortez

Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition. New York: Continuum.

Hooks, Bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge,

1994.

Kripalani, Krishna. 1962. Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography. New York: Grove Press.

Vilmi, R. (1995) HUT Email Writing Project: An Ongoing Experiment. In T. Orr (ed.) English for
MOLINA, Alondra L.

Science and Technology: Profiles and Perspectives. Aizuwakamatsu, Japan: University of Aizu

Cente rfor Language Research: 47-59.