Working for Freire’s “True Word”

Posted in DemEd in Real LifePhilosophy of EducationSocial JusticeStudentsTeaching on Jan 18, 2010 - 06:26 PM

Paolo Freire writes, "Human existence cannot be silent nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which men and women transform the world."

Our man, Freire, is calling us out--PUT YO' MONEY WHERE YO' MOUTH IS! Words without reflection are pointless. Words without action are likewise pointless. It is only when we balance our words with reflection and action that we can call ourselves thinkers and transformers. (Sigh. Where are the Freires of the world? 'Cause I'm single and ready to mingle! If you're there--mouths silently--call me.)

All kidding aside, this is exactly what I have moved to implement in my classroom--a movement from thoughts and words to action through the implementation of a community-school interaction project for my ninth graders (for a fuller explanation, read my previous post, Plans of Mice and Men).

In place of their final exam, I have asked students to identify a problem in their community and develop an original solution, complete with data and proof to back-up each of their statements and plans. Quite a few people have been asking me how it is going and I decided to try to blog before, during and after implementation. This is my "during" entry.

Here's an excerpt from the assignment breakdown sheet passed out to them on Thursday:

Community-School Interactions
Semester Final Project (80 points)

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

In an attempt to demonstrate all that you have learned in class this semester as thinkers and writers, your “Final Exam” grade will be based on your work developing a final project which focuses on community development/improvement. As we have discussed in class, there are many societal ills in the world which will only be corrected if analytical, moral citizens stand up for what is right. Empowering you as the youth of today and leaders of tomorrow, I ask you to:

get to know your community and surrounding areas through collected data (census data, school performance data, etc.)

analyze the data to identify problems within our community

analyze the data to identify potential causes for the identified problems

select a specific problem you and your team wish to tackle

and create an intervention to fight this problem which has negatively impacted our community.

There is no more honorable proof of a quality education then to move for positive action and trust that the necessary intellect and motivation to do well is present.

And thus it begins. I can tell you from the start, students were weirdly excited. Mind you, this assignment requires a detailed research paper, analysis of Census data, interviews of community members, etc. So the demand for work is there, but students liked the idea of working through thoughts that they may get to see play out in their own communities. But this is the high before the reality of just how much work is needed to complete this project successfully--Sisyphus right before he puts his hands on that rock and figures out, "Crap, this seemed a lot more doable in my head."

I asked students to blog out some of their ideas over the weekend so that they would not waste time getting started. For a look at some of their ideas and my comments you can access the classroom blog here: http://thesaidi.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/community-intervention-final-project/#comment-1086

One of my favorite postings so far:

Student Posting:

PROJECT CLAIM/ THESIS:

Hello Ms.Saidi,
I have decided to work on my own since apparently, several of my group members are not prepared to put forth the time and effort in order to succeed in this assignment. Here is my claim for my project. Hope you approve!

Bilingual education, a program that permits the use of the “family language” as the primary mode of communication and instruction, is a needless commodity in the development of skill, and worse still, serves to hinder the student's ability to become a functional member of society.

My response:

I MUCH approve of your decision to do it yourself if there aren't others willing to put in the time and effort. Can't say I've been prouder of you.

Anyway, your claim definitely shows that you're THINKING and you get my stamp of approval for being ORIGINAL. So far, you're on the path for mastery.

My question then becomes, what's your solution? How will we take students who don't speak English and make them “functional members of society”? You will have to do lots of research on bilingual education. And feel free to change your mind if you research and find that the opposite be true (that learning in the home language could actually help the learning process).

Make sure to back up EVERYTHING (problem and your solution) with details and data (statistics, science, etc).

Here's a suggested article--it has a lot of big words but you obviously have the tenacity to push through difficult work:

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000

In short, mission "True Words" is on like Donkey Kong.

For a complete breakdown of the assignment and the library link to research links for students: http://blog.dearbornschools.org/fhslibrary/?p=472 (yes, I've even got our librarian on board!)

Tags for this entry:
k-12 education, curriculum, research, community-school interactions, analysis, paulo freire, student inquiry, critical pedagogy

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