EDucate!A Quarterly on Education & Development

Issue No. 2, Vol. No.2

Page 17An Exclusive Interview with

DR. TARIQ RAHMAN

Page 12Restructuring Education

PROF. ANITA GHULAM ALI

Page 7

Introducing Knowing Understanding

Cover Story

HENRY GIROUX

Page 17

Dr. Tariq RahmanAn Interview for

EDucate!

MASHHOOD RIZVI

UR On...

Professional DevelopmentGoing Beyond Skills 22DR. SHAHID SIDDIQUI

Being Critical of PedagogyWhat is it? What is it not? 25SHILPA JAIN

Education in PakistanA Comment from the Backbenchers 29THEMRISE KHAN

Life SkillsThe Cornerstone of Pragmatic Education 33TRACY THOMPSON KHAN

Rethinking Education

Page 7

C o v e r S t o r y

Books for a Better Worldn Channel SurfingRacism, The Media & The Destruction of Today ’s Youth 7n Teachers as IntellectualsToward a Critical Pedagogy of Learning 47

Societal Learning

The Case for Local FoodStrengthening & Rebuilding Local Food EconomiesHELENA NORBERG-HODGE

How Much Inequality Is There? 40TED TRAINER

Rethinking Development

HENRYGIROUX

From a Basketball Playerto a Grand Educator

EDITED & COMPILED BYAMBREENA AZIZ & MASHHOOD RIZVI

INTRODUCING KNOWING UNDERSTANDING

37

Websites for a Better Worldn www.paulofreire.orgPaulo Freire Institute – PFI 48SOMAIYA AYOOB

Societal Learning

Cove

r Illu

strat

ion:

The

Criti

cal E

ye, F

arha

na N

aeem

, 200

2

This pioneering magazine has been created to challenge ethically,morally and intellectually the inequalities in the existing

paradigms of education and development in order to liberatepeople’s thoughts and actions.

CHAIRPERSONProf. Anita Ghulam Ali

EDITOR–IN–CHIEFMashhood Rizvi

EDITORAmbreena Aziz

CONSULTING EDITORSNafisa Jah, Tehseena Rafi

ASSISTANT EDITORSAziz Kabani, Naureen Butt

CONTRIBUTORSProfessor Anita Ghulam Ali, Dr. Shahid Siddiqui,

Shilpa Jain, Themrise Khan, Tracy Thompson Khan,Helena Norberg-Hodge, Ted Trainer

EDITORIAL ASSISTANCEShakeel Ahmed, Naeem Nizamani,

Shukri Rehman

DESIGNERZulfiqar Ali Zulfi

ILLUSTRATION/PHOTO CREDITFarhana Naeem

CORRESPONDENCE MANAGERSomaiya Ayoob

CIRCULATION MANAGERShukri Rehman

We welcome your questions, suggestions, support and contributions.Letters to the editor should not exceed 500 words. Essays and articlesshould not exceed more than 3000 words. Previously published articlesand essays should be supported with references and permissions toreprint. The editor reserves the right to edit submissions prior topublication.

C O N T R I B U T I O N S

EDucate! is published quarterly by the Sindh Education Foundation.The opinions reflected in the various contributions and articles do notnecessarily reflect the views of the Sindh Education Foundation.

D I S C L A I M E R

Please address correspondence to the Correspondence Manager at theabove address or via e-mail at dprc@cyber.net.pk or sef@cyber.net.pk.Correspondence relating to subscription, membership, previous issuesa n d c h a n g e o f a d d r e s s s h o u l d a l s o b e a d d r e s s e d t o t h eCorrespondence Manager.

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Restructuring Education?Is Technology the Answer? 34PROFESSOR ANITA GHULAM ALI

Rethinking Media & Technology

OPEN LETTERS 4

EDITOR’S NOTE 6

WAKEUP CALLSINSPIRATIONS & REFLECTIONS 36

VOICE OF THE VOICELESS 45Muhammad Khan Zada

Regular Features

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P U B L I S H E R

Pioneering ChangeThe present issue of EDucate! is really educative forme. I immensely enjoyed reading Henry Giroux andMashhood Rizvi's interview of Peter McLaren. I hadbeen wanting to read more about these scholars buttheir material is not easy to come by in Pakistan.Ambreena Aziz's article gives me very useful insightsinto the role of education in our context. I thinkEDucate is doing pioneering work which shouldcontinue.

Dr. Tariq Rahman, Islamabad

Voice of SanityThe 5th issue is beautifully done as usual. Voices ofsanity seem to be loosing the battle at this time. Ihope things won’t have to get worse before they getbetter.

Stephen Fein, Third World Traveler, USA

A Guide for StudentsEDucate! looks very good. The magazine is full ofinformation and the article I found most interestingwas: ‘What is Sustainable Development’ by TedTrainer. Others were also informative. This magazineis excellent for students since we need this kind ofguideline.

Syeda Aisha Khatun, Student, Karachi University

Denunciating Corporatizationof EducationThe 5th issue of EDucate! came at a most opportunetime. The powers-that-be in our school district havedecided that the way to “improve scores on tests”(nothing mentioned about improving the quality ofeducation) is to mandate a lock-step approach toinformation delivery. This issue of EDucate! is astrong denunciation of this type of corporateeducation. I commend you in this issue for addressingthe topic.Laurie Williams, University of Texas at Austin, USA

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4

OPEN letters Informative & HealthyJournalI find the content both interesting and exciting. Bestwishes for the continued success of an informativeand healthy journal devoted to the priority issue ofeducating the citizens of Pakistan.

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Enormous Information BaseI really like your magazine as it is educating peopleby providing an enormous information base regardingthe field of education.

Habib Ghulam Masih, Gujranwala

Looks Good!The latest issue of Educate! looks very good.

Prof. Michael Apple, USA

Salute To SEFI salute SEF for raising a critical issue –‘education’– confronting our nation in a highly intellectual seriesof articles. My worry and apprehension are whichinstitution(s), if any would pick up the threads andconvert the intellectual analysis into a program. Thestarting point as I see it, from my limited experience,is the need to review the national curriculum and,much more so, a total overhaul of text books. Thecurrent text books are a pathetic representation ofnot such a bad national curriculum, which have littlecontextual references to make learning meaningful andfulfilling.

Nazam Mohommadi, Aga Khan University, Karachi

Addressing The CrucialParadigm of EducationCongratulations! It is interesting to see EDucate!carrying the critical discourses on the very crucialparadigms of education.

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Filling the Gap in EducationIt is good to know that through your efforts a biggap which exists in the field of education in thiscountry will be filled.

Dr. Moonis Ahmar, University of Karachi

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CongratulationsI would like to congratulate you – and Ms. GhulamAli – for bringing out such a magazine, and fullyagree for the great need and effort to debate suchi s s u e s f o r g r e a t e r a w a r e n e s s a n d c h a n g e .

Noman Sattar, Islamabad

Laudable EffortEDucate! is a laudable effort.

Anwar Ahmed, Rawalpindi

Highly InspiringI had a chance of reading one of your issues at thelibrary of FAST, Islamabad and I must say I wasreally impressed by the highly inspiring content ofEDucate!. I congratulate SEF and the EDucate! teamfor their great accomplishment. I hope you will tryyour best for the cont inuous and success fu lpublication of EDucate!

Muhammad Iqbal Anjum

Contributing to Quality inEducationThe magazine "EDucate!" will contribute significantlyto the idea of bringing about qualitative improvementin the educational sector of our country which weneed badly in the current global scenario. As amatter of fact, the change at attitudinal level isrequired and for that a whole new culture of researchbased improvement at all levels is required. Onceagain I would like to congratulate you and your teamfor this wonderful effort.

Nadeem Ahmad Khan

Impressive as UsualThe 5th issue of EDucate! was as usual veryimpressive. I also read about the magazine in Dawn’sEducation page. Great going all of you and bestalways.

Zofeen T. Ibrahim, Karachi

Reflections from a Reader

Congratulations for publishing such an interestingand informative magazine. I am a regular readerof EDucate! and as a teacher I regularly refer toyour articles in my sessions.

My (students) teachers also like this magazine verymuch. The best part of your magazine is that youhave brought together both international andnational educationists at one forum. In your July2002 issue, Fatima Suraiya Bajia’s interview andShilpa’s article on factory schooling provided mewith great insights. Keep it up. I really appreciatethe fact that you are open to the readers’ ideasthrough your Open Letters section. Your magazineis a wonderful vehicle to bring forth criticaleducational issues and perspectives. In Pakistan,there are many educationists who have contributedin the development of the education framework ofthe country, I would humbly suggest that youinterview some of them and also carry their profilesin your future issues. Also, many new educationalinstitutions have emerged which are contributinga great deal to education and doing meaningfulwork in this field. A page covering information onthese institutes would help your audience not onlyto be better informed but also form a ‘collectiveplat form’ to exchange dia logue and betterunderstanding of educational paradigms and createlinkages. Islam, Islamic culture and Muslimcivilization is also a possible area of explorationand thought. To understand education, it isessential to study the traditional cultural thoughtsof the society. After 9/11, it becomes more crucialto focus on this aspect for better understanding ofIslam. Also, Prophet Muhammad’s teachings andlife is the focal point of understanding the conceptof acquiring knowledge (ilm) through spiritualsearch (ibadat). It is sad to note that we neverexplore how education can be acquired throughself knowledge, ibadat, si lence etc. In youresteemed magazine you may focus on these aspectswith your reflections. I think in this way, you willbe able to create a treasure of knowledge whichwill enormously benefit our education system.

Shahida Mohiuddin

ritical pedagogy is about hope; it dares to believe that a new society can be constructed by reflecting,challenging, and rising (taking action) against societal injustices. Peter McLaren elucidates that criticalpedagogy wants to provide an orientation for those educators who believe that the world needs to be

transformed. In this 6th issue, we endeavor to unfold the complex and multifaceted concept of critical pedagogyin as much simplicity as relevant sources allowed. The aim is to generate awareness and better understandingof the term, and its related paradigms, for all readers.

It is important for both students and educators to understand critical pedagogy in order to become active andcritical citizens and understand the relationship between power and knowledge. Since most educational institutionsand schools across the world favor particular forms of knowledge which present specific perspectives on power,social mores and ideas, critical educators must enable students to critique their experience; to realize the miragecreated by the ideological hegemony, which fundamentally serves dominant forces within society and preventspeople from unraveling the myths that oppress them. Hegemony refers to the maintenance of domination notby sheer force, but primarily through consensual social practices, social forms and social structures producedin specific sites such as religious spaces and institutions, the state, the school, the mass media, the politicalsystem, and the family. Critical pedagogy places its emphasis not on vocational training or humanistic educationbut it believes that the primary purpose of schooling is self and social empowerment. Paulo Freire, one of thegreatest critical educators of our time, states that real critical educational practice must be rooted in the demandfor and engagement in emancipatory social change. This engagement has as its starting point a preference forand solidarity with the poor and marginalized. It calls for the elimination of social practices and structuresthat cause human misery.

This issue of EDucate! introduces Henry Giroux, one of the most influential educators of our time. Whereit is true that an educator of Giroux’s stature does not need any introduction; it was equally important forour readers, teachers and most importantly students to understand the power of Giroux’s teachings. I believethat the concepts and thoughts associated with complex fields such as critical thinking, critical pedagogy,democratic schooling cannot be fully understood without understanding Giroux’s role and impact on educationalphilosophy. Most significantly, Giroux is a living example of how teachers as transformative intellectuals canbecome a powerful force in rising against injustices and preserving and nurturing democratic values in a society.Shilpa Jain’s ‘Being Critical of Pedagogy’ discusses and analyzes different facets of critical pedagogy and presentsthe theory, application and challenges associated with this term. Tracy Thompson Khan, a well-known freelancecolumnist, emphasizes the importance of learning life skills, such as language, logical reasoning, moral ethicsetc., as part of the syllabus so that people are better equipped to make informed choices in life, in turnbenefiting the society as a whole. Prof. Anita Ghulam Ali’s essay raises critical questions regarding restructuringof education in Pakistan vis-à-vis information and communication technologies. Themrise Khan’s inspiring piecesuggests that there is still hope within our educational system. Helena Norberg-Hodge and Ted Trainer’s articlesprovide their trademark incisiveness and present some feasible alternate development solutions. Finally, we areprivileged to have Dr. Tariq Rahman, the acclaimed linguist and writer of the country, express his views onprogressive education in ‘UR On…’

We hope this issue will also prove to be a symbol of hope and inspiration for teachers, students, educatorsand citizens who want to become conscious of the prevailing oppression and are also committed to endingit. This is central to Freire’s pedagogy as well as ours.

M a y t h e y e a r 2 0 0 3 b r i n g a m u c h - n e e d e d s e m b l a n c e o f w o r l d p e a c e a n d s o c i a l j u s t i c e .

Ambreena Aziz

Editor’sNote

6

C

HENRY GIROUXFrom a Basketball Player

to a Grand Educator

EDITED & COMPILED BYAMBREENA AZIZ & MASHHOOD RIZVI

COVER STORY

...We all think, but weare not necessarilythinkers. Giroux’s

curiosity, his doubt, hisuncertainty with respect

to certainties, hiscourage to take risks,

and his rigorousmethodological and

theoretical approachesto important themes

characterize him as oneof the great thinkers of

his time...

Paulo Freire

INTRODUCING KNOWING UNDERSTANDING

In retrospectI never intended to be a teacher. After high school,I received a basketball scholarship to a junior collegebut dropped out and then worked for two years invarious jobs. Fortunately, I received another basketballscholarship and it happened to be at a teachers'college. I then went on scholarship to AppalachianState University for a Master's in history, and myeducation began in earnest because I was assigned asa teaching assistant to a professor who was extremelyprogressive and radical politically. I learned more fromhim than I did in all of my formal education up tothat point. I started graduate school in 1967 and thecountry was in turmoil. It was a great period to learnabout politics, power, and knowledge outside of theuniversity. After getting my Master's, I taught secondaryschool for seven years in a small town outside of

Baltimore. The town was marked by deep racialdivisions, economically and culturally, and the schoolwas heavily segregated in the sense that very fewblacks were placed in the college-bound track. I foundmyself confronted with an institutional and culturalregister of racism that I didn't have a language tounderstand or confront. Tracking seemed so natural tome at that point that I did not equate it at first witha form of racial, gender, and class injustice. Theexperience radicalized me. In 1967, I became acommunity organizer trying to change the school. Iworked in the black community for one year. And Igot fired because of that-because I tried to democratizethe s choo l o rgan i za t ion and the cur r i cu lum.

So I came back to New England and got a job in asuburban school. Coming from a working -classbackground, I found it very difficult to work withstudents who were upper middle class, white, and

8 COVER S T O R Y

o us, the greatest success of EDucate! has not been the growing number ofsubscribers or increasing sales; we believe that the most significant and rewardingexperience has been the connection that has been established with a worldwide

struggle for social justice, freedom and democracy. Where we might have raised someeyebrows by what Chomsky calls, speaking truth to power, long-lasting friendships andintellectual bonds have also been formed.

One of our most cherished bonds is with Dr. Henry Giroux, one of the most distinguishedcritical educator of our time. Having had the privilege of speaking with him over thetelephone, one is left overwhelmed by the energy and dynamism in his voice. Imagine whatit would be like to attend his classes in person!

EDucate! has continued corresponding with Dr. Giroux and his humbling acquiescence inallowing us to do a Cover Story on his contributions to educational philosophy is muchappreciated.

What follows is an introduction to the intellectual power of Giroux’s thoughts on criticalpedagogy, radical education and the role of schools and teachers in society. We have nottried to explain any of his work firstly because we do not feel intellectually or academicallyequipped to do so, and secondly his original expression is so powerful that we did notwant to tarnish the flair and tenacity of his ideas. We owe our cover story heavily toCarlos Alberto Torres and his interview with Giroux in his fantastic collection of dialoguestitled Education, Power and Personal Biography, 1998. Some key sections are excerpted fromthe introductory chapter of Border Crossing, 1992. Giroux’s critique on traditional schoolinghas been excerpted from his revolutionary book Teachers as Intellectuals, 1988. Giroux’s callfor redefining the purpose and meaning of schooling has been taken from his essay/talkChildren’s Culture in the Making: Disney’s Animated Films, 1998. Freire’s and McLaren’scomments on Gi roux have been taken f rom Teacher s a s In t e l l e c tua l s , 1988 .

Lastly, we would like to thank our friend Laurie Williams and her impressive website Rageand Hope for providing us with the clear road map on handling an intellectual powerhousesuch as Giroux in an efficient manner.

T

COVER S T O R Y 9

The Shadows ofIgnorance

. . . in 1983 my l i fe changeddramatically. Quite unexpectedly,I was denied tenure by JohnSilber, the president of BostonUniversity. My tenure process wasrelatively straightforward. I wasgiven an unanimous vote at alllevels of academic review. At theuniversity level, the vote was 13to 0 in my favor. There weretwenty-seven cases up for tenurethat year and only three wereunanimous. I was one of them.My dean to ld me he wouldresign if I did not get tenureand he publicly announced hisintentions. I guess he was quitesurpr i sed when the provostinformed him that I would notbe given tenure, in spite of thereviews. In order to avoid anyacademic embarrassment, Silberdecided to go beyond the normal

channels of the review processand established his own ad hocreview committee, which includedNathan Glazer, Chester Finn, andothers, all of whom were quiteslimy. I chose one member ofthe committee – Michael Apple.The other two choices were outof my hands. Once the reviewscame back, I had a meeting withSilber. He made the followingoffer to me: if I didn't publish orwrite anything for two years andstudied the history of logic andscience with him personally asmy tutor he would maintain mycurrent salary and I could berecons idered for tenure. Ofcourse, I declined and startedapplying for jobs, eventuallylanding one at Miami University.

H e ( S i l b e r ) h a d a c o p y o fIdeology, Culture and the Processof Schooling, and he said, "I hearyou're such a great teacher. Whydo you write such shit? One of

the reasons you're not gettingtenure is because of this. Turn topage 34." Or whatever it was.I'm thinking, "God, what is onthis page that is so serious?"Then it dawned on me. I hadended a sentence or quote witha r e f e r ence someth ing l i ke"Horkheimer 1965." He arguedthat I should have put in theoriginal publication date insteadof the later publication date. Iwas flabbergasted. I said, "Is thisa joke?" And he said, "No, thisis what scholarship is about." Ofcourse, it was a cheap shot, anattempt to make his case whenin fact he didn't have one. Ilater got back the copy of mybook that Silber had used. Thebook looked brand new. He hadonly read and marked up thefirst half of the introduction. Therest of the book was unmarkedand appeared to have beenunread.

extremely privileged. This proved to be a very difficultterrain for me to negotiate. The school was inBarrington, Rhode Island. I taught there for about sixyears. These kids were on the fast track for academicand economic mobility. I certainly provided them withalternative ways of seeing the world, but the work justwas not rewarding for me. I was also getting tired asa high school teacher. The work was overbearing. Itwas exhausting. Moreover, I was starting to seriouslystudy radical social theory. I felt it was time to moveon and do something that would have a moreprofound impact.

Teaching for Social JusticeI was teaching in the Social Studies department. Theschools were experimenting with their curricula. I wasgiven the freedom to teach courses out of the usualrun-of-the-mill orthodoxy. I taught a course on societyand alienation, as well as courses on race andfeminism. My course on feminism garnered theattention of some right-wing fundamentalists in thecommunity, and the school committee held a publichearing. The story made the local news and a numberof right-wing fundamentalist preachers announced ontheir radio programs that a left-wing feminist wasteaching in a local high school. The Right mobilized

and managed to convince the school to take my classtexts off the library reserve shelves. I didn't use theprescribed books. I would buy five copies of each bookand put them on reserve. We were reading books youcouldn't get to through normal channels. Plus, I wasrenting films from the American French ServiceCommittee at five bucks a whack. Even though I hadto finance my own courses, it was a great teachingexperience, but it caused quite an uproar in thecommunity. My days were numbered after that.

Soon afterwards, I attended a conference on the newSocial Studies and met a wonderful guy named TedFenton. I ra ised a number of quest ions at hisconference and after it ended, he invited me to jointhe doctoral program at Carnegie Mellon University.He was a very gracious and kind guy, and in manyways, helped change my life. He arranged a scholarshipfor me and off I went. It was truly by happenstance.I got my doctorate in 1977. Soon afterwards, I landeda job at Boston University. My theoretical life took avery specific turn while there. It was a very excitingtime to be teaching and studying critical educationaltheory and practice. Within a few years, I wrote myfirst book, Ideology, Culture and the Process of Schooling,which was a real initiation into the necessity of doingrigorous theoretical work. Even now, the book seemsrelevant to me.

Giroux’s Revolution

It is important to stress that I draw upon and workin a critical tradition to which many people havecontributed. If my work has been selected by some asexpressing, in a forceful way, that position, that'sdifferent than saying that I'm responsible for thatposition. I'm not. I was lucky enough to be writingabout issues at a historical time when a number ofimportant theoretical considerations were being debatedand many brilliant people were on the scene. I wouldnot have had those ideas if other people weren't doingit as well.

First, I tried to reinvigorate the debates in the 1970saround theory and resistance by challenging the notionthat domination was so oppressive that schools couldonly be talked about as either prisons or totalinstitutions in the service of oppression. It was anunproductive discourse, and, because it ignored anyspace for resistance or the complex ways in whichpower worked , I a l so wanted to b roaden therelationship between schooling and society beyond classby reasserting the issue of general emancipation, andspecifically the issue of democracy. Democracy as anarticulation was capable of engaging class, race, andgender, but in a way that related them to the broaderconcerns of public life. I wanted to tie the concept of

resistance not merely to the language of critique butalso to the language of possibility, one that engagedwhat it meant to deepen and expand the possibilitiesof democratic public life.

Secondly, my long -time concern with the role ofteachers as intellectuals has certainly been an organizingprinciple for much of my work. It underwent a numberof revisions, moving from a concern with teachers astransformative intellectuals to the more political roleof teachers as public intellectuals. This provided mewith the theoretical tools to talk about publicintellectuals as cultural workers who inhabited a diversenumber of pedagogical sites, including, but not reducedto, schools.

Third, my work on popular culture made it possiblefor me to cross disciplines and write and publish inother fields outside of education.

Fourth, I think my work contributed to a growingrecognition of the importance of pedagogy in otherfields, including composition, literary studies, speechcommunication, media studies, and so on. This is notto suggest that people were not doing important workin these fields around education, but my work helpedbring a number of these fields together in recognizingt h e s c h o l a r l y w o r k g o i n g o n i n e d u c a t i o n .

10 COVER S T O R Y

Living Paulo’s Praxis

…It was Paulo Freire's work thatgripped me theoretically, because Iread him at that period in my lifewhen I was a high school teacherstruggling with the polit ics ofeducation as part of my own life.When I found Freire's work, Idiscovered a language that I coulduse to give forceful expression tomy own emotions, to the gut -wrenching fee l ings about thecontradictions in which I foundmyself as an educator.

I 've always felt that whatevercontribution I made to criticalp e d a g o g y w a s v e r y m o d e s tcompared to others in the field. Iassociate critical pedagogy with thework of Paulo Freire. And I thinkthat anyone who took up thatfield, in some way, had to beginwith him whether they liked him

or not. Regardless of Paulo's initialtheoretical flaws, especially aroundgender, the fact of the matter isthat he gave the term a politicalimportance that it had lacked untilhis work appeared.

Paulo was crucial in forecasting anumber of theoretical interventions,including work in postcolonialtheory, cultural studies, critical adulteducation, literacy and languagestudies, and the primacy of politicsin education. Moreover, his was asocial and theoretical project, it wasnot simply about methodology orpractice. Paulo's work suggests atleast three important interventions:One, he exemplified what it meantto be a broader intellectual. Paulowas never at home in one place.Paulo's gaze around the questionsof power and possibility cut acrosscontinents and borders. Second, herevitalized the relationship betweentheory and practice as an act of

politics and struggle for socialjustice. Third, Paulo gave us asense of what commitment was.Paulo was a provocateur who gavehis life over to struggling for, andwith others, and made pedagogythe central defining principle ofhow you take up questions ofagency, power, and politics. Paulowas, for me, a great teacher, amodel of humility and inspiration.Many people have labeled me aF r e i r i a n , b u t t h a t l a b e l i santithetical to everything Paulorepresents. One didn't imitatePaulo, one tried to use his work asa theory rather than as a method,and this meant one had to be aproducer of theory rather than onewho simply implements other'stheories. I used his work alongwith the work of others within apolitical project that was specific tomy own context, problems, andconcerns.

COVER S T O R Y 11

The Sublime Teacher

My courses are all seminars. I prescribe the materialsI think are important but the students have to writepapers and defend their positions. This is the basis ofa 15-week working-through process. I don't care whatpositions the students take. I want them to be ableto justify whatever position they do take so they comeout with a clearer sense of what they believe in andwhat effects that might have. I think what I reallydo is politicize the process of education in the mindsof the students. As soon as you say people can beagents in the act of learning you politicize the issueof schooling. It becomes political in the best sense ofthe word, which is to say that students have tobecome self -conscious about the kinds of socialrelationships that undergird the learning process. That'sa political issue. Another thing I take very seriouslyin my teaching is illustrating principles with a senseof voice, with somebody's story. There are experiencesout there that i l luminate larger quest ions ofeducational philosophy. We can, for example, talkabout the hidden curriculum of racism, about whatblack kids have to give up to become academicallysuccessful and we can do this through their ownvoices. Or we can talk about people who have no

community of memories. We can talk about peoplewho are defined by such a non-belief in the commongood that they can't even imagine an alternativevision according to anything other than highlyindividualistic and egotistical norms. Those stories areimportant. That is one of the reasons I have a lot oftrouble with liberal and procedural morality. Iteliminates the stories in favor of abstract rules. Ofcourse, we need to understand that these stories bythemselves do not always speak for themselves. Butthey can become the basis for analyzing a whole rangeof considerations that are often hidden in the stories.Experience never simply speaks for itself. The languagetha t we b r ing to i t de te rmines i t s mean ing.

It (teaching) is very hard work. That is why teachersneed to be intellectuals, to realize that teaching is aform of mediation between different persons anddifferent groups of persons and we can't be goodmediators unless we are aware of what the referentsof the mediation we engage in are. Teaching iscomplex, much more complex than mastering a bodyof knowledge and implementing curriculums. The thingabout teaching is that the specificity of the contextis always central. We can't get away with invokingrules and procedures that cut across contexts.

A Guide to CriticalThinking

I do a lot of reading and I try to seerelationships among ideas, gestate newideas, and try to figure out how whatI read will lead me to challenge myinitial concerns or lead me in a newdirection. I cut and paste everythingI read. I figure out the ideas thatmatter the most, I take them out ofan article, paste them up, and thengo back and read them in their mostf o r c e f u l a n d c o n d e n s e d f o r m .

As I read, for example an article, Imake insertions in the margins aroundideas that I think are crucial to thearticle. These "organizing ideas" reallyrepresent the shorthand for gainingaccess quickly to the most importantaspects of the article as I interpret

them. I then duplicate sections of anarticle that contain the organizingideas I have marked. Once I do that,I read the condensed version of thearticle again, take notes, and create acover sheet. This provides me with avery quick way of reviewing a piece.It allows me to see relationships thatord inar i l y would be d i f f i cu l t torecognize.

The most difficult part of writing forme is not the lack of ideas to writeabout, but rather figuring out how todevelop a problematic in which toexplore an idea and then how tosequence it. That is a real challengein my own writing and one I takequite seriously. I can't write anythinguntil I have figured out where I amgoing with a project, how I am goingto develop it, and where it is goingto end up.

“Where I grew uplearning was a

collective activity.But when I got to

school and tried toshare learning withother students that

was called cheating.The curriculum sentthe clear message to

me that learningwas a highly

individualistic,almost secretive,

endeavor. Myworking-class

experience didn'tcount. Not only didit not count, it was

disparaged”.

Border Crossing, 1993

About his Students

My students have been for the entirety of my career,without any question whatsoever, the life-sustainingforce that kept me going. I love my students, especiallytheir energy, critical openness, and their ability to movei n a n d o u t o f d i f f e r e n t t h e o r e t i c a l t e r r a i n s .

They have always provided for me an inspiration, andmodel of hope and learning. Students represent notjust people you work with, they also represent a visionfor the future. I am never concerned about theparticularities of their politics as much as I am abouttheir ability to think critically, to defend their positions,to be sensitive to what it means to address a certaindegree of social and political responsibility for what

they say and do. My own teaching is rooted in doingall I can to provide the pedagogical conditions thatenable them to become agents, capable of governingand not just being governed, being able to take controlof their own lives and how they mediate it with thelarger society. If they adopt a left, progressive position,that would be great. But if they become critical agentsin ways that question the pedagogy of their own self-formation, and link that with the ethical imperative tobe able to define their lives in relation to othersoutside of merely instrumental criteria, I am satisfied.I plant seeds. And I hope that the planting of seedswill flower in ways that will eventually payoff for thestudents that I have and for the country in which Ilive. It's not a giant dream; it's a dream in moderation.It's a dream with constraints.

12 COVER S T O R Y

On Radical Education

Radical education doesn't refer toa d i s c i p l i n e o r a b o d y o fknowledge. It suggests a particularkind of practice and a particularposture of questioning receivedi n s t i t u t i o n s a n d r e c e i v e dassumptions. I would say in ageneral way that the basic premisesof radical education grew out ofthe crisis in social theory. Morespecifically, we can distinguish threet r a i t s : r a d i c a l e d u c a t i o n i sinterdisc ipl inary in nature, i tquestions the fundamental categoriesof all disciplines, and it has apublic mission of making societymore democratic. This last point isperhaps the principal reason whyradical education as a field is soexciting. We can take ideas andapply them.

On Being CriticalI can ' t conce ive o f a rad ica lposition that is not at the samet i m e , a n d e v e n i n t h e f i r s tinstance, critical both in historicalterms about the ways schools havee v o l v e d i n t h i s c o u n t r y a n dideo log ica l l y in t e rms o f theparticular kinds of values thatoperate in our schools and in ourpractices of education. Critical

education operates on two basicassumptions. One, there is a needfo r a l anguage o f c r i t i que , aquestioning of presuppositions.Radical educators, for example,criticize and indeed reject thenotion that the primary purpose ofpubl ic educat ion i s economicefficiency. Schools are more thancompany stores. They have themuch more radical purpose ofeducating citizens. Which is whythe second base assumption ofradical education is a language ofpossibility. It goes beyond critiqueto elaborate a positive language ofhuman empowerment.

On RadicalEmpowermentIt is the ability to think and actcritically. This notion has a doublereference: to the individual and tosociety. The freedom and humancapacities of individuals must bedeveloped to their maximum butindividual powers must be linked todemocracy in the sense that socialbetterment must be the necessaryc o n s e q u e n c e o f i n d i v i d u a lflourishing. Radical educators lookupon schools as social forms. Thoseforms should educate the capacitiespeople have to think, to act, to bes u b j e c t s , a n d t o b e a b l e t ounderstand the l imits of their

ideological commitments. That's aradical paradigm. Radical educatorsbe l i eve that the re la t ionsh ipbetween social forms and socialcapacities is such that humancapacities get educated to the pointof calling into question the formsthemselves. What the dominanteducational philosophies want is toeducate people to adapt to thosesocial forms rather than criticallyinterrogate them. Democracy is acelebration of difference, the politicsof difference, I call it, and thedominant philosophies fear this.

About his PhilosophyI find myself frequently falling backon a distinction John Dewey madeover for ty year s ago between“education as a function of society”and “society as a funct ion ofeducation.” In other words, areschools to uncritically serve andreproduce the existing society orchal lenge the soc ia l order todevelop and advance its democraticimperatives? Obviously, I opt forthe latter. I believe schools are themajor institutions for educatingstudents for publ ic l i fe . Morespecifically, I believe that schoolsshould function to provide studentswith, the knowledge, character, andmora l v i s ion that bu i ld c iv iccourage.

On Traditional Schooling

The rationality that dominatestraditional views of schooling andcurriculum is rooted in the narrowconcerns for effectiveness, behavioralobjectives, and principles of learningthat treat knowledge as somethingto be consumed and schools asmerely instructional sites designedto pass onto students a "common"culture and set of skills that willenable them to operate effectivelyin the wider society.

Steeped in the logic of technicalrationality, the problematic oftraditional curriculum theory andschooling centers on questionsabout the most thorough or mostefficient ways to learn specific kindsof knowledge, to create moralconsensus, and to provide modes ofschool ing that reproduce theexist ing society. For instance,

traditional educators may ask howthe school should seek to attain acertain predefined goal, but theyrarely ask why such a goal mightbe beneficial to some socioeconomicgroups and not to others, or whyschools , as they are presentlyo rgan i zed , t end to b lock thepossibility that specific classes willattain a measure of economic andpolitical autonomy.

The ideo logy that gu ides thepresent rationality of the school isrelatively conservative: it is primarilyconcerned with how-to questionsand does not question relationshipsbetween knowledge and power orbetween culture and politics. Inother words, questions concerningthe role of school as an agency ofsocial and cultural reproduction ina class-divided society are ignored,as are questions that illuminate theintersubjective basis of establishingmeaning, knowledge, and what are

c o n s i d e r e d l e g i t i m a t e s o c i a lrelationships.

T h e i s s u e o f h o w t e a c h e r s ,students, and representatives fromthe wider society generate meaningtends to be obscured in favor ofthe issue of how people can mastersomeone e l se ' s meaning, thusdepoliticizing both the notion ofschool culture and the notion ofclassroom pedagogy.

In my view, this is a limited andsometimes crippling rationality. Itignores the dreams, histories, andvisions that people bring to schools.Its central concerns are rooted ina false notion of objectivity and ina d i s c o u r s e t h a t f i n d s i t squintessential expression in theattempt to posit universal principlesof education that are lodged in theethos of instrumentalism and a self-serving individualism.

On the ‘Deformity’ of EducationalReforms

Most of them (educational reforms) have to my wayof thinking been misguided. What has been the thrustof these reforms? Back to basics , merit pay, astandardized curriculum, raising test scores, evaluationcriteria, and the like. This is just another version ofthe technological fix that ignores the philosophicalquestions. It is quantifying the educational process ina belief that the outcome will be some kind ofexcellence or economic competence.

All of this suggests to me that those who are pushingthese reforms have no educational philosophy at all.We have to ask what the purposes of education are,what kind of citizens we hope to produce. To say thattest scores are the answer is to beg the question of"What do test scores measure anyway?"

Here is a story that perfectly illustrates the point. JoeClark, a school principal in Newark, has been toutedby many reformers as the paragon of what an innerschool educator should be. How does Clark operate?He marches through the halls of his school with a

bullhorn and a baseball bat, publicly berating anybodywho flouts his authority. When students misbehave theymust learn the school anthem and sing it over theP.A. system. Clark is given credit for restoring authorityto the school and for raising the test scores of hisstudents. What that report omits is that some ninehundred students, most of them minorities, have beenexpelled to roam the streets with bleak prospects. Onehas to ask: What educational philosophy motivates thiskind of action? What sense of learning do studentsget? How do teachers teach in such a context?

It brings to the fore for me the crucial role ofpedagogy and the question of how we learn to becomesubjects who engage not only our own self-formationbut the possibilities for society at any given time. Howdoes one come to self-understanding? How does onesituate oneself in history? How do we relate questionsof knowledge to power? How do we understand thelimitations of our institutions, or even of our age?

Those are pedagogical questions. Radical educatorsunderstand them to be political questions as well. Butlet's face it, this is a lost discourse. None of the manyrecent reports about educational reform even scratchesthe surface of this problem.

COVER S T O R Y 13

If schools are to fulfill their obligations to educatestudents to assume the demands of social citizenshipand democratic leadership while living in a globaleconomy, educators need to redefine the meaning andpurpose of schooling itself in ways that both strengthenthe practice of critical education and energizerepresentative democracy. That is, progressive educatorsneed to define higher and public education as aresource vital to the democratic and civic life of thenation. An issue here is the need to educate studentswith the knowledge and skills they will need to engagethe public world, to become actors on a larger stageand to engage in an ongoing public conversation abouteducational, political, social, and cultural issues. Thissuggests educational practices that connect criticalthought to collective action, knowledge and power toa profound impatience with the status quo,and human agency to social responsibility.

In addition to redefining the purpose andmeaning of schooling as part of a broaderattempt to revitalize and restructuredemocracy itself, educators need to rethinkwhat it means to define their roles interms that provide a sense of dignity andpower. More is needed than defendinghigher education as a vital sphere in which to developand nourish the proper balance between democraticpublic spheres and commercial power, between identitiesfounded on democratic principles and identities steepedin forms of competitive, self-interested individualismthat celebrate their own material and ideologicaladvantages. Given the current assault on public andprogressive forms of education, it is politically crucialthat educators at all levels of schooling be defendedas public intellectuals who provide an indispensablecivic service to the nation. Such an appeal cannot bemade merely in the name of professionalism but interms of the opportunities such intellectuals create foryoung people to learn how to govern rather than begoverned, locate themselves as critical agents, and begiven the opportunities to expand the possibilities ofdemocratic public life.

At the very least, making the pedagogical more politicalmeans viewing teachers as engaged public intellectuals,and teacher work as a form of intellectual labor, asopposed to defining it in purely instrumental andtechnical terms. It points to the connection betweenconception and practice, thinking and doing, andproducing and implementing as integrated activities thatgive teaching a sense of dignity, meaning, andempowerment.

This suggests that progressive educators must stronglyoppose those approaches to teacher education andpractice that regard teachers as merely technicians, andreinforce a technical, caste, and gendered division oflabor. It is crucial that educators collectively organizeand oppose current efforts throughout the world to

deskill teachers through the proliferation of managementby objectives schemes, testing schemes, and bureaucraticforms of accountability.

I also think that if teachers are to redefine the purposeand meaning of schooling and its impact on youth andthe broader society, they must recognize that both whatthey teach and how they teach must become subjectto critical analysis. Neither the knowledge that teachersteach nor the ways in which they teach are innocent;both are informed by values that need to be recognizedand critically engaged for their implications and effects.

Put differently, educators must register their ownsubjective involvement in the knowledge and practicesthat they use in the classroom. Explicit discussions of

14 COVER S T O R Y

Given the current assault on public andprogressive forms of education, it is

politically crucial that educators at alllevels of schooling be defended as publicintellectuals who provide an indispensable

civic service to the nation.

Redefining the Purpose andMeaning of Schooling

Giroux’s call for

what, how, and why we teach and learn are crucial toturning our own political, cultural, and ideologicalinvestments into a resource for making authority theobject of self-critique as well as an application of socialcritique.I am suggesting here that educators provide thecondit ions for s tudents to recognize that therelationship between knowledge and power can beemancipatory, that their histories and experiencesmatter, and that what they say and do can count aspart of a wider struggle to intervene in and changethe world around them. More specifically, teachers needto argue for forms of pedagogy that close the gapbetween the school and the real world.

The curr iculum needs to be organized aroundknowledge that relates to the communities, cultures,and traditions that give students a sense of history,identity and place. In short, educators must be criticallyattentive to the cultural resources that students bringto schools. In part, this suggest that educators becomeborder crossers, willing to examine the multiple sitesand cultural forms that young people produce to createtheir own means of being heard.

Many educators and adults need to redefine their ownunderstanding of the new technologies, the new globalforces that support them, and the new literacies they

have produced. The new media, including the Internetand computer culture, need to become serious objectsof educational analysis. The social affiliations, groups,and cultural experiences these media produce amongyoung people must be incorporated into the schoolcurricula as seriously as the study of history, Englishand language arts.

Such an approach suggests pedagogical practices thatdo more than make learning context specific, it alsopoints to the need to expand the range of culturaltexts that inform what counts as knowledge. Forexample, educators need to understand and use thoseelectronically mediated knowledge forms that constitutethe terrain of popular culture. This is the world ofmedia texts-videos, films, music, and other mechanismsof popular culture constituted outside of the technology

of print and the book. The content of the curriculumneeds to affirm and critically enrich the meaning,language, and knowledge that students actually use tonegotiate and inform their lives. Unfortunately, thepolitical, ethical, and social significance of the role thatpopular culture plays as the primary pedagogicalmedium for young people remains largely unexamined.

Informal learning for many young people is directlylinked to their watching CD-ROM'S, videos, films,television, and computers. Students need to learn howto read these new cultural texts critically, but theyshould also learn how to create their own cultural textsby mastering the technical skills needed to producetelevision scripts, use video cameras, write programs forCD-ROMS, and produce television documentaries. Thisis not a matter of pitting popular culture againsttraditional curricula sources as it is a matter of usingboth in a mutually informative way. But the newtechnologies must also be studied as part of a broaderanalysis of global capitalism its globalization of cultureand capitalization of everything else.

We need to approach educational reform as a questionof political and moral leadership and not simply as anissue of management. As committed educators, we needto honor the lives of children by asking importantquestions such as what schools should accomplish in

a democracy and why they fail, and howcan such a failure be understood within abroader set of political, economic, spiritual,and cultural relations. We need to remindo u r s e l v e s i n t h i s t i m e o f r a m p a n tindividualism that consumerism should notbe the only form of citizenship offered toour children, and that schools shouldfunction to serve the public good and notbe seen merely as a source of privateadvantage removed from the dynamics ofpower and equity.

I realize this sounds a bit utopian, but we need tofight for a future that does not repeat the present.This suggests that educators work diligently andtirelessly to make despair unconvincing and hopepractical, by creating in the words of Czech PresidentVaclav Havel, "a society that makes room for therichest possible restructuring and the richest possibleparticipation in public life." Defining themselves less asmarginal, avant-garde figures or as professionals actingalone, educators must recover their role as criticalcitizens and organize collectively in order to addressthose economic, political, and social problems that mustbe overcome if both young people and others are goingto take seriously a future that opens up rather thancloses down the promises of a viable and substantivedemocracy.

COVER S T O R Y 15

As committed educators, we need tohonor the lives of children by askingimportant questions such as what schoolsshould accomplish in a democracy andwhy they fail and how can such a failurebe understood within a broader set ofpolitical, economic, spiritual, and culturalrelations.

Paulo Freire on GirouxHenry Giroux is a thinker, as well as an excellent professor. This, in itself,would be sufficient enough to influence positively the numerous students whocome into contact with his powerful critical discourse each semester. Thisaffirmation may suggest, to someone who is less critical, the possibility thatone could be an excellent professor, or simply a professor, without having tothink profoundly about the relationship that the object of his or her teachinghas with other objects. In fact, this is not possible. It is not viable to writeor talk about contexts or themes, or to teach them in isolation, withoutseriously taking into account those cultural, social, and political forces thatshape them.

Giroux's creativity, his openness to questions, his curiosity, his doubt, hisuncertainty with respect to certainties, his courage to take risks, and hisrigorous methodological and theoretical approaches to important themescharacterize him as one of the great thinkers of his time not only in theUnited States, but also in many foreign countries where he is widely andcritically read and where the force and clarity of his thinking have contributedto the shaping of current philosophical and educational discourse.

Peter McLaren on GirouxGiroux continues to provide an important service to educators because hespeaks directly to the problems and issues facing the future of our schoolsand our society at large. Giroux recognizes that if we ask history no questionsit will remain silent. And it is under the cover of such a silence that history

can be revisited with the injustices and inhumanity that have,in the past, placed the world in so much peril. Giroux's

success at confronting history's structured silences anddeveloping a new vision of a society grounded in hope

and liberating struggle has made himone of the most challenging and

significant theorists of education onthe present scene, and certainlyone of the most prol i f ic and

perceptive analysts of schoolingwriting today.

PETER McLAREN PAULO FREIRE

Dr. Tariq RahmanAn Interview for

EDucate!MASHHOOD RIZVI

UR On...

Tariq Rahman, Ph.D., is an acclaimed Pakistani scholar specializing in Linguistics. He is currently Professor

of Linguistics and South Asian Studies at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad and has been a full Professor

at the University of Sana’a, Yemen and Fulbright research scholar at the University of Texas, Austin. As head

of the Department of English, he has the distinction of introducing a Masters program in Linguistics and English

Language Training at the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. He writes with simplicity and clarity and

increasingly draws on the two disciplines of history and politics. Among his many published books Language

a n d Po l i t i c s i n Pa k i s t a n a n d L a n g u a g e , I d e o l o g y a n d Po w e r a r e c o n s i d e r e d l a n d m a r k s .

In this exclusive interview with EDucate!, he talks about progressive education, the role of intellectuals in the

public sphere.

I understand that you belong toan elite background in terms ofyour schoo l ing, your ear ly

u p b r i n g i n g e t c . W h e r e i s t h i sprogressiveness coming from then? Is itnot a paradox for you too?

Well, I don’t really know where this progressivenesscomes from because it wasn’t in the family. I wasbrought up in Pakistan Military Academy where myfather worked and ret ired as the Head of theMathematics Department. So he himself had entirelydifferent ideas than mine. The family was from Indiaand they were feudal lords. My grandfather had thetitle of ‘Khan Sahab’ so the tradition in the family wasentirely different. I went to an elite English mediumschool which was highly snobbish. But I rememberwhen I was very young, during a family get-togetherwhen everyone was talking about my grandfather withgreat pride, all I said was that he was a robber. Myfather was stunned. I explained that he took awayeverything produced by the peasants and that was whyhe was rich. My family defended him by saying thathe wasn’t rich but had to pay a lot of interest andloans. I remember even now, I said if somebody takesa loan that’s besides the point, nevertheless, he hadthat title and he must have pleased the British byrobbing his own people. I was very young. I wasperhaps at best 12 but I had read that small book on1857 which made me say that anyone with a titleafter 1857 was a stooge.

Yet, I went into the army. In those days whoeverwanted a good job at a young age generally joined thearmy. But my reasons were very different from others– I went into the army to escape from society not justto get a job. And I thought it was a very safe placeto go. I did not go there for any heroic reasons; Iwent perhaps for all the wrong ones. But there too Irealized I was in the wrong profession because Ithought the worse that could happen was to get killed.But I soon learned that the worst was to kill people.So I decided to leave.

The progressive ideas came from books – Russell whomI read and others. I have been a voracious reader.Initially, when I discussed these radical ideas with myfamily and friends, I was opposed from all fronts. NowI can discuss these ideas with my wife with a greatersense of understanding and support. My family andfriends are very much rightwing. My children want tobe westernized; they are into material goods and bigmoney jobs far more than I ever was. For me it wasalways a means to an end, for them it is very differentand perhaps my ideas will die with me.

So in a way you are also an advocate ofwhat greats like Chomsky have been saying

… to be free, to be able to rise against injustice.

Chomsky is a great optimist. To what extent thesethoughts apply to my own self can be extensivelydebated. I have far less knowledge of human natureand the philosophy of language. I really cannot reachthe depth of his work. It does appear to me howeverthat there are two or three ways in which we reactto the universe. First the genetic code which comesfrom maybe ten generations. There may be a case inwhich we can escape that and make a leap likeChomsky himself and others like him have done. Thesecond is the way we are brought up; that too somecan escape and that I suppose I might have and Ibelieve Chomsky too in some ways. Thirdly, perhapsthe cognitive abilities and some other sense ofidentifying right from wrong. I do not know how it iscreated. I do not know whether it is genetic or it’s amiracle.

Why I feel that everybody cannot recognize, or evenif they do recognize what is good and what is bad,cannot act upon it, is because human beings aremostly impressed by power and have negative traitstoo. Because of this they are impressed by those whoare ‘successful’. Let me give you an example; I feelthat not everybody who went to listen to Chomsky,when he visited Pakistan, was sympathetic to his ideasand beliefs. They belonged to the elite and they carriedattributes which Chomsky is fundamentally opposed to.The elites want to keep things for themselves –appropriate things and pleasures like physical pleasures,mental pleasures, egoistic pleasures, intellectual pleasuresetc. For them to be able to say later on that they metChomsky is a pleasure. It is a distinction the elitesthink they ought to have. Their self image implies thatevery distinction should be theirs – being seated at acertain place, having a certain kind of car, speaking acertain kind of language in a certain way etc. So theelites do listen to people but for their own interestand distinction not for any compassionate reason.

Then what is the point talking to them? Imean if they are not going to be listening

for any constructive purpose, rather only tomaintain the status quo then we might as wellnot talk to them at all?

Well, I also feel that not everyone will listen orrespond to the progressive thoughts, ideas or thinkers,but the point is someone will. And so things dochange – things have changed. I mean the idea thatsomething like human rights, whether we follow it ornot or the West is following it better than us is of

UR O n . . .

Q:

18

Q:

Q:

course open to debate, has happened. That is whynoble and brave ideas and efforts, efforts such as yourEDucate! must be supported not because everyone willsubscribe to what you are saying but because somepeople will and they might formulate a pressure groupor even a movement and try to change the existingstatus quo.

Intellectuals across the world are of theview that the public sphere and space

required for intellectual discourse and for anymeaningful social change is under attack. Whatis your view?

The concept of public space or sphere is a fairlycomplicated one. I’ll just briefly go into history in orderto explain. I believe that nobody can be God. I believethat no matter how controlling the situation is, nobodycan do each and everything the way they want to. Ibelieve that the attack on public sphere and spaceshas always been with us but there are people whofight against it, there are people who rise against itand no matter what the consequences they don’t wantto let go of that space which is why that space hasalways existed and still exists.

I believe that in terms of nation states, the state allowsa few things and a few things go unnoticed. Take theexample of our society; we can throw litter because

the state is not bothered about it . Ours is aninefficient society and public sector, therefore, we canfeel free to throw litter. In Singapore, on the otherhand, you can’t do that because the state is veryc o n c e r n e d a n d y o u w i l l b e h u n t e d f o r t h a t .

Nowadays, I totally agree with you, they really wantto track us down, there are passports and identitycards, all sorts of gadgets attached to a human being.They can track us down whenever they want to. Inshort they can pinpoint almost everyone everywhere.So what I mean is if the oppressors wanted tocompletely control any movement for social justice, theexisting world would be far more frightening than themedieval world. So if the little space exists today it isnot because they wanted to give it to us but becausepeople have fought hard to create it. It is difficult forthem to attack people like Chomsky. Chomsky is toowell known and if they were to do something to him,obviously it would be all over the media. But they canalways eliminate you and me because we are virtuallyunknown as compared to greats like Chomsky. If weget spared it’s not because there is a strategic creationof that space by the oppressors, it’s because they knowit’s not that easy to overturn us. Again I would liketo mention your courageous effort EDucate! – yourmagazine signifies that there is space for people, youngpeople like yourself, to get engaged in a meaningfuldiscourse towards social change and social justice.

I want you to respond tos o m e t h i n g I a s k e d

Chonsky. I feel uncomfortable,when I talk about social justice,l iberat ion of the poor frompoverty and oppression. Becausew e c o m e f r o m p r i v i l e g e dbackgrounds and have had eliteeducation, our l ifestyles arecompletely detached from thosewe claim to be fighting for. Sothe argument is can we becomespokespersons for those we don’tcompletely relate to?

This is partially true for those whobelong to the elite society. Andyou’re right we do have supportmechanisms and assurances to fallback upon. We may have hugesalaries, houses and friends we knowwill bail us out at the end of theday. That certainly is there. This iswhat makes us credib le in myopinion. That despite this supportsystem and privileges we want to be

19

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the voice of the voiceless asmentioned in one of thesections of your magazine.Therefore, for people like us,t o m a ke a n e f f o r t i s a scommendable as perhaps thee f fo r t s o f the oppre s sedthemselves.

The reason why I used theword commendable, is notbecause we are somehowsuperior and have despite allthe privileges created thatstruggle but because peopledo not necessarily want toput these privileges at stake.

But we do . And we do i t i r re spect ive o f theconsequences. That is where our mettle is tested whenwe are faced with the consequences. We could haveeasily used these privileges to be co-opted, like manyothers have historically or in present times. But we usethese privileges to stand against oppression and we puteverything at stake. I think that is what makes ourstruggle commendable. I would also like to mentionhere that because of these privileges and remaining inthe limelight we have created a vocabulary, a languagefor the oppressed of the world and that is what causesmore movements to shape up for social justice.

You think linking education to employmentor market needs can be damaging to the

very mean ing and e s sence o f educa t ion?

Not long ago when here in the Subcontinent themadrassah system was fully functional, knowledge andthe way knowledge was transferred was very differentthan what it is today. Students would choose to goplaces and explore for themselves, bring knowledge fromnature and primarily learn from their own environment,from each other and from their fellow human beings.

But things have totally changed. In those days studentswere not dependent on a prescribed program given bythe university, teacher or somebody else. People usedto choose a particular way of life and had the freedomto go about it. That system was disseminating moraland spiritual values, which unfortunately today’seducational system has little or nothing to do with.

Today we tell our children that they should never wantto be seated on the floor but should always prefersitting in a lavish drawing room. Our educationalsystem is promoting materialistic values, basically theentire system is standing on materialism and additionaldamage is caused by stratification of knowledge and

special izat ion, which I am not a great fan of.

Previously people used to be nomads of knowledge,they used to go from one area to another and learnfrom each other and share and transfer skills andknowledge. Now what is happening is that you needa particular certificate to be someone. I would love toteach my students to go places and stop worryingabout a job or a piece of paper that is the certificate.I would love to encourage them to gain knowledgeand wisdom and be streetwise instead. I would reallylike to do all that but I am not allowed to, to a greatextent. I have to complete the course, they have topass an examination. They must find a job and waysto become rich by hook or crook. It happened withmy own life that although I was in the army I got outof it. I was lucky enough to survive that kind of lifeand did what I wanted to but not everyone is goingto do that. It involves a great sense of risk and attimes it is very dangerous. At times you lose your wayand you don’t really know where you are going. Attimes you don’t know what is right and what is wrongbut that is the whole beauty of being liberated fromabsolute thought controlling situations and decipheringvarious ways towards the truth.

Going back to how it happened with me, I just gotout of the army and applied for a scholarship. I waslucky to get it and if it wasn’t for that I don’t knowwhere I would be right now. So what I am trying tosay is that people don’t want to take such risksbecause they have invested heavily in their educationand want immediate returns.

What do you think is the real essence ofeducation? What radical changes would you

suggest in our educational system?

Well, historically speaking, the essence was to pass onvalues, the consensus of values which has generallyremained in the interest of the privileged. So generallyeducation passes on values which are in the interestof the powerful and therefore has played a central rolein keeping the power structures intact rather thanchallenging the injustices that exist.

The analysis that I have carried out in the languagetext or for that matter for education, categorizeseducation into three distinct categories. The first oneis that education is for the consensus of values, thesecond thing it does is teach some skills. Those skillsmight be social skills, poetry, language or they can beother skills which can help you earn money. The thirdone is the intellectual form of education which meanssome people will always find ways to generate originalideas.

20 UR O n . . .

Today we tell our childrenthat they should never

want to be seated on thefloor but should always

prefer sitting in a lavishdrawing room. Our

educational system ispromoting materialistic

values, basically the entiresystem is standing on

materialism and additionaldamage is caused by

stratification of knowledgeand specialization, which I

am not a great fan of.

Q:

Q:

So I believe education is basically amind game, it’s like chess and whenwe talk of values then we can havecounter values too. That’s what Im e a n b y t h e r e a l e s s e n c e o feducation; we have an educationsystem but we have intellectuals whoform alternatives.

Responding to your question, what Iwould like to change is the valuepart of it. The skill part can remainparallel to the value part because Ibelieve once the values are going tochange, the nature of skills wouldautomatically change. For this reason,I have been very critical of theexisting form of education and thatis why when I teach and when Iwrite my main purpose is to makepeople think and to make peoplethink critically. So coming back tovalues, the first and foremost thingI would want to do is not hide thetruth under any circumstances. Iwould like to consciously inculcatevalues which would make peoplethink critically of the text that isprovided to them to be critical oft h e m s e l v e s a n d t h e i r a c t i o n s .

We are living in, as somesay, the dark age s and

ironically they are called the mosttechnologically advanced, but interms of the existing conditions ofhuman rights and violence, theseare the dark ages. What can bedone if the situation is so dismal?

I certainly feel a lot can be done and it has beendone and things will change. What I feel is that thisinformation glut in media is inadvertently changing alot of things. Not long ago people could be beaten upto death, even in our country, by feudal lords or bytyrannical people or dogs were thrown at blacks inSouth Africa. But now there is such an informationglut that it cannot happen just like that anymore. Itcan only happen now if the illegitimate forces aresomehow able to legitimize themselves and are able touse the same vocabulary as we use in our struggle forsocial justice. That is where the role of youngintellectuals and the role of intellectuals at large in

the society comes into play, to expose what is rightand what is wrong.

Any message that you want to give outthrough EDucate!

Yes. Efforts like EDucate! must be supported becausethe kind of society we are living in, it is absolutelyimperative to create a language that spreads awarenessto strengthen our civil society. We can internalize thesethings and create moral pressures. Movements like yoursand other movements and exposures to truth createconditions for people to distinguish what lies betweenthe truth and fabrications.

21UR O n . . .

Q:

Q:

ProfessionalDevelopment

Going Beyond SkillsDR. SHAHID SIDDIQUI

strengthening the status quo byfocusing the least on educationalchange.

In Pakistan there are a numberof teacher training col legesengaged in imparting teachereducation but the number is notsufficient to meet the demandsof untra ined teachers . Theproblem, however, is not justinaccessibility but also the qualityof teacher education. Warwickand Reimers (1995) refer tosome of the factors responsiblefor the fa l l ing standards ofe d u c a t i o n . T h e y i n c l u d eunmotivated faculty and students;inactive principals; a curriculumdivorced from the real problemsfaced in teaching; heavy relianceon lecturing, dictation, and rotememor i za t ion ; cheat ing onexaminations and a lack ofsupervision.

Another factor that is rarelyreferred to is the notion ofprofessional development existingin most of the teacher educationinstitutes. It is this orthodoxnotion that impacts the content,execution, and assessment of the

eacher education is considered to be an important vehicleto br ing educat ional change and improve schools .Unfortunately a number of professional development programs

in Pakistan lay extra emphasis on skills. The tyranny of method tendsto enslave majority of teachers who spend most of their teachinglives wearing the shackles of a given set of techniques. Most of theteachers remain unaware of the rationale or the underlying logic ofthe proposed strategies and use them without being sensitive to thegiven context. Consequently the teachers, in many cases, do not getthe desired results. This situation leads to frustration and the teachersbecome skeptical of the role of teacher education in their professional

development. One of the importantnotions the teacher training programstend to underestimate is the factthat a change in ‘method’ can onlybe effective if it is coupled withreflection, change in beliefs andattitudes.

Teacher education is considered tobe an important vehicle to bringeducational change. Among fourcommon places of curriculum e.g.students, teachers, teaching materialsand s choo l m i l i eu , t eache r i sbelieved to play a pivotal role toenhance and enrich a curriculumand thus impact the s tudents ,teaching materials and the schoolmilieu. Unfortunately the majority ofteacher educat ion programs inPakistan are designed, executed andassessed in an orthodox manner

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T

22

D R . S H A H I D S I D D I Q U I

Dr. Shahid Siddiqui has done his Ph.D.in Language Education from Universityof Toronto, Canada, M.Ed. TESOL fromthe University of Manchester, UK; andM.A. English from University of Punjab.Currently Dr. Siddiqui is working at theG h u l a m I s h a q K h a n I n s t i t u t e o fEngineering Sciences and Technologywhere he heads the ManagementSciences and Humanit ies Program.

teacher education programs. Traditionally, in mostof the teacher education institutes in Pakistan, theprofessional development was equated withknowledge and scholarship. So the whole emphasiswas to accumulate knowledge via different meansmainly through the textbooks and lectures. Thisview reigned for a long time in educationaldomains until it was challenged by the viewpointthat just knowing about something is not enoughbut we do need something beyond that as well.

We then see the focus shifting to skills suggestingthat Professional Development means acquiringexpertise in the relevant skills. This shift, in fact,marks an important change in the conceptualizationof the notion of Professional Development, i.e., justknowing is not enough but doing plays a crucialpart in one’s professional development. This ideaof being capable of doing and delivering got instantacceptance in the organizations and with themanagers as it hinges on the competency-basedparadigm. The administrators liked this approachas it is ‘clearly focused, easily organized, andpackaged and relatively self-contained’ (Hargreaves& Fullan, 1992).

This view of professional development led to extraemphasis on teaching skills, as main corpus ofteacher education programs. These skills may

include the stereotype jargons of pair work, groupwork, cooperative learning groups, movement inthe classroom, eye contact, student -centeredclassroom, student-talking-time etc. These strategiesare given as a panacea for -all the ills in theclassroom. This view of professional developmentlooks at teachers as subjects, who are trained byexperts and who simply cannot develop themselves.Most of the student-teachers remain ignorant ofthe rationale or the underlying logic of theproposed strategies. Consequently the teachers, inmany cases, do not get the desired results. In mostof the cases the WHY box remains unshaken andthe teachers remain unclear about the logic orspirit behind using a certain strategy. Dalin (1993),commenting on this situation suggests, “To replaceone practice with a new one may simply mean toreplace one rigidity with another.”

One of the important notions in majority of theteacher education programs tend to underestimateis the fact that a change in methodology cannever be effective unless a change in beliefs andattitudes of teachers takes place. The result ofoveremphasizing the techniques and skills in theclassroom is that teachers become technicians andlittle room is left for creativity and reflection.

Consequently the majority of these teachereducation colleges seem to have little effect on thequality of education in the schools and colleges.

The most contemporary approach underlines thesignificance of attitude, besides knowledge andskills. This view point stresses the need of acharacter change, the inside-out approach. Covey(1992) refers to the importance of this approach:

It simply makes no difference how good therhetoric is or even how good the intentionsare; if there is little or no trust, there is nofoundation for permanent success. Only basicgoodness gives l i fe to technique. (p.21)

Senge (1990), quoted by Dalin (1993), equatesprofessional development with learning whichaccording to him enables us to ‘re-perceive theworld and our relationship to it’. This view ofprofessional development, like learning, is fluid andflexible that suggests that professional developmentis not an event but a continuous process. Similarlythe professional development is not a one shotphenomenon.

Fullan (1990) brings forth another important aspectof professional development, i.e., its complementarynature with regard to organizational development.

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G 23

One of the important notions in majority ofthe teacher education programs tend to

underestimate is the fact that a change inmethodology can never be effective unless achange in beliefs and attitudes of teachers

takes place.

According to him staff development is both astrategy for specific, instructional change, and astrategy for basic organizational change in the wayteachers work and learn together. This aspect ofprofessional development is crucial to be understoodand practiced.

What is central to the issue is the realization thatteachers have a very rich repertoire of knowledge,i.e., Personal Practical Knowledge (PPK) whichneeds to be discovered and acknowledged. Thisview l inks back to Dewey ’s (1938) call foreducation based on a philosophy of experience.Connelly and Clandinin (1988) describe personalpractical knowledge as a term designed to capturethe idea of experience in a way that allows us totalk about teachers as knowledgeable and knowingpersons. The real problem, however, is how tofacilitate teachers to a) realize the significance ofPPK, b) activate, c) update, d) and make use ofit. There have been a few attempts to focus on‘self’ or ‘personal’, e.g., we come across terms like‘reflection’ (Zeichner, 1983; Calderhead, 1989),‘reframing’ (Schon, 1987) and ‘knowing in action’(Schon, 1987), Hewson et al., 1992). One of theways to develop critical thinking and reflectiveapproach i s the use of re f lect ive journals .

An extra emphasis on skills also led to a sense ofresentment on the part of teachers who believedtheir ‘voice’ had been suppressed and it shouldsurface at the right forum. This point of view isfavored by the school of thought that believes thatpersonal growth is tied to professional growth andif we need to focus on Professional Developmentwe have to bring in the lives of people engagedin action. Knowledge and skills cannot bring amean ing fu l change un le s s the re i s a s e l f -understanding of the person involved in theprocess. As Covey (1992) suggests:

…if we wanted to change the situation, wefirst had to change ourselves. And to changeourselves effectively, we first have to changeour perceptions. (p. 18)

The underpinning thought of this approach wasthat to bring a change in just a bunch of activitieswill not do unless we explore and ‘unfreeze’ theold beliefs and reconceptualize the idea ofprofessional development. It is, therefore, crucialfor any teacher education program to realize thesignificance of teachers’ belief system and thenature of relationship between beliefs and practicesbecause a meaningful change can never take placeunless teachers reconceptualize some basiceducational notions that inspire the new practices.Marland (1993) refers to this relationship bysuggesting that the classroom actions of teachersare guided by internal frames of reference whichare deeply rooted in personal experiences. Theteachers’ beliefs influence the way they perceivethings, they interpret a curriculum or the way theyteach. On the same line of argument Richardson(1996) suggests to give due consideration toteachers’ beliefs in order to be able to conductteacher education which can help to developteacher thinking.

Having looked at various positions on professionaldevelopment we should be looking for a model ofprofessional development that takes care ofknowledge, skills, and attitudes. In other words aprofessional development program should involvehead, hand, and heart. This model should bebased on continuous learning that helps theindividuals and organizations cope with thechanging situations by re -perceiving and re -positioning themselves.

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Calderhead, J. (1989). Reflective teaching and teacher education,Teaching and Teacher Education, 5, pp.43-51.

Covey, S. (1992). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.Simon & Schuster Ltd.

Dalin, P. (1993). Changing the School Culture. Cassell & theImtec Foundation

Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think, New York: Health and Co.

Fullan, M. (1990). The New Meaning of Educational Change.Teachers’ College Press.

Hargreaves and Fullan (1992). Teacher Development andEducational Change. Falmer Press.

References

Hewson, P., Zeichner, K., Tabachnick, B., Blomaker, K., & Toolin,R. (1992). A Conceptual change approach in Science TeacherEducation at the university of Wisconsin- M a d i s o n . p a p e rpresented at the American educational research association, SanFrancisco.

Richards, J. and Lockhart, C. (1994). Reflective Teaching in secondLanguage Classrooms, New York: Cambridge Univers i ty.

Schon, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner, SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass.

Warwick, D. P. and Reimers, F. (1995). Hope or Despair: Learningin Pakistan’s Primary Education, London: Praeger Publishers.

Zeichner, K. (1983). Alternative Paradigms of Teacher Education,Journal of Teacher Education, 34, pp. 3-9.

Being Criticalof Pedagogy

What is it? What is it not?SHILPA JAIN

ve r the l a s t s eve ra lmonths, I have beenthinking a lot about

‘pedagogy’: What is it? What isit not? In what settings does itappear? And in which settingsdo people learn and do withoutit?

As far as I can understand, welabel ‘pedagogy’ as the practicesand behaviors of what we call a‘teacher’. Our major referencepoint for the term ‘teachers’ isthose who work within a systemo f e d u c a t i o n , i . e . s c h o o l s ,universities and colleges. In otherwords, when most children oryoung people are asked, “Who isy o u r [ f a v o r i t e / b e s t / w o r s t ]teacher?”, they know to replywith the name of a person wholeads the classes in their school.For most of us, this referencep o i n t d o m i n a t e s o u runderstanding of ‘teacher’ whilewe are in school , and evenwhen we are out of it (i .e.,“Which teacher had the mostimpact on your life?”)

But then, at some point, manyof us also create a differentreference point for ‘teacher’:

O

1 Note: I have chosen to focus on the best case scenarios, which the readershould see as exceptions, not as the rule. Of course, this means ignoring 95%of my experience with school/college teachers. But by looking at my bestexperiences, I can prove my point without being dismissed as “only focusing onthe bad” and “not considering good teachers.” I share my experience with goodteachers, because they still demonstrate the difference between system-ascribedteachers and personally-ascribed teachers, as well as the difference betweenpedagogy and sharing.

those people in our lives, from whom (or because of whom) we feelwe have understood some important value, or discovered a hiddenpotential, or been able to see the world – or ourselves – differently.Many things may distinguish these ‘teachers’ from those describedabove, but perhaps the most obvious difference is that they have nottaken this label upon themselves. Rather, it is what we ascribe tothem and their place in our lives – usually after the fact, whilereminiscing or reevaluating an experience. At the same time, these‘teachers’ may never have considered us their ‘students’. Again, it islikely to be we who have taken on this identity, based on how wefeel we have ‘studied’ and understood something (or ourselves) with,from or because of them.

I’ll try to clarify this distinction with a personal example. Mrs. Perkinswas my favorite teacher in elementary school. She read wonderfulstories to us; she rarely scolded anyone; she let us do creativeprojects and was generally warm and kind. I do not remember anyof the content of Mrs. Perkins’ teaching, but I do remember herdemeanor. If I concentrate deeply, I can think of two or three othert e a c h e r s i n m y f o r m a lschooling, who I rememberfondly – again, not because ofthe content of their classes,but rather because of thew a r m e n v i r o n m e n t t h e ycreated (at least for me).1 Incontrast, my grandmother,w h o h a s n e v e r b e e n t oschool, is currently my mostfavorite teacher (although shewould probably laugh if Icalled her this in public). Butf rom he r, no t on l y am Il ea rn ing Uda ipur ’ s l oca l

25

S H I L P A J A I N

Shilpa Jain is a learning activist forShikshantar in Udaipur, India. She hopesto continue researching and activatingthe link between learning and social-political-economic transformation, and therole of children, and youth in theselearning processes. Shilpa has a B.A.magna cum laude in Political Scienceand Women’s Studies from HarvardUniversity.

language, Mewar i , but a l sodiscovering wonderful folk taleswith powerful meanings, familycustoms, local festivals and newspiritual beliefs. Of late, she hasb e e n s h a r i n g w i t h m e h e runderstanding of daily livingpractices (cooking, cleaning,growing food, wearing clothes,etc.) that are in balance withnature. In addition to all of this‘content’, we are building afriendship of respect and lovethat wi l l last our l i fet imes.

C l e a r l y , t h e r e a r e m a n yd i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n m ygrandmother as my ‘teacher’ andMrs. Perkins as my teacher. Notthe least of which is that, unlikeMrs. Perkins, my grandmothercannot rank, evaluate, reward,punish, control or judge theextent of my learning and/or theextent to which I follow her‘teachings’. But more than that,I submit, is how each experiencediffers in its impact on my life,what it has meant for my ownsense of place and work, andsense of self. Though I havenice memories of Mrs. Perkins asa person, I would not describeher as my ‘teacher ’, for shemade little difference in how Isee the world, both from withinand from with out.

With all of this in mind, I turnto pedagogy and, specifically,critical pedagogy. If I understandcorrectly, this term refers to “theart of teaching in a way thatcritically questions the dominantsocial, political and economicsystem, its institutions, processes,a n d a t t i t u d e s ” . I t c a l l s t oattention certain injustices andexploitations, and hopes to leadstudents to raise questions, makedemands, challenge wrong-doings,and u l t imate l y change thesystem. This all sounds good,

especially when we consider theseverity of the crises we arefacing today, which are clearlycaused by a particular model ofProgress and Development.

But the difficulty I have withcr i t ica l pedagogy i s that i tultimately traps one in the samemechanisms and processes thatone is being critical of. Forexample , who cont ro l s theprocess and content of criticalpedagogy? The teacher(s). S/hedetermines what one needs tobe critical of, where it is ‘right’(and where it is ‘wrong’) to becritical, to what extent ones h o u l d b e c r i t i c a l … Wi t hpedagogy, it is assumed thatyoung people are lacking info-knowledge; they are ignorant;and this ‘deficiency’ is somethingonly the teacher can remedythrough his/her teachings. Asoccurs with television and videogames, young people serve aspassive consumers of teachers’ideas, experiences and info -

knowledge – although they maybe rad ica l l y c r i t i ca l o f thedominant system. Students mayask questions, but the questionsare framed within the teacher’sreference points and are typicallyanswered by the teacher. Or theteacher knows the end point ofthe conversation and works tolead the students to it.

In this way, critical pedagogy isquite reminiscent of the Socraticmethod. And if we seriouslyconsider this similarity, we beginto realize how critical pedagogyworks against the principles ofcritical thinking. As soon as onebegins to see her/himself asSocrates – that is, as the keeperand disseminator of the ‘truth’ –s/he is participating in a kind ofpropaganda and thought-control,and is thereby replicating amajor part of the dominanteducation-economic-political-socialsystem.2

Again, one might say, “Well,

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

2 In “From Pedagogy for Liberation to Liberation from Pedagogy”, Dana Stuchul, Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakashconvincingly show how Paulo Freire, one of the world’s most well-known critical pedagogues, reproduced much of the colonizationand oppression he professed to be against. The full article is available at www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/ls3intro.htm.

26

...the difficulty I have with critical pedagogy is that itultimately traps one in the same mechanisms and

processes that one is being critical of.

what’s wrong with this? Clearly,the system is terr ib le . I t i shurting human beings and allforms of life. It is leading towar, violence, hatred, greed, etc.Why shouldn’t a teacher usecritical pedagogy to teach his/herstudents to understand andchallenge this? Their teachingsmay lead to real change insociety.”

I have several responses to thisassertion. The first is whetherthought-controlling means (nom a t t e r h o w g o o d t h e i rintentions) can lead to freelythinking ends . 3 As soon ascritical pedagogy is placed in thedominant education system, itmust conform to the hiddencurriculum: controlling studentst h r o u g h t e s t i n g , r a n k i n g ,punishment, rewards, competitionand hierarchies (whereby theylearn total deference to expertsand professionals).

The hidden curriculum alsomeans dividing knowledge intodiscrete disciplines, separatinghuman beings from nature andfrom manual labor, and breakingin te rgenera t iona l bonds o flearning. Therefore, althoughcritical pedagogy may offer youthstrong critiques of the nation-state, mass media and marketeconomy, unless it simultaneouslychallenges the rest of the hiddencurriculum, it will be helping tofoster the attitudes, desires andmindsets that fuel and expandt h e v e r y i n s t i t u t i o n s i t i scritiquing. For example, it isironic to launch a critique ofthe thoughts/actions of scientists(or presidents or movie stars),

while still expecting students todefer to the teacher’s thoughtsand actions.

A second response to criticalpedagogy is whether a criticalperspective towards the dominantsystem can even be taught.Over the last several months,Shikshantar has been collectingy o u n g p e o p l e s ’ s t o r i e s o fresistance and unlearning, thestories of how they came tochallenge the dominant model ofp r o g r e s s a n d i t s m a n ymani festat ions: technology,nationalism, particular genderrelations, religious constructs,etc.4

What has become clear to us,from writing our stories andreading others’ stories, is thatthere was rarely any connectionbetween schooling/teaching andresistance (except when thenegative effects of schooling wereresisted). Rather, the stories seemto indicate that young peopleneeded and created a diversityof experiences – doing andlearning in a variety of contexts,with a myriad of people – topursue their questions, unveiltheir confusions, and find clarityabout the dangers and fallaciesof the dominant economic -political -educational system.

This calls to mind the muchlarger ques t ion o f whetherquestioning, meaning -making,creating, dreaming, etc., can everreally be taught. Does pedagogy,critical or otherwise, make theseprocesses possible? Can youteach anyone to ask questions,or make meaning, or interpret

their experiences? Or are thesenatural human instincts, all partof what we call human learningand human doing, part of thegreat mystery of the humanmind and heart?5

I would like to replace pedagogy,the art of teaching, with theage -old ar t s o f shar ing andlearning together… In sharing,you offer your ideas, your beliefs,your talents, your experiences, toothers. Typically, this is donefreely, with little expectation ofreward or punishment for doingso. You may share orally orvisually, using expressive formslike film, paintings, writing ortheater. The key to sharing,though, is the vulnerability andhumility involved. As the sharer,you have to be open to anyresponse, mainly because there isno guarantee of what the otherperson (the share-ee) will feelabout what you are sharing.They are free to listen to you,appreciate you, discuss with you,r e j e c t y o u , o p t o u t o f t h eexperience, etc. Of course, asthe sharer, you will likely belively, kind, interesting, friendly– which those rare teachers inschools also can be. But thedifference is, in sharing, bothpeople get to make the choiceof how to engage with eachother; it is a mutually decided-upon interact ion (which i suntrue in schools).

Moreover, sharing builds uponour natural human instincts forquestioning, meaning -making,interpret ing, wonder ing, incommunity, together. As a sharero r a s a s h a r e - e e , y o u a r e

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3 I take this lesson from Gandhiji, among others, who reminds us that unjust and violent means can never lead to just or peacefulends. Incidentally, I think Gandhiji makes another valuable contribution to the discussion about critical pedagogy vs. sharing andco-learning, in his reminder to “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

4 Some o f these examples can be found on our webs i t e www.swara j .o rg/sh ik shan ta r / s to r ie s_ res i s tance .h tml

5 I thank Munir Fasheh, whose articles not only condemn schooling as anti-learning, but also share insights into natural learning,especially as demonstrated by his mother. See the Shikshantar website for some of his work.

27

actively learning and contributingin all regards. You can nurturespaces and relationships wherethese instinctive actions canhappen openly and dynamically,or you can (re)produce spacesand relationships in which theyare suppressed or controlled. Youcan create environments, throughyour being and doing, which canmake it easier (or more difficult)for people to express the i rc u r i o s i t y, t o ex p l o r e t h e i rquestions, to make mistakes, totake risks, etc. But ultimately,the tasks of doing, of learningand understanding, are up to theshare-ee, just as they have beenupon the sharer.6

To figure out the differencebetween teaching and sharing,you would have to ask:n Have you both entered into

the relationship with yourown consent and interest?

n Does one person have thepower to reward or punishthe behavior of the otherperson in the course of theinteractions?

n Does one person have thepower to rank or evaluatethe other?

n Does one person have morecontrol in determining thecourse of activities?

n If so, does the other personhave the option to leave?

n Am I open to any questions?Am I asking questions too?

n Am I r eady, hop ing andwilling to be surprised byw h a t c o m e s o u t o f o u rinteractions?

n A m I h o p i n g t o l e a r nsomething from the otherperson as well?

Personally, it has taken me some

t i m e t o u n d e r s t a n d t h i sd i f f e rence between cr i t i ca lpedagogy and sharing. I used toexpect people to believe me, toagree with me, as I ‘taught’them about the destructivenessand dehumanizat ion of thism o d e l o f E d u c a t i o n a n dDevelopment. I saw my rolewith chi ldren and youth as‘facilitating’ their understandingof this ‘truth’. But as I reflectedon my exper i ences , I haverealized that ‘teaching’ (i.e.,informing or guiding) cannot bethe path by which self - and

systemic-change will happen. IfI k n o w t h i s f r o m m y o w nexperience, why would I expectit not to be true for others aswell?

Deep learning, the kind thatleads one to self -change andsystemic action, begins fromwithin and seeks out spaces andr e l a t i o n s h i p s i n w h i c h t omanifest. But pedagogy, of anykind, necessarily begins from theoutside. And when it operateswithin a deficit-oriented cultureof schooling (of which the mass

media is a part), it ensures thatpower over learning remains outof young peoples’ hands. Yet, iti s t h i s p o w e r – o f a s k i n gquestions and interpreting andmaking meaning and makingchoices — that is needed forfacing the crises before us andfor generating creative newpossibilities for living together.

I have found that sharing opensu p d i f f e r e n t k i n d s o fo p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r s e l f -understanding and co-creation.B y n u r t u r i n g s p a c e s a n drelationships, through which wecan share our different framesfor viewing the world, we canbetter see the blocks in ourpercept ions – the boxes o frationality, neglect or disregardwe have created. We stop tryingto be ‘right’ or ‘the best’ andi n s t e a d t r y t o l i s t e n a n dunderstand. We then are able toshare in d i f f e rent peop le s ’realities, their multiple worldsand multiple truths. This helpsto create lively communities ofl earn ing, in which we f indf r i endsh ip and suppor t f o rdeepening and heightening ourthoughts and actions.

I have been trying this processwith children, youth and adultsover the last several months,o f t e n w i t h q u i t e i n - d e p t hlearning and growing for me andthe others involved. Indeed,sharing as a mind -frame andprocess has proven itself muchm o r e p a l p a b l e t o m e t h a ncritical pedagogy, because I havenot had to sacrifice the meansfor the ends. Being a sharer hasmade me vulnerable, which haskept me honest. It ensures thatI help to nurture an open spacei n w h i c h l e a r n i n g – n o t

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

6 My inspiration for this thought comes, in part, from the spirit behind Open Space Technology. This powerful method oforganization has one distinctive natural law, the Law of Two Feet. It states that each person is responsible for their own learningand contributing, and for judging the extent of their learning and contribution. Therefore, it is up to them to use their two feetto go where they can do this best.

28

I have found thatsharing opens updifferent kinds of

opportunities for self-understanding and co-creation. By nurturing

spaces andrelationships, throughwhich we can shareour different frames

for viewing the world,we can better see the

blocks in ourperceptions – the

boxes of rationality,neglect or disregard

we have created.

Education inPakistan

A Comment from the BackbenchersTHEMRISE KHAN

various lobbies who are working at bringing about a change in theway we look at education. Indeed, even the sparks of such a debateare the first steps towards positive change. But in order to makesure that one is moving in the right direction, it is important to beable to step back from the arguments from time to time and playdevil’s advocate.

We can begin the analysis by going back to the stories of yore toldto us by our grandparents. Theoretical literature puts forward theconcept of indigenous knowledge systems as one of the most superiorforms of learning. This involves drawing from existing traditionalpractices among peoples of various origins and passing down a wayof life among successive generations. Education, or more rather theformal school system, on the other hand, is what was created tosupplement or replicate this form of knowledge. Over the yearshowever, the institutionalization of education has taken over the morearchaic notion of indigenous knowledge, which is now seeking arevival as a supplement to formal education systems. In other words,the tables have turned completely.

But it is this very formal system that has been in operation forcenturies, that is now receivingcriticism in many countries of boththe developed and developing world.In the former due to the constantdevelopment of new methods ofteaching and learning, as well as at r e n d t o m o v e t o w a r d s m o r etraditional systems of knowledgesuch as oral culture, and in thelatter simply because of a totalcollapse of the state and economic

here are those who saythat education is thesolution to all evils of

society. Then there are thosewho say that education leads tothe birth of all evils in society.I w o u l d p u t t h e m a t t e rsomewhere in between thisradical spectrum. Having spent areasonab le amount o f t imef i e l d i n g o u t t h e w o e s a n dobstacles of the school system, itis not difficult to come to theconclusion that education evenin its most decent form, doesnot exist in Pakistan. Like withevery issue, this conclusion isa l so pr ivy to two oppos inglobbies. One that defies then o r m s , a n d a n o t h e r t h a tembraces it. While this is a veryhealthy and beneficial way ofa p p r o a c h i n g s o l u t i o n s a n dalternatives, in Pakistan, it seemsthat the debate i s actua l lyhelping to skirt the issues. Or isit?

The purpose of this comment isnot to judge which side is rightand which is wrong, nor is it toundermine the efforts of all the

T

29EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

T H E M R I S E K H A N

Themrise has an MSc. in DevelopmentManagement from London School ofEconomics. She has been professionallyassociated with a number of NGOs andinternational organizations mainly in ruraldevelopment, education and institutionalcapacity building in rural Sindh and low-income urban areas of Karachi. She iscurrent ly a f reelance developmentconsultant and research associate insocial policy.

support and service deliverymechanisms. It is unfortunate forthe fate of developing countries,that in addition to these failures,the alternatives being subscribedsuch as private schools or in thecase of Pakistan, the Madrassahschools, are equally prone tosuch adverse shocks. Speakingwholly in the Pakistani context,one can argue that it is herewhere one requires a greaterneed to invest in attitudinal andmethodological changes. Insteadhowever, the trend seems to beveering towards practices thatconcentrate more on where andwho to teach, rather than whatto teach and how.

To be fair, Pakistan is beginningto see the emergence of suchattitudinal investment, so tospeak. There has been reneweddebate about the dif ferencebetween ‘literacy’ (the ability to

read and write) and ‘education’( the ab i l i t y to l ea rn aboutvarious knowledge systems andsocial relations, among others).In the more radical circles ofeducational thought, the issue ofquality is considered to be ofgreater value than quantity.What is the point of establishingthousands of schools if theycannot even teach a child howto read or write? Schools do nothave to operate within thechardiwari of cement buildings,as long as what is being taughtis progressive and inspiring.Children huddled under theopen sky beneath the shade ofa tree following the alphabet ona makeshift blackboard, can beas effective as uniformed childrenusing the latest in technologyi n s i d e a s p a c i o u s a n d a i r ywhitewashed building. Hence,one does not necessarily requirea ‘school’ to impart knowledge.

Similarly, why not tap into achild’s own curious desire andnatural aptitude for explorationand learning, in order to instillin it a respect for knowledge,instead of burdening it with amass of poorly conceived andone-dimensional textbooks? Theseare the beginnings of the cultureof educational philosophy inPakistan for those who weren’taware of it.

But just as there exist these“ r a d i c a l s t r e a m s o fconsciousness”, there also existthe more conventional andtested approaches to education.The school is beyond doubt, thecenter of learning in the mindsof al l parents, teachers andchildren the world over. Seeingas this is a hard act to follow,the obvious answer has been touse the school itself as the pointof attitudinal change.

Easier said than done when youraudience is an apathetic stateand an even more apathetic, ormore rather, disillusioned parentand student body. On one sideis the uphill task to convince anadministration that the only waythere can be some change is toe m b r a c e t h e c o n c e p t s o fcommunity participation andeducational discourse, and onthe other is the task of havingto convince a community whohas given up bel ieving thatanything will change, that thechange cannot happen withoutthem.

In between this conundrumthrow in concepts of ‘schoolimprovement’, ‘teaching/learningmethodo log ie s ’ , ‘ c l a s s roomtechniques’, critical levels of‘engagement’ with students andt e a c h e r s , a n d y o u h a v e acomplex web of confusion, inwhich no one knows which sideto turn to. Hence the

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

What is the point of establishing thousands of schools ifthey cannot even teach a child how to read or write?

30

mushrooming of the privateschool system, which has givenn e w m e a n i n g t o t h e t e r m‘business investment’.

Like everything else in Pakistan,education has also been victimto a case of extremist notionsand underdeveloped ideas. Notthat there is any dearth of ideas.The fractionally minute sectionof the population who advocatefor radical change (does changealways have to be radical?) havea steady supply of them rangingfrom the ‘multiple intelligencetheory’ to resurrecting the ethosof the teachings of Sir SyedAhmad Khan and Allama Iqbal.But somehow these ideas seemto be eaten up, not so much inthe quagmire of bureaucracy andred-tape that exists here, butmore rather in the jumble ofthe sequencing of these ideas.

The question of what to putwhere, when and how, is onet h a t f e w a c a d e m i c s a n dpractitioners have yet tried toaddress. In countries like ours,the tussle rages between actuallybeing able to provide studentsand teachers with adequateshelter for their endeavors andenhancing the capability andmindset to put those endeavorsinto practice. Unconventionalideas tend to be ‘dropped in’ tothe middle of conventionalsettings, only to fade out aftertheir novelty has worn of f.

It reminds one of the story ofthe government primary schoolSupervisor, recently returned froma donor sponsored course abroad,who pointed out in one of theschools in a rural village, thatthe crumbling walls and floors ofthe school should be cemented,s o t h a t t h e t e a c h e r s a n dchildren could use them fordrawings and murals to enhancetheir learning. Meanwhile, the

poor Headmaster looked onhelplessly, wondering how hecould approach the Supervisor toprovide some funds for repairingthe collapsing roof, the purchaseof benches, construction of alatrine and hiring of teachers forthe classes!

The irony of the situation isclear. Those who criticize thestandards of education in thecountry ta lk about ‘cr i t icalpedagogy ’ and ‘deschool ings o c i e t y ’ , t e r m s t h a t t h e i rintended audience cannot evenunderstand, let alone relate to orput into practice. Similarly, thosewho criticize such ‘westernized’notions and the imposition ofalien concepts, cannot evenprovide a sound structure forimproving literacy in the nation.At the same time, we excel atusing student enrollment figuresto extol the increase in socialdevelopment indicators, but

neglect to mention the fact thatthe human products of thoseenrollments are far from positive.That, and the fact that thegovernment lags far behind inr e s o u r c e s r e q u i r e d f o r t h ec o n s i s t e n t m o n i t o r i n g o fenrollment figures.

Success and failures are used topoint out weaknesses, ratherthan coming up with alternativestrengths. One lobby tries todownplay the pathetic state ofeducation by romanticizing thec o n c e p t o f t h e s h e l t e r l e s ss c h o o l s . S t o r i e s o f “ g o o dp r a c t i c e s i n e d u c a t i o ndevelopment” profile the couragea n d d e t e r m i n a t i o n o fcommunit ie s who se l f l e s s l yrebuild their collapsed villageschools with whatever materialsthey can find, only to see themcollapse again a few monthslater. Another lobby uses thee x a c t s a m e s t o r y t o t h e i r

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

... we excel at using student enrollment figures to extolthe increase in social development indicators, but neglectto mention the fact that the human products of those

enrollments are far from positive.

advantage by honing in on thelack of interest and responsibilityof an apathetic government,allowing its securities to rot awayunder bare t rees and st rawshacks . S imi lar ly, the more‘educated’ talk about the needfor a radical transformationwithin the school system or theelimination of it altogether. The‘lesser’ educated talk about justhaving a school that remainsopen five days of the week.

And so the tussle, or ‘debate’r a g e s o n . S h o u l d t h e r e b eschool s or should there beeducation? Meanwhile, there arechildren who will recognize thepictures of Quaid -e -Azam int h e i r o u t - d a t e d p r i m a r ytextbooks, but will not be ableto name them, or vice versa.The Head Teachers Union willuse illegal tactics with which toimpose their might against thebureaucracy and the state, but itwil l a lso be the same HeadTeacher who will bow down tothe might of the local landlordand allow the school premises tobe used as the village autaaq orwill be powerless against drugaddicts inhabiting the schoolpremises.

If we want this ‘debate’ to reacha healthy conclusion, or at leasta p o s i t i v e o u t c o m e , i t i simperative to recognize themerits and demerits of bothsides. It is more than possiblethat there is room for bothliteracy and education to exist intandem. After all, in today’s ageof rapid globalization, one needsthe other to survive. But thiscan only happen if it is agreedupon that they fol low eachother in sequence. For instance,we can defy the norms of ‘earlychildhood education’ and thelike and agree that the purposeo f p r i m a r y s c h o o l i n g i s t oprovide literacy, of elementary

and secondary school ing toprovide the thirst for generalk n o w l e d g e a n d o f h i g h e reducation to do just that, i.e. toprovide the student (who is nolonger a child) with the avenueswith which to quench that thirstboth practically and intellectually.We can also agree that there isa need for both conventionalfinancial and physical resources,a s w e l l a s f o r n e w a n di n n o v a t i v e c o n c e p t s a n dtechniques. We can even acceptthat there will be certain areaswhere basic literacy will have totake precedence over schooldevelopment in terms of access.Or we can disagree with allthese propositions altogether.Where we cannot settle for anysort of compromise however, isthe fact that everyone, rich orpoor, boy or girl, must be ableto have the opportunity toexperience a system of learninga n d m e n t a l d e v e l o p m e n t .

The reality or dilemma if youwish to call it, for countries likePakistan, is that education is notnecessarily linked to economicprosperity. A graduate degree willm o r e r a t h e r g u a r a n t e eunemployment, instead of asecure future, like for Baboo, ap o s t - g r a d u a t e i n b u s i n e s sadministration who works as awaiter in Pizza Hut. The dailywage earner, who has not evencompleted primary schooling, willmake a more reasonable livingthan the young men who havepursued computer engineeringdegrees, like Bala, the carpenterw h o v i s i t s h o u s e t o h o u s elooking for work everyday andg e n e r a l l y m a n a g e s t o f i n dsomething. This then actuallycreates a choice where thereshould not be any choice per se.The choice of whether onewishes to be educated or not.This is where the question ofliteracy versus education comes

into full play. This is where the‘importance’ of education isb r o u g h t u n d e r s e r i o u squestioning. The fault then ismu l t i - f o ld , no t j u s t o f ou reducation system, but of oursocial, political and economicm a c h i n e r y w h i c h i s s oinextricably linked together. Onegoes down, they all go down.And this we all know.

One can read Chomsky, Freire,Schumacher or Shariati to one’sheart’s content. One can usetheir work to revolutionize theeducation system in Pakistan.B u t e v e n t o d o t h a t , o n erequires a ‘system’ so to speak tobe able to have the desiredimpact . These wr i t ings canprovide the thought that gobehind the system. But to runa n d m a n a g e t h e s y s t e m ,whatever it may be, schools,madrassahs or virtual universities,a different mindset is required,one that is able to streamlineinnovative thought with practicalo u t p u t . O n e t h a t c a nincorporate the human realities,one is faced with everyday, onevery street corner. The balancehas yet to be mastered. One hasto dec ide exact ly where toinfluence the system, whichelements to project, which toleave out and which to modify.What concepts to transplant,which to translate and which to‘redefine’. None of this meansthat we should give in to thesystem. It simply means that weneed to do our homework morethoroughly before we show it tot h e t e a c h e r, b o t h f o r t h er a d i c a l s , a s w e l l a s t h econservatives. Sounds like adelirious mix, but someone hadbetter start putting it together,or as the intellectual punditslove to say “time is runningout!”

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G32

Life SkillsThe Cornerstone of Pragmatic Education

TRACY THOMPSON KHAN

is merely a small subset of the larger genre of education. Ideally,whether or not he has been properly schooled, every person shouldbe educated: that is to say, he should have sufficient knowledge ofand experience in the basics of living, which primarily consist ofreacting to, coping with, and dealing with either people or things.

To a certain extent, all people face similar problems in life: first ofall there’s the common nemesis of other people, like shopkeepers,relatives, and coworkers, who are notorious for being unreasonableand illogical in comparison to ourselves, and who often times havecompletely different priorities and ideologies from our own. Thenthere’s the bewildering variety of choices to be made every day, fromwhich form of birth control to use to how to manage the care ofan elderly parent. Then there’s the seemingly endless list of difficultiesthat the modern world has brought with it, like plumbing, termites,and computer viruses. There’s also money and the need to manageit, whether we have just enough, or we are perpetually scroungingfor more, or we have been dually cursed and blessed with an excessof it.

Schooling, the way it has been set up throughout the modern worldin any case, provides the student with neither the experience northe perspective to handle thesecommonal i t ies o f l i fe : whatschooling produces is a largeb o d y o f s i m i l a r l y t r a i n e dindividuals, each one of whommay, for example, be able tocreate a flow chart of a bank’s

y boss and mentor inuniversity was fond ofsay ing that “n inety

percent of what one learns incollege happens outside theclassroom.” Ask any person tor e g a l e y o u w i t h h i s m o s tcaptivat ing tales of gainingknowledge and enlightenment: itis unlikely he will recreate themoment he f i rst memorizedAvagadro ’ s number, o r thespelling competition he won in7th grade, or the circumstancessurrounding his first reptiliandissect ion. Instead, he wi l lundoubtedly tell you stories inw h i c h h e e n c o u n t e r e d t h eunknown, and the hilarity, pain,awkwardness, and, ultimately, theunderstanding that resulted.

It is perhaps important then toexplain the distinction betweens c h o o l i n g a n d e d u c a t i o n .S c h o o l i n g , o r t h e a c t o fattending school on a regularbasis and learning how to copewith the rigors of the institution,

M

33EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

T R A C Y T H O M P S O N K H A N

Tracy Thompson Khan is an Islamabadbased newspaper columnist and teacherof l i terature, communicat ions, andmathematics. Her weekly column, GreyMatters, appears in The News everyMonday.

Languages: at least two diversespoken/written languages, plusmathematics. Language and mathare perhaps the only subjectsthat are skills in themselves; allother subjects are derivativesthat require a person to applyeither their communicationsskills, their ability to manipulatenumbers, or both.

Logical Reasoning: cause andeffect, syllogisms, reasoning byanalogy and by statistics. Somuch wastage in the world, bei t was tage o f t ime , energy,resources, or emotions, can beattributed to people’s inability toforesee the inevitable

consequences of their actions.These unfortunate results comein the form of everything fromu n w a n t e d p r e g n a n c i e s t ou n h a p p y m a r r i a g e s t o c a racc ident s . An o ld Chineseproverb says that the definitionof a crazy person is someonewho does the same thing overand over again but expects it toturn out differently: the powerto work out the most l ikelyoutcome of a proposed course ofact ion i s perhaps the mostsat is fy ing l i fe ski l l one candevelop, as it keeps the manyconfusing facets of life undercontrol and in perspect ive.

internal controls, but be unableto see the need to make a lefthand turn from the left handlane; who may be able to fix acentral air conditioning system,but be unable to cool downtensions between his wife andh i s p a r e n t s ; w h o m a y b eequipped to rebuild a motorcycleengine, but be unaware that thedoctor has mistakenly prescribeda dangerous ove rdosage o fantibiotics to his child.

The cheap availability of vastquantities of information hasrendered the traditional schoolingsy s t em l a r ge l y inadequa te .Naturally, people will alwaysn e e d t o m a s t e r b a s i cmathematics and language skills,b u t t o c o n t i n u e t o f i l l u pstudents’ heads with mere factsis to waste their potential. Whatis required to be developedinstead is a basic framework ofskills that each student can drawfrom to help him surmount theusual hurdles of life, like theperseverance required to hold ajob, the patience needed to raisechildren, the discernment calledfor in determining matters ofreligious and spiritual impact, thecommon sense necessary to dealwith financial matters, and theself-awareness and self-controlrequired to live a balanced,respectable , rewarding l i fe .

Therefore, educators must changetheir focus to a system designedn o t w i t h t h e o b j e c t i v e o fcreating interchangeable elementsfor a work force, but with theambitious goal of empoweringp e o p l e w i t h t h e a b i l i t y t odevelop fulfilling relationships,a n d t o c r e a t e a n d s u s t a i ngratifying, ethical l i festyles.

T h e s y l l a b u s f o r t e a c h i n gstudents such life skills mightinclude:

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

... educators must change their focus to a systemdesigned not with the objective of creating

interchangeable elements for a work force, but with theambitious goal of empowering people with the ability todevelop fulfilling relationships, and to create and sustain

gratifying, ethical lifestyles.

34 EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

Morals and Ethics: universalbeliefs about the meaning of lifeand how to get through theexperience of being human withdignity, honesty, purpose, andrespect. Students are quick tosee past the traditional scaretactics employed to keep themon the straight and narrow; theydeserve to be made aware ofthe earthly rewards that stemfrom moral vigilance – benefitslike not having to worry aboutkeeping track of which lies weretold to whom, or the feeling ofself -respect that comes fromreturning property to its rightfulowner. Under this umbrel lac o m e s t h e c o n c e p t o fmaintaining a personal workethic. In this age of per-houremployment, the joy and self-respect that come from a jobp r o p e r l y d o n e a r e o f t e nforgotten: it is important torecognize that this satisfaction isa feeling wholly separate fromthe question of remuneration.

Psychology: an introduction tothe world of the human mind,including its motivations, desires,and i r regular i t ies . So oftenpersonal problems are based ina person’s inability to understandor indeed even to recognize thepriorities and needs of others. Tounderstand the causes behindnormal human emotions likej e a l o u s y , r o m a n t i c l o v e ,vengefulness, grief, and depressioni s t o c u l t i v a t e t o l e r a n c e ,empathy, and understanding.

Physiology: general anatomy witha focus on the bodily changesthat happen during adolescence.

A great deal of human sufferingand bewilderment is due to thesad fact that human beings arenot famil iar with their ownb o d i e s ; t o u n d e r s t a n d t h ec o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n o n e ’ sper sona l cho ices and the i r

physical results, including disease,obesity, and pregnancy, is to takeone step toward gaining controlover one’s life.

History: personal, emotionalperspectives of people who livedthrough the times that shapedthe world. Traditional historyclasses that focus on boringdetails like places and dateswring the life out of history;similarly, teaching students abouto n l y t h e i r o w n c o u n t r y o rculture gives them a feeling ofisolation from the world as awhole, and prevents them fromunderstanding the many differentresults that may have stemmedfrom a single historical event.Studying world history fosters thecomforting feeling of belongingto one of many of the world’sinteresting cultures and helpsone understand the importanceof tradition.

Environment: the true picture ofthe planet’s flora and fauna: ther e a s o n s f o r a n d r e s u l t s o fpoaching, hunting, whaling,deforestation, greenhouse gases,urbanization, genetic modification,cloning, and pollution, and thechoices each individual canmake to ensure the sustainabilityof the planet.

Economics: budgeting, supply anddemand, fixed versus variablee x p e n s e s , t h e i d e a o fmaintenance costs, prioritizationof expenses, and saving. Withthe modern world producing somuch more quantity and varietyof goods than most people canpossibly afford, it is imperativethat each individual be able to

logically gauge, control, and planhis expenses.

Etiquette: the general mannersand requirements needed toavoid offending others. Parentsand teachers often hold eachother responsible for ensuringstudents’ proper conduct: to askt e a c h e r s t o e x p l a i n t h eimportance of treating otherswith decency and respect is toensure that the learning of goodmanners is not a casualty in thecrossfire.

M e c h a n i c s : t h e b a s i c s o fplumbing, electrical systems,woodworking, and drafting. Theincreasingly mechanized nature ofmodern l i fe requires one tounderstand, manage, and fixhousehold systems, i f thosesystems are to operate properlyand efficiently.

The denotation of illiteracy isthe inability to read and write.But the suffocating weight ofsocial problems pressing upone v e n t h e m o s t s u p p o s e d l yeducated of populaces connotesa different meaning: illiteracy canbe thought of as the lack of lifeskills that enable each person toenjoy a creative, noble, dignified,thoughtful existence. Whiletraditional schooling enlivens thememory banks , i t k i l l s theoriginal spirit. The ability tomake informed, benign decisionsis the cornerstone of a fulfillinglife: the goal of education shouldbe to empower people to laythat foundation.

© 2002 Tracy Thompson Khan

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G 35

While traditional schooling enlivens the memory banks,it kills the original spirit. The ability to make informed,benign decisions is the cornerstone of a fulfilling life:the goal of education should be to empower people to

lay that foundation.

36

When I think of what it means to teach, Ino longer always think of instructions. Ithink again and again of creating a spaceand time where I/we can be present; readyto help in multiple ways – to soothe, toencourage, to demand of one or another, todo what is necessary at the moment, basedon experience, on intuition, on insight, onneeds and respect and care – or simply towitness, affirm, smile or cry as heartfelt.

Richard Pringle

In th i s wor ld new chal lenges presentthemselves not only to educators but toeveryone for whom contingency and loss ofcertainty do not necessari ly mean theinevitable triumph of nihilism and despair butrather a state of possibility.

Henry Giroux and Paulo Freire

Education presupposes intrinsic motivation –that the student is intrinsically motivated tolearn and the teacher intrinsically motivatedto teach. While grades and the like are animportant element to school structures, thereason for teaching and learning are notfueled by numbers – but by a sheer desireto attain knowledge for knowledge sake.

Barry Kanpol

Educators at all levels are in an idealposition to influence the world views of bothchildren and adults. Children are activelydeveloping their world views based on howthey are treated and what they are toldabout the world.

Marsha L. Heck

Critical pedagogy considers how educationcan provide individuals with the tools tobetter themselves and strengthen democracy,to create a more egalitarian and just society,and thus to deploy education in a process ofprogressive social change.

Douglas Kellner

Tel l me and I forget . Show me and Iremember. Involve me and I understand.

Chinese Proverb

Global consumption according to affluenceconsumption of the richest fifth of thepopulation and the poorest fifth is: meat &fish 45% and 5%, energy 58% and 4%,telephone lines 74% and 1.5%, paper 84%and 1.1%, vehicles 87% and 1% respectively.

Every year, the US exports about 10 millionobsolete computers to Asia to be disposedof as hazardous waste. On average, eachcomputer contains 13 pounds of plastic, 3pounds of lead, enough cadmium to pollute260,000 gallons of drinking water, enoughchromium to pollute 10,000 gallons, andenough mercury to pollute 260,000 gallons.

A chi ld born in the industr ia l wor ldconsumes and pollutes more over his or herl i fet ime than do 40 chi ldren born indeveloping countries.

9 out of 10 fatalities during war are civilians.About half of the victims are children. 8 outof 10 war refugees are women and children

1.2 million Iraqi people, including 750,000children below the age of five, have dieddue to the scarcity of food and medicine,since the commencement of UN sanctionsin 1990.

Nearly half of al l countries who haveimplemented IMF sponsored ‘StructuralAdjustment Programs’ have seen an averagedecline in real per capita education andhealth spending.

90% of urban sewage in the developingworld is discharged into rivers, lakes, andcoastal waterways without any treatment.

95% of all HIV -infected people live indeveloping countries.

If present consumption patterns continue, bythe year 2025, two out of every three peopleo n e a r t h w i l l l i v e i n w a t e r - s t r e s s e dconditions.

& Reflections...Inspirations WAKEUP

CALLS!!!

climates. It simply means limiting the needless transport of food bytrying to meet as many of our basic needs as possible, closer tohome.

Many urbanized people have lost touch with the sources of theirfood, and may not realize that the distance their food travels hasbeen steadily increasing. In the US, the average pound of food nowtravels 1,500 miles before it reaches the dinner table, and thedistance continues to grow.

Much of this transport is needless: every day, identical commoditiespass in opposite directions, crisscrossing the globe. The ‘logic’ of theglobal economy leads the US andother nations to import hundreds ofthousands of tons of staple foodseach year, while simultaneouslyexporting roughly the same amount.In an era of dwindling fossil fuelreserves and rising CO2 emissions,this is both senseless and wasteful.But it is a trend that is acceleratingas governments s y s temat ica l l ypromote a single, globalized foodsystem.

Within that food system, farming ismerely an industry, and food justanother commodity. A misplacedemphasis on ‘efficiency’ leads cropst o b e g r o w n o n h u g e f a r m sspecial i z ing in one crop, whi leanimals are raised by the millions inclosely confined conditions on factory

The Case forLocal Food

Strengthening & RebuildingLocal Food Economies

HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

f you want to c reate amore sustainable society, agood place to start is by

helping to rebuild your localfood economy: food is somethingeveryone, everywhere, needsevery day, which means thateven relatively small changes inthe way i t i s produced andmarketed can have immenseeffects. And since eating is anatural part of daily life, we allhave frequent opportunities tomake a difference.

S t r e n g t h e n i n g l o c a l f o o deconomies around the worldwould protect smal l f a rms ,businesses, and local jobs; itwould allow food to be producedin ways that nurture rather thandestroy the land; and it wouldprovide everyone with enough toeat - food that is as healthy andnutritious as possible.

Rebuilding local food economiesmeans, most of all, shorteningthe distance food travels fromthe farm to table. This doesn’tmean putt ing an end to al ltrade in food, or doing withoutoranges and bananas in cold

DEVELOPMENTR E T H I N K I N G

I

Helena Norberg-Hodge is founder anddirector of the International Society forEcology and Culture (ISEC), which runsprograms in four continents aimed atstrengthening ecological diversity andcommunity, with a particular emphasis onlocal food and farming. She is theauthor of the inspirational classic, AncientFu t u r e s : L e a r n i n g f r o m La d a k h .

H E L E N A N O R B E R G - H O D G E

37

farms. Along with the needless transport of food,the use of heavy equipment, toxic agrochemicalsand genetically modified seeds takes a heavy tollon the environment, and belies any claim toefficiency.

These trends do not benefit farmers. ‘Free trade’policies are forcing them to compete with farmerson the other side of the world, many of whomwork for a pittance. At the same time, they arebeing squeezed between the huge agribusinesses thatsupply their inputs and those that buy theirproduction. As a result, small farmers are goingbankrupt all over the world, and rural communitiesare being drained of life. For US farmers, suicideis now the leading cause of death.

The quality of our food, meanwhile, is declining.Hormones and antibiotics are given to animals to

make them grow rapidly, and to keep thema l i v e u n d e r i n h u m a n e f a c t o r y

c o n d i t i o n s . H e a v i l yp roce s sed g loba l

foods have beenso strippedo f f l a v o r

a n daroma

that chemical compounds designed to fool oursenses must be added. Still others are added aspreservatives to artificially extend shelf life, andfoods may be irradiated with the same end inmind. Already, roughly two-thirds of the productson US supermarket shelves contain genetically-modified ingredients.

Further globalizing and industrializing our foodsupply is foolhardy and reckless. More sensible byfar would be to shift direction, and instead supportmore localized food production and marketing. Sucha s h i f t w o u l d b r i n g i m m e n s e b e n e f i t s :• Local food means fresher food, which in turn

means hea l th i e r f ood . Fre sh o rgan icvegetables are on average ten times morenutritious than conventional supermarketvegetables.

• Marketing locally reduces the number ofmiddlemen, and therefore increases farmers’incomes. It also helps to cut prices, givingeven low -income groups access to freshaffordable food.

• Local food systems lead to stronger localeconomies by providing jobs, supporting localshops, and keeping money from beingsiphoned of f by distant investors andcorporations.

• Local food systems encourage farmers todiversify their production, thereby making iteasier to farm organically. Intercropping androtations can replace dangerous pesticides,while on-farm waste like manure and cropresidues can replace chemical fertilizers.

• By reducing the need for expensive inputs,farm diversification keeps more money in

farmers’ pockets. And unlike monoculturalfarmers, those who diversify are less

susceptible to heavy losses from pestinfestations or abnormal weather

conditions like droughts orunexpected frosts.• Re l i ance on sma l l e rfarms increases overallproductivity, since smallerf a r m s a r e m o r eproductive per acre thanlarger farms. A shifttowards smaller farmswould thus prov idemore food, and betterfood security worldwide.• S m a l l e r - s c a l e ,diversified farms serving

DEVELOPMENTR E T H I N K I N G38

... globalizing and industrializing our

food supply is foolhardy and reckless.

More sensible by far would be to

shift direction, and instead support

more localized food production and

marketing.

local markets also provide better conditionsfor farm animals than large factory farms.There is less crowding, less dependenceon long-distance transport, and lessneed for antibiotics and other drugs.

How can a shi f t towards the localhappen? It is important to realizethat government policies nowsystematically promote the globalfood system, and those policiesneed to change. ‘Free trade’treaties, subsidies for long distancetransport, relaxed anti-trust laws,hidden export subsidies, and muchmore, all work to support globalproducers and marketers at theexpense of smaller competitors.

Shifts in policy alone, however, willno t be enough . In add i t i on , amultitude of small and local stepswill be needed to re -create andnurture healthier food systems. Andfor several years now, people haveb e e n t a k i n g t h o s e s t e p s ,experimenting and succeeding withdirect marketing systems, includingfarmers markets, consumer co -operatives, community farms, andCSAs.

Nonetheless, we in the North area long way from re -establishingmore localized food systems. It is

helpful to keep in mind a tremendously hopefulpoint: even today, the majority of people in the

world, mostly in the South, still live on the land,growing food for themselves, their families and their

own communities.

It is important that we do what we canto ensure that the economic and socialstructures on which those rural people

depend are not further undermined.Insisting that people in the poorparts of the world devote theirlabor and the i r bes t land tofeeding us does not ultimatelybenefit them. Feeding ourselves asmuch as possible while assistingthe peop le o f the South tod i v e r s i f y t h e i r e c o n o m i e s -

enabling them to feed themselvesbefore they think about feeding us

- would be the equitable thing to do.

As things stand today, part of everydollar we spend on global food - and

a sizeable portion of our tax dollars- pays for food transport, packaging,advertising, processing, artificialflavors, chemical preservatives andtoxic agrochemicals, as well asresearch into still more industrialfood technologies. In return we’reg e t t i n g p o o r q u a l i t y f o o d , adegraded environment and ruralcommunities sapped of life. Is thishow we want our money spent? Ifnot, we should be resisting thefurther globalization of food by

pressing for policy changes, and by buying local,organic foods whenever possible.

local markets also provide better conditionsfor farm animals than large factory farms.There is less crowding, less dependenceon long-distance transport, and lessneed for antibiotics and other drugs.

How can a shi f t towards the localhappen? It is important to realizethat government policies nowsystematically promote the globalfood system, and those policiesneed to change. ‘Free trade’treaties, subsidies for long distancetransport, relaxed anti-trust laws,hidden export subsidies, and muchmore, all work to support globalproducers and marketers at theexpense of smaller competitors.

Shifts in policy alone, however, willno t be enough . In add i t i on , amultitude of small and local stepswill be needed to re-create andnurture healthier food systems. Andfor several years now, people haveb e e n t a k i n g t h o s e s t e p s ,experimenting and succeeding withdirect marketing systems, includingfarmers markets, consumer co -operatives, community farms, andCSAs.

Nonetheless, we in the North area long way from re -establishingmore localized food systems. It is helpful to keepin mind a tremendously hopeful point: even today,the majority of people in the world, mostly in the

South, still live on the land, growing food fort h e m s e l v e s , t h e i r f a m i l i e s a n d t h e i r o w n

communities.

It is important that we do what we canto ensure that the economic and socialstructures on which those rural people

d e p e n d a r e n o t f u r t h e rundermined. Insisting that peoplein the poor parts of the worlddevote their labor and their bestland to feed ing us does notultimately benefit them. Feedingourselves as much as possiblewhile assisting the people of theSouth to diversify their economies

- enabling them to feed themselvesbefore they think about feeding us

- would be the equitable thing to do.

As things stand today, part of everydollar we spend on global food - and

a sizeable portion of our tax dollars- pays for food transport, packaging,advertising, processing, artificialflavors, chemical preservatives andtoxic agrochemicals, as well asresearch into still more industrialfood technologies. In return we’reg e t t i n g p o o r q u a l i t y f o o d , adegraded environment and ruralcommunities sapped of life. Is thishow we want our money spent? Ifnot, we should be resisting the

further globalization of food by pressing for policychanges, and by buying local, organic foodswhenever possible.

As things stand today,part of every dollar wespend on global food...In return we’re getting

poor quality food, adegraded environmentand rural communities

sapped of life.

going to about 3% of people( l e s s than 1% in the US) .

How Do You BecomeWealthy?

Some people become rich byhard work and ability, but notvery many. The most commonway people become rich is byarranging to have a very richfather; most rich people haveinherited their wealth. But if thiss e e m s d i f f i c u l t f o r y o u t oorganize now, there is anotherway.

Would you like to make $40million in one day? Here's oneway. You stage a company raid.You start buying shares in thecompany in order to take itover. The people who control it,because they hold the biggestnumber of shares, panic andstart buying up shares to makesure you don't get more thanthey have. You bid against them,

HowMuch Inequality

Is There?TED TRAINER

ver the past 10-15 years inequality has been increasing. Variousestimates indicate that in Australia and the US the real valueof the average wage has been falling for more than a decade.

Yet in 1986-7 the wealth of the richest 200 Australians increased by60%.

According to one estimate the number under the poverty line inAustralia increased by 50% between 1973 and 1987. The number underthe American poverty line rose from 26.1 million in 1979 to 34.4 million

in 1987.

The distribution of capital is evenm o r e s k e w e d t h a n w e a l t h .According to Kolb about half of allthe income from capital investmentgoes to a mere 1% of Australians,and 92% goes to 10%. In the USa mere 0.5% of people own almosthalf of all the capital. They own500 times as much as the totalowned by the poorest 90%. Thismeans that we allow about 3% ofp e o p l e t o o w n m o s t o f ‘ o u r ’country's capital and to determinewhat most of it will be put intoproducing or developing. It alsomeans that most of the unearnedincome, the dividends etc. from‘our’ society's invested capital, is

O

40

Ted Trainer teaches at the University ofNew Sou t h Wa l e s . He i s one o fAustral ia’s foremost environmentalcampaigners. Trainer has called for anew movement towards ‘eco-villages’ asa way to t each the pub l i c abou tsustainable alternatives.

T E D T R A I N E R

There is marked inequality in rich countries, andamong them Australia has about the lowest

proportion of income going to the poorest fifthof people.

R E T H I N K I N G DEVELOPMENT

buying shares more frantically. Because the demandfor shares in the company rises, the price rises.When the right moment arrives, you suddenly sellall the shares you have bought ... at a muchhigher price than that at which you bought them,and then you cry all the way to the bank aboutyour failed takeover bid.

When Murdoch failed to take over Rank Xeroxhe made $40 million this way. Mesa Petroleum hasnever succeeded in a takeover bid, but has made$13,000 million in the process.

Why Are There Po or People?

It is widely assumed that people are poor eitherbecause they are lazy or because they don't havethe sense to earn or manage money. This is trueof some people, but it is not the reason why mostpoor people are poor.

The main reason why countries have lots of poorpeople around is because the social rules andstructures CREATE poor people. The society takesmany ordinary people like you and me and turnsthem into poor people. There are two main rulesand procedures which determine that many peoplewill be poor. When there is not enough work forall, we completely exclude some people from havingany work at all to do. Secondly, our society givesmiserly pensions to people who cannot earn.

At the other end of the scale there are many ruleswhich enable the rich to become richer. Considerthe rules which set high salaries for executives,lawyers and doctors. But the most important rulesconcern unearned income and tax. The rulesgoverning interest, dividends and rent enable thevery few people who own almost all of the capitalto receive an unearned income equal to 5-15%(depending on interest rates) of their capital wealthevery year, without having to do any work at all(while others have to work to produce the foodand clothes etc. they use). “But don't the rich paya lot of tax?” As Professor Russell Matthews hasput it, “the main problem... is not getting the richto pay more tax, but getting them to pay any taxat all.”

But the most important factor constantly generatinginequality is simply the way the economy works.In this economy the things developed or producedare basically those that will make most money forthe few who own capital. This means there is apowerful tendency for production to focus onsupplying what richer people want and for theneeds of the poor to be ignored, and for theavailable productive capacity to be drawn into

producing what the few want and can pay for. Forexample firms eager to maximize profits (whichwould make the biggest contribution to the GNP)will want to build normal (i.e. expensive) houses;their first choice is never to build cheap butadequate housing for poor people. This economywill therefore tend to provide luxury goods forpeople with good incomes, and good jobs for thosewho work in the most profitable sectors, whilemany are ignored and remain poor. An importantfactor here is the way productivity constantlyimproves things as time goes by. As a resultu n e m p l o y m e n t i n e v i t a b l y t e n d s t o r i s e .

The global economy has been in a period of longterm crisis since the early 1970s, mainly becauseof the increasing difficulty of profitably investingall the ever-accumulating capital. Governments andeconomists are desperate to “get the economy goingagain” and the only way to do this is to try toincrease the opportunities for profitable businessactivity so that those with capital will invest inmore factories and generate more jobs. To this end,governments seek to reduce taxes on business andto remove regulations limiting the freedom of firms

DEVELOPMENTR E T H I N K I N G 41

The main reason why countries have lots ofpoor people around is because the social

rules and structures CREATE poor people.

to do what is most profitable. Governments thenhave less to spend on unemployment benefits andassistance to poorer people. Firms can best improvetheir profits by moving towards ways of producingwhich are capital-intensive and require less labour.This means that when governments make “gettingthe economy going and therefore helping firmsprosper” their top priority, they actually tend tocontribute to the creation of unemployment andpoverty. Certainly by helping more firms to set upand increase sales they do tend to create morejobs, but unless economic growth exceeds 4-5% perannum, wh ich i t r a re l y doe s ( inc rea se inproductivity increase in population/workers), the neteffect is more unemployment and therefore greaterinequality and more deprived people. In the 1980s,a 33% rise in business turnover was actuallyaccompanied by a trebling of unemployment!

If on the other hand the top priorities had beento eliminate unemployment and poverty, and toproduce the cheap basic things large numbers ofpoor people need, the state would have beenobliged to raise taxes on business to limit anddirect business investment opportunities, and makesure capital and other development resources weredevoted to other than the most profitable purposes.The contradiction is head on; either the resourcesgo into what is most profitable and will do mostto raise the GNP, or they go into what peoplemost need. When the aim is to “get the economygoing” and “do what will most increase businessturnover” there is a powerful tendency to deprivepoorer people of a fair share of the availableresources and wealth. Most of these get drawn intothe production of things for r icher people.

A glance at the historical record should removeany doubts as to whether conventional growth andtrickle down strategies are ever likely to eliminateproblems such as unemployment and poverty.Despite great increase in the real average incomeper capita in Australia over the last few decades,there has been virtually no reduction in theseproblems. Indeed the problems of unemploymentand inequality increased alarmingly in the 1980sdespite an increase in real national wealth andincome which was far greater than would havebeen sufficient to eliminate these and many otherproblems. The inequality trend figures above makeit clear that great increase in national wealth andincome went to the rich few. This could only beavoided by intensive state regulation, interventionand redistribution, but these are directly contraryto the dominant ‘economic rationalist’ ideology.

DEVELOPMENTR E T H I N K I N G42

A glance at the historical record shouldremove any doubts as to whether

conventional growth and trickle downstrategies are ever likely to eliminateproblems such as unemployment and

poverty.

I s Redist r ibut ion the Solut ion?

Most critics of our economy call for greaterredistribution of income. Advocates of a conserversociety are in favor of redistribution but they stressthat this cannot be the key to solving problems ofinequality. This is because the present total (anda v e r a g e p e r c a p i t a ) l e v e l o f i n c o m e a n dconsumption in Australia are far higher than allthe world's people could have, so if we distributedexisting incomes to make them more equal, leavingthe average more or less as it is, we would stillhave an unsustainable amount of producing andconsuming going on.

The conserver society solution is to drasticallyreorganize society so that all people can have easyaccess to the things that make a high quality oflife possible, despite very low levels of resource use,goods consumption and dollar incomes. If we canall have access to many local activities, gardenplots , community woodlots and workshops,cooperatives, useful work, free goods, part-time jobs,information, barter systems, people, forums andleisure facilities then it will not be very importantwhether some have more dollar income than othersbecause in relation to the (mostly non-material)things that make life satisfying we will all haveadequate and rather equal access.

RestructuringEducation?

Is Technology the Answer?PROFESSOR ANITA GHULAM ALI

l o b a l i z a t i o n i s acondition which cannotb e i g n o r e d – b i g o r

s m a l l , d e v e l o p e d o r u n d e rdeveloped the phenomenon hasan impact.

T h e w a y s i n w h i c h t h ephenomenon and consequentef fects chal lenge the socialsystem (and its ramifications) inthe context o f Paki s tan, i sapparent only in a mad rush forthe computer. It seems that the‘Computer’ has become like the‘time-machine’ and a symbol ofPakistan’s entry into the age ofultra technology.

Nothing could be further fromthe facts (system). Pakistan isway behind. We could place our‘Science and Technology’ in thelast century. Certainly we havelearned to use the resultingd e v e l o p m e n t s o f a p p l i e dtechnology, but that is where theexpertise stops. No concertedeffort has been made to evenexperiment or innovate on thebasics of transferred technology.We are dependent for simplenuts and bolts on imports, andhave failed to develop any infra-structure for sustainable dialoguebetween industry, centres ofs c i e n t i f i c r e s e a r c h , t h ee d u c a t i o n a l ( s y s t e m ) a n dmanpower planning.

What is ironical is that at the top in medicine, engineering, researchand other fields Pakistanis have made a name for themselves abroad.To quote examples, Prof. Abdul Salam, and those whose work is asource of pride for the country – Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan of AtomicEnergy fame. Let me hasten to add, that there are thousands ofyoung and seasoned men and women who are a valuable humanresource, but which through neglect of their out put and excellencehave been ground down into frustration, anger and rebellion.Dangerous forces are unleashed when people with expertise withintheir grasp and control have not been invited to participate inauthentic developmental activity.

The challenges of the new century to eliminate poverty and ensuresustainable development and lasting peace will fall to today’s youngpeople. Educating the young to meet these challenges has becomea priority objective for every society. The young generation is enteringa world which is changing in all spheres: scientific and technologically,political, economic, social andcultural. The outlines of theknowledge-based society of thefuture are forming. The statusof education is changing –once seen as a factor o funity and integration withinsocieties, capable of over -coming social and economicdifferences and distinctions –it is increasingly becoming asource of such differences anddistinctions between societiesi n a g l o b a l e c o n o m i cenvironment which rewardst h o s e w h o p o s s e s s m o r eadvanced skills, and limits,the opportunities of thosewho do not possess them.

Perceptions of the scope ofeducation also are changing

G

MEDIA & TECHNOLOGYRETHINKING

P R O F E S S O R A N I T A G H U L A M A L I

Professor Anita Ghulam Ali is one of themost renowned educationists of thecount ry. She has remained at theforefront of transforming the role ofteacher as agents of social change. Shehas held critical ministerial and advisorypositions in the education department.She is the Managing Director of SindhEducation Foundation (SEF) and theChairperson of EDucate!

43

as societies come to recognize the time to learn is nowthe whole lifetime not just during the period ofchildhood and youth. Teachers have crucial roles toplay in preparing young people not only to face thefuture with confidence but to build with purpose andresponsibility.Emerging challenges for teachers and teaching, posedby the introduction into education of information andcommunication technologies will to a great extentinfluence and direct the structures that will have tobe created to enable them, and the community to copewith issues relating to the introduction of the newtechnologies into education, particularly in thedeveloping country.

Education has always made use of technology, with newwaves of technology absorbing not replacing theirpredecessors. Thus, there has been a progression fromoral transmission, to print to computer assistedi n s t r u c t i o n a n d c o m p u t e r a s s i s t e d l e a r n i n g.

New technologies have raised issues related to (a)impact on culture, (b) impact on communities, (c)authority and control, (d) curriculum design and access,(e) the nature of the school, (f) teacher competence,and (g) equity and social justice. In some countriesaccess to the Internet is being discouraged by theGovernment because it has the potential to subvert, itis thought, the culture. However, it was noted thatwhile it is possible to reduce access, it is not possibleto eliminate it altogether.

There is a difference of opinion as to the role ofcomputers, to which reference has been made above.Are computers aides to teaching or aids to learning?Some believe that the role of the teacher as a sourceof knowledge should be maintained. Others argued thatstudents should be as independent as possible andshould be encouraged to become interested thinkers.

Investment in technology, to maintain a balance, shouldbe seen as just an investment which will have asignificant return in the future. Harnessing informationand communication technology to meet basic learning

needs; to use positively, consciously, and with design,in order to contribute to meeting defined learningneeds is what is basic to restructuring of the system.Educational development policies must allow space forchange in deference to available natural resources, geo-political realities and locations, market forces, demandsprojected by socio-cultural profiles. Society’s perceptionand attitude towards education as the primary meansfor social promotion and improvement of social statusis closely related, and largely dependent on the extentof people’s acceptance of ideas – generated througheducation. Cultural – and humanistic values thatnecessitate the linking of national and socio-religio-norms w i th the mul t i , t rad i t iona l o r modernconfigurations, beliefs and faiths are fast becomingcrucial in the changing world order. In this contextPakistan faces a serious challenge. Consequently, it ishoped that respect, for diversity and gender equityamongst other considerations will be part of thechanged mind set.

Inroads into areas requiring significant change can beachieved by providing access to new or diverse orplurality (in general) through teaching of languages,design of the curriculum and a variety of programs inthe formal and non-formal systems. NGOs can be ofimmense value in the promotion of the objectivethrough act iv i t ies in f ie lds in which they areexperienced.

Re-defining accountability, structures should be allpe rvas ive . The consequence o f negat ion and‘promiscuity’ in this regard is public knowledge.‘Accountability’ (in education) means clarifying, theroles of players in the system, with mechanisms toassess whether these roles and responsibilities arefulfilled. It also means encouraging and providing themeans to parents and the concerned members of thecommunity, of participating in educational institutions,at policy level and at debating forums. At the sametime parents and community must be aware of theextent of accountabil ity in the event they areconvinced to accept ownership and implementation.

Investment in technology, to maintain abalance, should be seen as just an

investment which will have a significantreturn in the future. Harnessinginformation and communication

technology to meet basic learning needs;to use positively, consciously, and withdesign, in order to contribute to meetingdefined learning needs is what is basic

to restructuring of the system.

44 MEDIA & TECHNOLOGYR E T H I N K I N G

MUHAMMAD KHAN (DRIVER)

Muhammad Khan is an integral member of our team. Although not ‘literate’ in theconventional sense of the word or ‘educated’ by the standards of the privileged few,he has the brilliance and motivation to handle perhaps the most radical section of ourmagazine: ‘Opinions of the Oppressed’.

For this issue we gathered opinions of people regarding whether schools inspire children to riseagainst social injustice:

Does our school system promote critical consciousness in childrenand inspire them to struggle against social injustice and evils?

Results . . .

VOICEVOICELESS

of the

“To educate basically means to teach so that thenatural abilities of children are enhanced and theyattain wisdom to utilize these abilities. It is not onlythe syllabus that plays an important role in a child’seducation process, practical upbringing and code ofethics based on good thoughts and manners are alsoof equal importance. Children should be encouraged tofollow a code of conduct because most families relysolely on school education for their development. Giventhe moral and intellectual decline of our society andour insensitivity towards it, I feel that schools havefailed to teach morality to our children. All theseproblems are the result of a deficient system of ‘check-and-balance’ in the relevant government organizations.”

Akram Essa – Driver

“Although education teaches children to distinguishbetween good and bad, it does not provide themenough opportunities to practise this, therefore, theyfail to inspire a struggle against social evils. However,children from institutions where such struggle isencouraged are better aware of the social problems andparticipate in eliminating them. For example, childrenin our s choo l s a re a lways to ld to keep the i renvironment clean but when they throw litter on thefloor, nobody tells them to clean it. This is how theireducation remains unattained. Nevertheless, thosechildren who get an opportunity to practise thesethings at school develop good habits which reflect inthe society as well. If children get opportunities toapply their learnings, society can get rid of evils.”

Sadia Adeeb and Saima Maheen - Teachers

“Undoubtedly, our school education can enable childrento differentiate between good and bad and encouragethem to struggle against social injustice. However, alongwith school education we also need to pay attention

to their upbringing and provide them a healthyenvironment at home. Before choosing a school forchildren, parents should take into account the standardof education being imparted because some schools areonly making money in the name of education.”

Ubaid Yadi Khan – Proprietor

“In my view, school is a place where we learn todifferentiate between good and bad. But unfortunately,our schools limit education to syllabus only. Only afew schools are doing justice to education, otherwise75% of them consider syllabus as education andnothing beyond that. In fact when the schools do noteven teach syllabus properly, what else can we expect?Our schools are not providing the education that couldhelp an individual become a good and complete humanbeing. We need to improve our school system so thatour future generat ions could benef it f rom it .”

Shehnaz Parveen Khaskhali – Teacher

“Parents and teachers have a key role in children’supbringing and education. Children learn fromeducational institutions and if they are educated thenonly can they distinguish between good and bad andrise against social injustice. If a child is being educatedby a good and credible teacher, whose character is anexample for him to follow, only then awarenessregarding social issues arises. Because of being poor,when our children are admitted in public schools, theyare treated very badly. The environment of theseinstitutions facilitates them to become criminals ratherthan good citizens. Children from rich families attendprivate schools and get higher status in society whilepoor children suffer from inferiority complexes andcannot do much as nobody l i s tens to them.”

Nizamuddin – Driver

45

46

“Yes, our children can struggle against social evils anddistinguish between good and bad because our schooleducation prepares them for it. Our children need tofollow what they are taught in school and also learnfrom their parents.”

Abdul Shakoor – Salesman

“Our schools provide neither the education nor theupbringing to help our children participate in thestruggle against social injustice. If schools provide bettereducation and if teachers pay proper attention tochildren, hopefully they would emerge as good citizensof society.”

Aftab Khan – Waiter

“Our schools are imparting education to promote socialgoods in society. If our children follow what they aretaught in school, they can surely stand up againstsoc ia l ev i l s o f soc ie ty. I t i s a l so the parents ’responsibility to help children distinguish between goodand bad.”

Ahsan Mohammed – Student

“Yes, our children can struggle against social evils butalong with schools, parents should also encourage themto be more socially aware. Struggle against social evilsshould be a part of our education system and taughtboth at school and home. Only then will our childrenbe able to fight for social justice.”

Nawab Zaid Khan – Clerk

“Yes our schools provide children with the kind ofeducation that enables them to distinguish betweengood and bad and to fight against social evils and

injustice. If we are moral citizens then our society willalso be just and there will be no place for social evils.It is only possible when we lead a life based on whatis taught to us in schools and what our religionteaches us.”

Abdus Salam – Shopkeeper

“I think the only purpose of school education is tocomplete the syllabus and pass the examinations. Theaim of teaching in our schools is to make children passtheir exams. As far as social evils and injustices areconcerned, our children are not even aware of theseterms because school teachers do not educate childrenabout these issues. Our government should develop acurriculum that helps children grow morally andbecome aware of social issues. If this happens, ourcountry will get rid of social evils and be able toprogress.”

Samina Siddiqi – Teacher

“Education imparted in our schools, particularly thegovernment schools, does not contribute to developattributes in children that would make them sociallyaware. Along with education, children also need properupbringing. After home, school is the place where s/helearns moral and social values. Education is not rotememorization of textbooks but a combination ofupbringing, action, yearning, determination, confidence,hard work and love. However, in our schools ,education denotes business and profit motives, torture,irresponsibility and hypocrisy. So in the given contextour schools do not help the child develop any socialabilities and responsibilities.”

Sobia Sarwat – Teacher

On a final note…What is the aim of education? This question has always been at the heart of any serious educational debate throughouthuman history. From Plato to Dewey, human intellect has been rigorously engaged in attempts to answer this question.However, one common ground in all critical educational debates, vis-à-vis the aim of education, is the intrinsicrelationship between education and society. No educational endeavor can be meaningful unless it serves society bybenefiting human beings. Critical thinkers, such as Freire and Habermass, regard education as a process of liberatingthe human spirit from the confines of suppression and exploitation by the hands of the few. In the present context,this debate has become more relevant with most educational endeavors directed towards fulfilling economic needs.Concepts such as ‘factory schooling’ have therefore unfortunately, become the reality of our time. Today, the intrinsicvalues associated with education such as critical thinking, moral reasoning and social consciousness have been totallyundermined by the quest to get a share in the job market. Both the provider and acquirer of education are no longerable to see any other value associated with the educational process other than monetary outcomes.

Hence, it was important for the EDucate! team to explore the aims of education, provided by our schools, as perceivedby the people at the grassroots. As usual we have ended up with mixed responses but there were few common pointsin all answers. Majority of the respondents agreed that education is meant to help children distinguish between whatis right and wrong and what is good or bad and to form a struggle against social evils and injustice. Furthermore,most of the respondents felt that although education aims at developing critical thinking and social consciousnessin children, our schools have so far failed to do so because there is something seriously lacking in our school system.The emphasis was more on completing syllabus but in reality what our schools really lack is not the tools to teachthe syllabus but a complete school context that reflects humanistic values to enable our children to use their inherentintellect and act ethically.

VOICE of the VOICELESS

Giroux has written a compelling series of essayson the effects of culture on how our societyimagines youth. By tracing how our media cultureportrays issues of race, Giroux clearly illuminateshow entertainment is much more than a diversionfo r t he masses . He a rgues fo rce fu l l y andconvincingly that our media culture is a powerfulteaching technology that affects how society viewsissues related to race, gender, and youth. Rejectingthe notion that media culture can be "read" in anendless variety of ways, Giroux points out howeconomic and political forces emphasize andpromote one "reading" over another and how theselimited readings of our media culture have cometo influence our perceptions and behavior towardpeople of color, women, and youth. Focusing onboth the "polit ics of representation" and the"pedagogy of the popular," these essays confrontthe empty rhetoric of the right (espousing familyvalues while simultaneously cutting social programs)and suggest many helpful strategies and tactics forovercoming the malaise and cynicism that seem tobe endemic to our society.

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Giroux argues that the ro le of teachers andadministrators is to become "transformative intellectualswho develop counter-hegemonic pedagogies that notonly empower students by giving them the knowledgeand social skills they will need to be able to functionin the larger society as critical agents, but alsoeducate them for transformative action. That meanseducat ing them to take r isks, to s t ruggle forinstitutional change, and to fight both against‘oppression’ and for ‘democracy’ outside of schoolsin other oppositional public spheres and the widersocial arena."

Thus, Giroux situates teaching in a true democraticprocess, in which the classroom is one of the fewpublic institutions in which an exchange of ideas andutopian visions can take place. But for this tohappen, teachers will have link their knowledge ofthe content they teach with other academic and socialcontents. In other words, an English teacher shouldwork to be aware of politics, history, science, art, andother disciplines, rather than just focusing on theteaching of novels and the discipline of writing.

CHANNEL SURFINGRacism, The Media &

The Destruction of Today’s Youth1997 by Palgrave & MacMillan Publishers, Inc.

Amazon.com Price US$22.95

TEACHERS AS INTELLECTUALSTowards a Critical Pedagogy of Learning

1988 by Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc.Amazon.com Price US$19.95

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S O C I E T A L L E A R N I N GW E B S I T E S F O R A B E T T E R W O R L D

1 ecopedagogy is the pedagogy of sustainability - defining principles, proposals, strategies, and tools that may help in the formationprocess

Paulo Freire's lifework is a testament to Critical Theory.A long-time adult educator and native of Brazil, Freireworked to help the dispossessed peoples of urban andrural Brazil to find a voice. In 1964, following amilitary coup, his work was considered a threat to socialorder. Freire was arrested and exiled. He continuedworking with the poor while living in Chile, and lateras a professor at Harvard's Center for Studies inEducation and Development. In 1970, he published hisfirst work in English, which outlined the foundation ofh i s p r i n c i p a l s , Pe d a g o g y o f t h e O p p r e s s e d .

Paulo Freire highlighted the importance of an institutethat could arrange encounters between people andinstitutions whose work would be based in the sameprinciples that ground Freire’s pedagogy. He wanted tounite people who, moved by the same dreams, coulddeepen their reflections, improve their practices, andstrengthen themselves for the struggle to build a happierworld. Thus, the Paulo Freire Institute (PFI) was foundedwhich is today an international non-profit institution,consisting of a network of people and institutions, withmembers distributed in twenty-four countries. The Institutehas grown and has gained a lot of experience inconducting research, consulting, developing courses,planning and producing events, and publishing books,articles, and other documents about contemporarypedagogy.

The PFI site offers links and makes public materialssuch as photos, books, texts and videos about PauloFreire’s life and his work, and provides the opportunityto spread his thought and amplify interest in his work.On the other hand, it facilitates contact between peopleand institutions with different interests in the ensembleof Paulo Freire’s work and practices as well as offeringthe continuing distance education through the internet.

The site is originally in Spanish, the native language ofPaulo Freire, surfers can access the site in English byselecting the English option on the home page.

The PF I s i t e l i s t s t h e f o l l ow i ng u s e f u l l i n k s :

BiographyThis section provides a comprehensive biography ofPaulo Freire adapted from Paulo Freire: His Life, Worksand Thought by Denis Collins.

PurposeThe goal of the Institute is to work towards thecontinuity of Paulo Freire’s legacy, gathering people andinstitutions that base their work on his ideas and worktowards what Freire dreamed of and struggled for i.e.a world “less ugly, less mean, less authoritarian, moredemocratic, more human”. Surfers can browse throughthis section to read in detail the purpose and objectivesof the institute.

FormationThis segment contains information regarding the variousprograms offered by the institute:

Distance Education ProgramDue to the rapid growth of the technological evolutionof the web, distance education via the internet isconsidered one of the most important and appropriateways to meet educational demands when the traditionaleducation system cannot, thus the Institute offers variousdistance learning courses detailed information of whichcan be gained from this section.

Ecopedagogy ProgramThe Paulo Freire Institute Program for Ecopedagogy1

promotes the following objectives:a) A planetary citizenship, so that all, with no exception

or exclusion, may have healthy conditions in aplanet able to offer life because its own life isbeing preserved.

b) To encourage as much as possible theoreticalreflections about how, in our different fields ofaction, economic, political, cultural, ethical, racial,and gender relations are changing as a result ofthe changes in the contemporary world, and theconsequences of those changes on the survival ofa healthy planet.

c) To engage in the s t ruggle to learn how toovercome the environmental problems that are beingcreated by different people in their areas of theworld and make possible an interchange amongthese people.

DocumentationThe Paulo Freire Archive includes Freire’s personal library,files, and a media collection, which includes videos,audio tapes, compact disks, and software. The mostremarkable among them are the originals of a few ofFreire’s works and the considerable correspondence heconducted with some of the most important people ofthis century. Many of the recordings of Freire’s interviews,seminars, conferences, and above all television interviewsare included in the video library.

www.paulofreire.orgPaulo Freire Institute – PFI

SOMAIYA AYOOB