TRAVELLING THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY AND BYWAYS
2.5 Freirean Theoretical Perspective
dominant culture represents itself as 'natural'. By using critical theory I am able to examine the way in which privileged groups have an interest in maintaining the status quo to protect their advantages. Subordinate groups in contrast have an interest in change to remove their injustices. Injustices and inequalities are laid bare. Critical theory claims to be empancipatory and to set subordinate groups free.
According to Gibson (1986), critical theorists emphasize that understanding can come about through self-reflection. It is important that as researcher and adult educator, I become reflective of my teaching practice. The self-reflection must be seen as a consciousness-raising exercise where the educator and the learners are in a dialogic relationship that could lead learners to become more aware of their actual conditions and to emancipatory action.
Critical theory points to the need to develop an equal sensitivity to certain aspects of culture. These include working class students, Blacks and women's need to affirm their own histories through the use of a set of language, set of social relations and knowledge that critically reconstructs and dignifies the cultural experiences that make up the tissue, texture and history of their daily life (Giroux, 2003: 52).
programmes. Literacy per se will not be able to bring about transformation of society. Freire's theoretical premise thus seems a little Utopian. For transformation of society to take place it would require far more than just literacy development.
However, I present some Freirean principles that have a basis for adult literacy, showing how Freire's theory can be of value in the South African context in this study.
Freire's literacy work in Brazil in the early 1960s led him to develop new ways of doing literacy work, which he called the conscientization method. Freire believed that the aim of literacy was conscientization, i.e. making people aware of the structures that oppress them (Steinberg & Suttner, 1991). The narration sickness that Freire (in Darder et al, 2003: 57) refers to is what educators 'fill' learners with, the contents of her or his narration. Such content, according to Freire (2003) are detached from reality and disconnected. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become "hollow, alienating verbosity" (Freire, 2003: 57). A characteristic of this narrative education is the "sonority of words". The words that adult learners use should be from their own their own local language or from their own frame of reference. In a sense they should be about their life, culture and the context from which they have come. The local language refer to the various "indigenous" languages used by particular communities which have their own social norms, culture, politics and other facets of life which maybe different from the dominant language of the country. It must be noted that language is a crucial aspect in each of the theoretical frameworks presented. Because it requires a detailed discussion and is a part of my critical question, I focus specific attention on this issue later. Freire (2003:59) asserts that the oppressed are not 'marginals', who live on the 'outside' of society. They are in fact 'inside' the structure, which made them 'beings for others'. The answer is not to 'integrate' the oppressed into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become beings for themselves.
Freire's (2003) central premise is that education is not neutral, whether it occurs in the classroom or in a community. The interaction between the teacher and
learner does not take place in a vacuum. Learners bring with them their cultural expectations, life experiences of social discrimination and life pressures.
Education starts from the experiences of people. Freire challenges men and women who are becoming literate to take ownership of the written code and to conscientize themselves. The way in which reading and writing is taught can be used either to domesticate people or to liberate them. The term to domesticate refers to education that makes individuals conformist and docile. Critical pedagogy claims to liberate people, to make them critical thinkers and to empower them to challenge the world.
Learners could either accept the world as it is or lead others to challenge the world. For literacy to be a force for liberation, the work has to follow certain principles. The content of the lessons has to be relevant to people's lives. The lessons need to deal with the concerns that people have in their everyday lives.
Freire's method rejects learning of parochial phrases without relating them to everyday life. Literacy method was designed not as an end in itself but as part of the larger goal of conscientizing the Brazilian peasants so that they could also read the world and connect the world with the word.
Freire (1998a) believed that when oppressed people talk and write about their own lives they begin to value their opinions, which gives them confidence. He used the problem posing approach in literacy to create dialogue and pictures to introduce problem situations into lessons. The pictures formed the basis of discussion and then for learning to read through what he called "generative" words. He argued that literacy is not a mechanical skill that people accept. The wide range of definitions I cited in Chapter One and the position I have taken resonates with the Freirean theoretical framework. The main task of literacy and adult education is to bring about a process of critical consciousness that leads to action and change.
Instead of rote learning of the alphabet and spelling, Freirean programmes use a process of critical reflection through discussion and conscientization (Steinberg &
Suttner, 1991).
According to Freire (1998c) the basic educational process through conscientization is called dialogue. Through dialogue the traditional role and function of the teacher is greatly transformed. The teacher who was once seen as the grandmaster and purveyor of all knowledge and the learner with no knowledge does not exist. The teacher is no longer seen as the custodian of all knowledge. Instead, the teacher participates with the group in a two-way dialogue with learners. Hence, learners will be a part of the co-construction of knowledge.
What is lacking in this theoretical position is that one is not given deeper insight into how literacy impacts on their lives. Freirean techniques are aimed at teaching basic literacy to people whose own language is Portuguese; however, they are not always suitable when people are learning to be literate in a second or new language. Engaging in dialogue requires basic communication skills. Hence, there is the need to have basic communication before engaging in dialogue. The conscientization method makes high demands on educators who need to be highly skilled and flexible. In South Africa there is a problem to recruit especially trained and qualified educators in ABET. Presently many adult educators are also day- school teachers teaching at public Government schools. One needs to ask, is that the ideal situation? Are day-school teachers necessarily qualified to teach adult education? According to a Houghton, & Aitchison (1999: 48):
Eighty percent of the tutors at the centres are day-school teachers...
Ideally, in line with national policy, the Sub-directorate would like to phase out these teachers, but to take that route implies protracted labour relations negotiations and, because of budget delays and constraints, this is not an easy option.
Freire accuses some educators of refusing to deal with issues of class privilege when they say they need to empower learners. They reduce their pedagogy to a form of middle class narcissism (Freire, 1998c). Educators who indulge in their own voice do not enable oppressed students to empower themselves. He asserts that educators who proclaim the need to empower students often strengthen their own privileged positions. He emphasizes liberation from oppression as the central reason for engaging in literacy work, believing that his approach to literacy would
bring about these goals. Freire's theory that literacy can bring about these goals is indeed an idealistic one, which literacy educators can work towards but cannot easily achieve. His comment is significant to this study as many disadvantaged oppressed learners who attend adult literacy classes need to be taught according to the principles of adult education and not according to the educator's privileged voice proclaiming to empower learners.
The Black female adult learners in this study have suffered oppression under the previous South African government and Freire's Brazilian learners were also from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Brazilian learners used the Freirean theoretical approach to overcome their oppression and liberate themselves. In a transforming South African society, the Black oppressed people seek redress to attain human liberation. In this study I use the Freirean conceptual framework to understand how literacy can be used to conscientize, empower and liberate the individual and move towards transforming society. The features that will be of particular value to this study are as follows:
• Making adult learners aware of the structures that oppress them
• Challenging learners to understand that they are themselves the makers of culture, leading them to learn the meaning of culture
• Showing learners that their oppression and lower status is a result of economic, political and ideological contexts in which they live and not by divine order
• Making imperative that learners begin with their home language and then proceed with any other language that they need
• Ensuring, teaching-learning situation is a two way dialogue between educator and learner
• Recognizing prior learning (Steinberg & Suttner, 1991; Freire, 1998a, 2003).
The Freirean conceptual framework is a powerful force for developing a participatory democracy in South Africa, though literacy alone does not liberate people:
Adult education, no matter how radical it is, cannot change society (Steinberg & Suttner, 1991: 25).
Critical theory also examines the issues of gender, which I present in the next section. Females as well as those not from the dominant culture are born into language thus they have little choice in what they speak. They are also born into history, society and ideology. Therefore beliefs and 'common sense' were largely 'given' to them by society. For example, if a girl's 'common sense' tells her that she is 'naturally' inferior to boys, she is in the grip of ideology. In order to understand the grip of such ideology one cannot blame the victim but to use various strategies to create awareness for their liberation. The various theories that I use in this study explore different methods with slight nuances to achieve similar goals. Feminist theory as located within this study demonstrates how women and in particular Black women in South Africa have been oppressed and marginalized.
In both feminist and critical theory, education is used as a tool to raise the level of consciousness of the oppressed so that they can be empowered and emancipated.