Multimodality and a Pedagogy of Becoming Fully Human: A Project With Special Education Preservice Teachers

• In Event: 65.080 - Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 65.080-5 - Before You Go: Identity and Methodology in Teacher Preparation Discourse

Abstract

Paulo Freire used the term “fully human” to characterize a state of “conscientization” that was a prerequisite for justice. Though multimodality was not a current concept when Freire wrote, we believe that being fully human necessitates conscious awareness of multimodal capacities to sense the world and know one another. In our project, we build upon Freire’s concept of “fully human” by working with pre-service teachers to illuminate our multimodal capacities through a pedagogy in which awareness of these capacities is central. We found that when participants translated a poem by Eduardo Galeano into image and sound, they broadened their understanding of language as a multimodal structure and their concept of what a pedagogy that leans towards justice might look like.

Authors

• Helen Kwah, St. John's University

• Gene L. Fellner, College of Staten Island - CUNY