The Six Pillars of Teaching and Learning: Embodying Freirian Pedagogies in a Postsecondary Context

• In Event: (Re)Imagining a Liberatory Pedagogy

Abstract

Dispossessed (Fanon, 1963) youth of color in the contemporary US are forced to navigate authoritative policing tactics, a lack of economic opportunities, and a political and educational infrastructure designed to keep them at the bottom of the social hierarchy. These oppressive forces may contribute to fatalistic tendencies in dispossessed youth, but these forces can also serve as moments where, through dialogue and praxis, a critical hope can be fostered (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; Freire, 1970; Ginwright, 2010; Solorzano & Delgado-Bernal, 2001). Researchers, practitioners, and policy makers should look to understand what practices and contexts help to resist, and even alter, these conditions. This paper explores the role of the educator implementing Freire’s (1970) problem-posing framework and methodology in a 21st century, U.S. context.

Data for this qualitative case study (Merriam, 1998) was collected over the course of one year in an East Chicago, Indiana non-profit agency grounded in Freire’s problem-posing framework. Five youth of color (ages 18-19) and two administrators (one, the author of this paper) participated in interviews and created a number of written narratives—all which served as archival data for this study.

Results from this study indicate that the role of the educator in contexts of popular education is both reflective and reflexive. Pedagogically, it required the educators in this research context to: build deep relationships with youth, create and facilitate relevant teaching and learning experiences, be revolutionary, recognize youth as assets, reflect deeply on their role as facilitator, and to be responsive to the needs of the youth they worked along-side.

While research exists on each of the pillars presented in this paper in isolation, there is limited evidence of their integration and inter-connections. Additionally, this research has implications for the development of teaching and learning experiences that foster agency (Solorzano & Delgado-Bernal, 2001). Educators, both in and out of schools, can play a role in facilitating a cultivation of hope (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; Duncan-Andrade, 2009) in their students—a hope that allows young people, and the adults in their lives, to name their pain, collectivize it, and ultimately, alter the conditions of their lives (Darder, 2015; Freire, 1970; Ginwright, 2010).

Author

• Asif Wilson, Harold Washington College