I wrote this essay in September 2022, but it is very relevant today, and probably always will be. https://reshapingreality.org/2022/09/06/ways-of-learning/

"Curiosity, Creativity, Compassion, and Cooperation are the 4 C’s of human nature. A fifth C is the darker side of our nature: Control."

The essay discusses Paulo Freire's discussion of what dialogue is, how essential dialogue is for liberation, and how we must use problem-solving education to help us learn from each other and cooperate in finding solutions.

An excerpt: "To be conscious requires us to critically think, but to critically think, we need to learn how to problem-solve, to be creative, to explore who we are and our relation to others and our environment. We need to return to the roots of our humanity, the 4 C’s, which requires education to be based in problem-solving not ‘banking.’

Problem-solving methodology is rooted in dialogue between teacher and student, where they consent to the material, critically think and discuss material, and learn from each other. Dialogue cannot be forced, else it ceases to be dialogue and becomes lecturing at best and abuse at worst. We cannot speak for another, as that takes away the person’s voice, and thus fails to be dialogue. Dialogue must meet the other with an open mind, else it ceases to be dialogue and becomes a projection of our assumptions and/or refusal to account for our own biases."

#PauloFreire #PedagogyOfTheOppressed #Education #Liberation #Dialogue

Inspired by @theneurotrust thread about favorite books for the year:

Nonfiction:

#PedagogyOfTheOppressed by Paulo Freire. I wrote an essay based on it here: https://reshapingreality.org/2022/09/06/ways-of-learning/

Anarcho-Blackness: Notes Toward a Black Anarchism by Marquis Bey digs into the intersection of race and Anarchism. It diagnoses the problems we face and ways to combat injustice as well as supporting Black folks and making sure no one is left behind in our fight for justice.

The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by @chanda is by far one of the best science books I've read to date! Explores the beauty of the universe and the science of understanding it, while also digging into identity, race, and the how the current way of doing science is rooted in racism. It spells out a different way we can explore and do science that is based more in equity and justice.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm discusses how the current actions to fight climate change are ineffective and offers alternatives.

Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work by Akilah S. Richards and Adebayo C. Akomolafe. This digs into the oppressive ways learning is done in modern culture and explores alternatives (much of the book parallels Freire and have great overlap in ideas and more just ways of being).

The Sea is Rising and So Are We: A #ClimateJustice Handbook by Cynthia Kaufman. This book covers various ways to get involved in the Climate Justice fight. It has overlapping ideas with Malm's book, though it doesn't push as far as Malm does.

Overcoming Burnout by Nicole Rose is one of the best books I've read about Burnout from the point of view of a marginalized person doing activism and mutual aid work. Excellent advice.

The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence by The Care Collective. Absolutely crucial for our time right now - discusses ways to build a culture and community of care to fight against the uncaring and eugenics policies being thrust on us in present times.

Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds by Arturo Escobar. His writing heavily influences me as it unravels and rebuts the idea of a "one world" and how the only way forward is to live in a world in which "Many Worlds are Possible" a.k.a. the pluriverse. It is heavy on theory, but there's a whole chapter devoted to a case study of a valley in Colombia that re-imagines a new way of building community and relationship to the land - how one would go about reversing capitalism's harm to the landscape and people's imagination and how to re-introduce a pluriverse where many worlds are possible.

Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation by Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Radmilla Cody, David Correia, Melanie K. Yazzi, Nick Estes, Brandon Benallie. Absolutely fantastic critique of America's violent colonialist capitalist systems, how they harm Native populations, and ways to fight them.

Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna J. Haraway. Beautiful read that explores Climate Change, how we need to restore relations with one another and our planet, and ways to go about doing that. It's full of gorgeous prose, and some interesting re-imagining of humanity near the end of the book.

Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. One of the most beautiful and engrossing books I read this year. It digs into Nishnaabeg cultural ways and how they are fighting to dismantle colonialism's hold on their way of live and being.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Wengrow and David Graeber digs into how the way we discuss history as this linear line of growth is wrong and doesn't actually match the data. Humanity is full of creativity and has experimented with many different ways of being in society throughout history. To try to trace this development line from hunter/gatherer to capitalism is to ignore vast stretches of history and evidence of multiple different ways of being in community.

Followups that I read this year which are okay but not as easy to read or get into:

Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx's Lost Theory by Mike Davis

Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism by Ellen Meiksins Wood

So that's it for nonfiction this year! I read a lot more than I realized. Good thing I kept track with storygraph app. lol

#Books #Bookadon #Reading #Justice #Liberation

#BlackMastodon #BlackTwitter what were your favorite books you read in 2022 (audiobooks count):

#HoodFeminism by #MikkiKendall

#BraidingSweetgrass by #RobinWallKimmerer

#1619 #BornOnTheWater by #NikoleHannahJones

#PedagogyOfTheOppressed by #PaoloFreire

#AllAboutLove by #BellHooks

I'm also really enjoying #DesignJustice by @schock

#7books #nonfiction

#TransitionHandbook
#EmergentStrategy
#SpecialTopicsinBeingAHuman
#BeautifulTrouble
#CuratedCloset
#IntentionalThread
#PedagogyOfTheOppressed

I wrote this essay awhile back that discusses Ways of Learning (and leans heavily on Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed -- excellent book! go read it!).

Read it here at my blog: https://reshapingreality.org/2022/09/06/ways-of-learning/

A summary of the essay:

"Curiosity, Creativity, Compassion, and Cooperation are the 4 C’s of human nature. A fifth C is the darker side of our nature: Control. In past (and non-western or Indigenous) societies, they educated their youth through self-directed learning that required a high level of respect, cooperation, creativity, and mutual exploration. Adults guided the children rather than enforcing a strict curriculum. However, this style is rarely if ever present in our current school system. Why?"

I split the essay into parts. The first part discusses Social Control and Education -- specifically what Freire calls the "banking" method. I discuss a bit of how that came to dominate education, especially in Western nations.

I contrast this with what Freire calls "problem-solving" method, which is rooted in an entirely different way of being in relation. Banking method requires an authoritarian figure (teacher) to bank/force-feed the information to student. In contrast, problem-solving method is where teacher and student learn together - adapting and discovering the topic through a relational and more equitable approach.

Unschooling is another methodology that is rooted in this problem-solving method, and I highlight Akilah S. Richards' words on it.

The next section I define these two methodologies in closer detail, where I draw heavily on the works of Freire and Richards. I then end with how this relates to liberation and dismantling oppression.

It is one of my longer essays, but I liked it, so thought I'd share it here.

#Liberation #Freire #Education #Unschooling #Teaching #PedagogyOfTheOppressed #Learning #Unlearning #Antiracism #Decolonize #AntiCapitalist

Somebody here with #TheatreOfTheOppressed from #AugustoBoal in the background of #PedagogyOfTheOppressed by #PauloFreire and #CriticalThinking?

@zee Love #PedagogyOfTheOppressed

I wish more institutions applied #Freire's work to their context

RT @tmccormick
@DavidNemer Technology of the Oppressed: Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil. @DavidNemer (2022). builds on #PauloFreire #PedagogyOfTheOppressed. Thx @mitlibraries & @mitpress for #OpenAccess release—itself a case of liberatory practice. @unglueit pls make 1-file version? https://twitter.com/davidnemer/status/1561381337067651072