The terms that you cite have different meanings and come from different fields and different contexts. The one that we were referring to, ie: critical thinking is being confused with critical pedagogy. Social progress and social justice can sometimes mean exactly the opposite, and so can social justice and social change. Critical analysis means different things in different fields.

I don't think anyone will tell you that you are oppressed because you memorize. However, it may be useful to become more familiar with the terms before lumping them uncritically (here I am using "uncritically" in a purely semantic way).
________________________________
From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov [professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Kearney Lykins [kearney_lykins at yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 7:49 AM
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
Subject: [PD 4100] On the meaning of politics and why teaching is political




Literacy practitioners:

Can we all just get this out in the open once and for all and acknowledge that terms (as they are most commonly used in this listserve) such as critical thinking, critical analysis, social change, social progress, social justice, and The Change Agent, are all ideologically based vehicles that assume that there is something inherently wrong with society as it exists in general (and with America's in particular) and that the remedy is an inherenly left-leaning, if not outright socialist or communist one.

I am tired of reading posts that dance around this issue, as if no one knows the names of the steps.

Literacy teachers should teach people to read, write, and speak. Learners should not have to be subjected to implicit or explicit political agendas from teachers who think they know better than others. In Steve's latest post (PD 4087) he very cogently unmasks the condescending nature of teaching "critical thinking," that there is an assumption that learners don't already think critically, or that they don't do it as well as the teacher. Or that students are in more dire need of "emancipatory change" than teachers are.  I find it interesting that the Friere followers are so quick to abandon his leaderless classroom when it comes to critical thinking and pressing "social justice" issues.

It is my understanding that the methods for teaching people literacy skills went relatively unchanged over several millennia, and that these methods actually worked long before anyone heard of "praxis." I believe Marx, Lenin, and Darwin learned to read in this quaint, disparaged way.

I now await the barrage of comments from educators who will insist that rote memorization drills and vocabulary lists have oppressed me, and that I am but an oblivious political pawn.


In good spirits,

Kearney




Kearney_Lykins at yahoo.com




________________________________
From: Federico Salas-Isnardi <fs_dos at yahoo.com>
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thu, October 29, 2009 8:23:06 AM
Subject: [PD 4085] On the meaning of politics and why teaching is political


Thank you, Janet for your contribution about politics.  I would go one step further in arguing for a political education or political literacy:  the word politics comes from Greek πολιτικός (politikόs) which simply means citizen, civil, of (or regarding) a citizen, and of (or regarding) citizenship.  πολιτικός, in turn, comes from Greek πόλις (pόlis) which means city or inhabited territory or island.



Thus, everytime we engage students/adults/citizens we are engaging in a political activity.  We cannot ignore that when we deal with the inhabitants (I don't want to use the word citizens in this context) of any territory we are dealing with the nature of politics.



Some people (and some politicians) give politics a bad name, but the fact remains that politics is everything we do that involves us as citizens of this nation.  As you said, nobody is advocating to engage our students in a specific end of the political spectrum but rather that we should accept our political role as teachers and facilitators or learning which is to engage our students to the extent possible in a critical analysis of what they learn or they are confronted with.  Otherwise we are giving our students only data to deposit in their "bank" which may never be useful to them.


federico

Federico Salas-Isnardi
Adult Literacy Specialist, Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning
Secretary, Executive Board,  Association of Adult Literacy Professional Developers
Adult Education Consultant, Houston, Texas

"The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long but it Bends toward Justice."  Martin Luther King


________________________________
From: Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis at brown.edu>
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Wed, October 28, 2009 7:50:27 AM
Subject: [PD 4080] Re: Swinging the Sword of Literacy in Iraq

Re: comments about Art's post, education in Iraq and the whole notion of political literacy.

Just looked up the word politics, but the definition kept using the word "political"
so then I looked that up:

po·liti·cal (pə lit′i kəl)

adjective

of or concerned with government, the state, or politics
having a definite governmental organization
engaged in or taking sides in politics political parties
of or characteristic of political parties or politicians political pressure

http://www.yourdictionary.com/political


so now, to reply, simply, to those who believe we shouldn't impose a particular set of political beliefs:
NO ONE here has said we should.  Art has spoken eloquently to addressing the skills, knowledge and strategies needed to understand how government works and to enable adults to make choices  (and/or support them in making choices) that best suit their own interests and beliefs.  NO ONE is advocating for any one system, or set of beliefs.  No one is using the adult learning center as a soap box.  Good educators are listening to learners, living in shared communities, discussing what goes on and using language and learning skills, critical thinking, healthy debate, use of media and other resources, to enable everyone to get on as well as they can in the communities in which they live.

Janet Isserlis




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