Hello Steve and All:

I think the disjunctive may be that (drawing from your note below) many here are not necessarily talking about, as you say, "discussing politics," though that is always a potential option, not ruled out by any means depending on circumstance.  

Rather, what I am saying at least (besides our discussion about critical thinking) is that any teaching, and especially literacy teaching, **already has** huge political implications for us and for our students.  That students and teachers can, do and (I venture to suggest) should recognize that depth of meaning in what we do in terms of our learning has been hidden or even lost to much of what goes by the name of education here in the USA, for many historical reasons, some good, some bad, and some both.  

But Freire, and teachers who embrace his work, are really not bringing something new to education by talking about the political implications of literacy, but rather they are recovering a very long tradition that goes back to Socrates and even before him in the traditions of reflecting on what education means.   

Perhaps because we live in the USA--where the air of freedom of thought (and other freedoms) are not only written in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, but unwritten in our very cultural being from the crib--we in the USA don't and can't easily understand what Freire was faced with in his understanding of why the political aspects--that are already present in basic literacy and education--are and were so important.  He could see clearly how dangerous basic literacy was/is--to the kind of politics that governed the people and that, polar-opposite from our own political base of education here in the USA, had a great stake in fostering the lack of literacy and education in the people.   And we don't have to be Marxist to understand that cogent and concrete point.

But that doesn't mean we in the US cannot recover and recognize the importance of the political ground that we already stand on and that, for now, supports our freedom to learn.  The ideology of democracy (small d) is like the ideology of teaching, as we are still involved in it here in the US.  Both have embedded in them the paradox of being an ideology that transfers power to the people--or in our case, to the student.

Regards,

Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA

 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Steve Kaufmann 
  To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List 
  Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 1:47 AM
  Subject: [PD 4096] Re: On the meaning of politics and why teaching is political


  "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."

  Why do you assume that your students want to discuss politics in language class. Maybe they want to discuss other things in language class and talk politics with their friends.


  Steve Kaufmann
  604-922-8551
   



  --- @ WiseStamp Signature. Get it now



  On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 6:23 AM, Federico Salas-Isnardi <fs_dos at yahoo.com> wrote:


    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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  Steve Kaufmann
  www.lingq.com
  604-922-8514



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