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Miscellaneous Rants

On Being Directive#

Still hanging in there with Freire and Shor (Pedagogy for Liberation) and I read an interesting segment last night dealing with the teacher's responsibility.  To preface this section, earlier in the text (p. 33), Paulo said: Liberatory education is fundamentally a situation where the teacher and the students both have to be learners, both have to be cognitive subjects. In this later section (subtitled "Teacher-Talk versus Dialogue, Domination versus Illumination") Paul resurfaces the idea that transformation never occurs when one is passive so the teacher must strive to make the students active participants in their learning.  He maintains that as political activists (which he believes teachers to be) we also have a responsibility to live our philosophy.  He says, "I cannot proclaim my liberating dream and in the next day, in behalf of rigor, be authoritarian in my relationship with the students."  On the other hand, even with a liberating dream, we have to be "radically democratic and responsible and directive."  This stopped me dead in my tracks...how was he using these terms authoritarian and directive?  To me, at that point (I was merely walking on the words) it did not seem possible that a liberating teacher could be directive.  Main Entry: auáthoráiátaráiáan Pronunciation: <TT>o-"thŠr-&-'ter-E-&n, &-, -"thor-</TT> Function: adjective Date: 1879 1 : of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents> 2 : of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people Main Entry: 1diárecátive Pronunciation: <TT>d&-'rek-tiv, dI-</TT> Function: adjective Date: 15th century 1 : serving or intended to guide, govern, or influence 2 : serving to point direction; specifically : DIRECTIONAL 1b 3 : of or relating to psychotherapy or counseling in which the counselor introduces information, content, or attitudes not previously expressed by the client  Now, at this point my understanding of the terms begins to shift..."directive" is not the word I thought it was.  In fact, it's a much milder term than I had in mind.  Then I read on and made a fantastic discovery: On the other hand, I cannot be authoritarian.  I have to be radically democratic and responsible and directive.  Not directive of the students, but directive of the process, in which the students are with me.  As director of the process, the liberating teacher is not doing something to the students but with the students. I always have a lot of love for someone who talks about process.  This whole discussion begins to illuminate for me the ways that one can teach for liberation within the institutional demands and requirements that often seem to be at odds with the whole notion of freedom (Freire, in an earlier part of the book, does address the whole idea that teaching for liberation is not exactly what most schools want as that undermines their stature and political presence...but that might be another post for another day).

Posted by Karen McComas on 4/5/02; 9:03:14 AM to the Miscellaneous Rants Department
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