greetings,
Academics and people here in
SWAP was born out of a desire for students to build relationships with workers and a consciousness that this relationship building is necessary in order to restore the human relations that bring justice between socio-economic groups- specifically on CU campus. Questions have come up internally in SWAP about the philosophical underpinnings and actions of the groups. Here are a couple of points that I think are crucial to how we will develop and strengthen what we do with workers on campus. (inspired mainly by readings from Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire)
-The importance of dialogue, communication between workers and students to develop the fight against oppression. The value is in this process, not a policy or something external to these relationships that can be instituted.
-We need to balance out theory and practice. I think we have been heavily action-based- given our profusion of English classes which has been great. However, I really do believe we are imbalanced on the end of building a theoretical framework of our group that defines what we do. I think we need to present English classes in the context of building working class power- beyond the acquirement of English skills for workers. I don't think there is any way around defining the context in which racism and anti-immigration sentiment exists. We have to be exlicit about the purpose of the exchange and relationships building between workers and students- as part of a larger vision.
Please go off of this or write your own ideas for exchange- love Claudia
3 comments:
oh i see, when i go on and on about a book its dismissed because im that "nerdy idealistic" kid, but when the ezln tells you to read up on something...
jk jk jk. but really though, i kinda feel like my punk days when i would fall in love with a band that no one else respected, then a year later the band is huge, all over mtv, and everyone loves them. get the analogy?
but for real, i dig that you're digging friere. and you should REALLY REALLY send out these thoughts on our study group listserv.
I agree with you Claudia....the real issue I think comes into play in terms of practicality/feasibility. I seriously agree with you whole-heartedly its just that the idea ends up seeming overwhelmingly HUGE considering the small size of the current OC....your departure, mine and pat's impending departures etc.
as for freire--it makes me laugh a bit because I first read excerpts from pedagogy of the oppressed in INVST--and pat, you know sometimes peeps (including myself) talk shit about INVST not being radical enough....it is definitely moving more and more in that direction and fuck yeah freire rocks :)
for the record: my post was a terrible attempt at humor. what i was trying to say, in a way that doesn't come off as being an asshole, is that SWAP and StudentWorker has been deeply entrenched in Frierian thought since their beginnings. even though back in the day we didn't know Friere and weren't using his terminology, we were no doubt establishing a dialogical praxis. a praxis that i think you (claudia) are spot on about in that it has been disappearing in SWAP. so i love that you (claudia) are getting into Friere and applying it to SWAP. I just hope you see that Pedagogy is more or less the same thing we have been trying to do since we started studentworker, its just expressed in a different terminology. so its not as much bringing in this whole new approach for SWAP as it is getting back to our roots. i sort of see studentworker during its first year as establishing that critical theoretical analysis and then SWAP putting it into action. if we can join the two we have a badass praxis, but both have been seperate and lacking that other component. does that make since?
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