Knowlege Vs. Neutalism

What? How does Freire explain the relationship between practice, theory, and knowledge? How can you relate this to our colloquium themes and service-learning practices? (Use textual evidence and illustrations from your community experience).

Freire states,” I would say that we have to go beyond the common sense of the people, with the people. My quest is not to go alone but to go with the people. Then having certain scientific understanding of how structures of society work, I can go beyond the common-sense understanding of how society works — not to say at this level but, starting from this, to go beyond”(101). Freire believes that the relationship is not consistent and it is always changing. Practice, theory, and knowledge all work together and one cannot work alone, you would not grow because nothing would be contributed to our learning. This relates to my service learning at MCC because they are not taught specifically one thing. They are learn from each others knowledge and ideas. For example when we are going visual art the students what to know the background of why we are going the activity. They are relating the art to the rest of their life and everything else they are learning. A students knowledge is consistently changing and will always impact their ideas just like their theories and practice will be changing as well. Day to day everyone has an understanding and belief about what they have knowledge on and they will change as they learn, hear, and see more.

So What? Why does Myles Horton say neutrality is an immoral act? What does Freire think about neutrality? Why does Freire say that history and social conditions, larger contexts, are necessary to consider when teaching biology(or physics or any other content area)? (Use textual evidence and illustrations from community experience).

Myles Horton believes that neutrality is an immoral act. Myles states, “Neutrality is just following the crowd”(102). He had also stated, “It was to me a refusal to oppose injustice or to take sides with the unpopular”(102). Neutrality is just when someone is afraid to admit their true feelings and betray what they are wanted or expected to believe.“You need to know why you take sides, you should be able to justify it”(102). As he furthered his education he realized that you not only need to be able to take a side, but it is important to know why you have chose the side you did. It is important that if someone were to ask you your position on why you feel a specific way that you can back it up with facts. Freire believes that neutrality is keeping your choice to yourself as well. Freire says, “But if in being nuetral, you are just hiding your choice because it seems possible to be neutral in the relationship of oppressors and the oppressed, its absolutely impossible”(103). He believe that it is a hide away people use because they get away with it. Neutrality is the middle point that is the opinions hidden behind truth. Everyone has a dominant opinion and it is the concern or embarrassment that keeps it in. Freire says, “ Is it possible to discuss, to study the phenomenon of life without discussing exploitation, domination, freedom, democracy, and so on. I think that’s impossible, but I am also sure that if i am a teacher of biology, I must teach biology”(104). He is saying that to teach a subject such as biology, it is very difficult to teach only using biology. To be an effective teacher you have to use other ideas and teaching to get knowledge across. Another example of this is when teaching chemistry, a teacher has to use mathematics as well. All of our knowledge is related in some way and we may try to break it up into topics, but they still overlap.

Now What? What is your role in the struggle for social justice? Can you be neutral? How, so far, has this colloquium and your community experience helped you understand and/or think about this question? (Be specific with quotes from readings and/or stories from your community experience.)

My role in the struggle for social justice is to allow people to realize that they have more knowledge then they believe. “As progressive teachers and educators, we have first to get the knowledge about how people know”(98). As a tutor a MCS, It is important for me to see the strengths that the students know they have and use those to allow them to see the more of their knowledge and find a way to allow them to feel comfortable knowing it. I have seen at MCC that the students only want to put in the work when they are receiving credit. Being a tutor for these students, my goal is to help each of these students see how working on a single smaller credit assignment will give them more knowledge and help them do better on their other assignments that are with more credit. Not only would I like to see this, but I would love to see these student feel proud of themselves when they know something that the rest of their class doesn’t know. When we are working in groups the students pretend to not know everything they do know and I assume it is in the fear of not fitting in. These students want to feel “neutral” within their class. The students at this school have all created the idea that they are not as smart or knowledgeable as the students in other schools, so they do not use the knowledge they all have hidden in them. Being on the outside watching this happen, i would love to see the dominant side of their knowledge come out with encouragement from the teachers or even by not dumbing their work down for them. Our goal needs to be to continue to help educated them while finding a way to make them want to strive over the rest of their classmates. Classmates should be their motivation and not what makes them neutral.