Neutrality is the Root of Chaos
“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.” Albert Einstein
Paul Freire believes the practice is not a theory; you can get a lot of knowledge from practice and experiences. You can get theory from reading books and conversation: “We have to have a certain theoretical kind of practice to know also. But practice in itself is not its theory. It creates knowledge, but it is not its theory…Reading is one of the ways I can get the theoretical illumination of practice at a certain moment.” Paul Freire believes that theory, knowledge, and practice are connected. You can not have one but not the other; you will not be a successful educator. I agree with Freire; I learn theories and information from reading books, but if I don’t go out and practice then I would not gain knowledge. That will be a waste of my time and the author time.
In my example, this class is very theoretical; it is challenging to understand what are the struggles that the poor are experiencing. Yes, my families are middle class /blue collar family but lucky for us that my parent makes enough money that I don’t have to worry when is my next meal, or that I don’t have enough money to go to college or even resources from my parents. So I would never understand the feeling of people in poverty. However, the service learning in this class taught me so much; it taught me that there are youths out there who worry about their next meal. For example my experience with Health Hub, the people who get foods from Health Hub might not know where is their next meal going to be? or will they even have a next meal? I tried to put myself into their shoe, imagine I will be hungry for a day or two but it does not hit me because the idea of not having food when I open my fridge is just so extreme. However, for the people get the service from Health Hub that might be the problem.
As many of us believe that being an educator that you should be neutral: “Academicians politicians all the people that are supposed to be guiding this country says you’ve got to be neutral.” However, Freire and Horton believe neutrality is an act of evil: “Neutrality is just following the crowd. Neutrality is just being what the system asks us to be. Neutrality, in other words was an immoral act.” I agree with Freire and Horton; you are just favoring the majority. Also, it tells me that you are a hypocrite , you apparently believe in something and have a side so why not speak it out loud. Being a human, you cannot be neutral. The last election we had, many people did not vote because “I don’t believe in politic” or “They both are evil.” or “none of them is qualified for the position.” It is true; you have your opinion, and they are probably right but you should of not vote because you are neutral and a hypocrite. You being neutral hurt many people! As we can see the past two years since Trump became president, he created polices that aimed at a certain religion, ethic group, economic class. The policies he created toward those group are not helping them but infact hurting them, separate them from families.
I always know my passion is education and be a voice for the public. It is complicated to change the social structure that we are in right now. We can not change it overnight; we can only change it in generations after us. However, we need to start somewhere and I believe changes need to be made right now.
