Neutrality

‘As long as we are alive, we have the opportunity to continue to challenge the “ism” that shape the contours of injustice and are the terrain of at the edge of the community, keeping him from a long bus trip and walk home after practices.’ (pg.63) Glass is telling us that we have to take a stand, every time, to the injustices that actually dictate our lives. He goes on to say “The struggle for justice is not some particular action; it is a way of life that finds room for transformative action in every domain.” (pg.63) Again, he strongly states that we all have to take an active role to the social justices that are happening each day. In every aspect, we have to contribute to the resolution of the problem, instead of conforming and doing nothing and in actuality contributing to the problem. As long as we are alive, we need to not only be AWARE of the social injustices that continue to dictate the way we live our lives, but we also have to take a stand and be able to ACT. We must not remain neutral to the injustices.

‘As progressive teachers and educators, we have first to get the knowledge about how the people know…It means then to understand the way they speak, their syntax, their smenaitcs. Then secondly we have to invent with the people the ways for them to go beyond their state of thinking.’ (pg.98) In order for us to progress deeper in our thinking, we must first understand the person. Their language and the way they speak in order to come to our own theories. To understand the basics is what will lead us to a deeper way of thinking, a more critical way of looking at things. It is important for us to understand one thing at a time, before we can understand things as a whole. Freire also goes on to say that, “I started also recognizing the fantastic importance of the way the people think, speak, act-the design of it all. Then I have to understand the experience, the practice of the people. But also know that without practice there’s no knowledge…we have to have a certain theoretical kind of practice in order to know also. But practice in itslef is not its theory. It creates knowledge, but it is not its own theory.’ (pg.98) Freire further goes into his ideas and conveys that we have to recognize the importance of words and language that connects us to the power of knowledge. However, ‘without practice, there is no knowledge’ and I think Freire is trying to convey that we need to constantly try to understand people’s words to truly understand the knowledge that we are gaining. We need to constantly engage in the importance of language and words in order to gain knowledge and this will further help us to understand and create theory. Further, we need to constantly educate ourselves in order to learn, in order to think critically and understand the deeper workings of the world. Education is a powerful thing and if we do not take the time to engage ourselves, we will not gain knowledge, we will not be able to think beyond the surface and create theory. We will not be able to have a deeper understanding of things, hindering us from ACTING and taking a more ACTIVE role in the social injustices that are happening. If we do not do these things, we are becoming neutral.

‘Knowledge always is becoming…Knowledge is changed to the extent that reality also moves and changes.’ (pg.101) Knowledge is power and we cannot allow ourselves to understand this. This connects to the idea of neutrality. ‘It’s a code word for the existing system. It has nothing to do with anything but agreeing to what is and will always be-that’s what neutrality is. 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.’ (pg.102) The fact that people are being neutral and not taking a side means that people are contributing to the problem. They are letting these injustices happen and being neutral means that they are okay with these things going on because it simply does not directly affect them. Which makes being neutral immoral because people who are neutral think its okay since it’s not happening to them.

As a Biology student, I have felt that the material I was learning wasn’t getting through to me. In other words, it wasn’t helping me to think more critically of the concepts and ideas that I was learning. It was simply the banking model when it came to scicence and math classes. I was being taught and deposited the information and I was regurgitating it back in the form of tests and quizzes, but what from that information was useful to me? How was learning this information challenging me to think? It wasn’t. ‘It’s not a quesiton for the biology teacher to impose on the students his or her political ideas…But it is a question for the teacher to discuss the issue in a broader way and even to express his or her choice.’ (pg.104) Freire understands that when teaching Biology the teacher does not have to be political about it, but he or she does need to teach the information in a way that gives the student a CHOICE as to how to interpret the information and from there, this already gets the student to think more deeply about the concepts and challenges them to think about it in a different perspective. We also have to understand the history behind the subject in order to further analyze what we are learning. We have to be able to not think of the information we are learning about and not just look at the surface of it all, but be able to think more critically in order for us not only to understand the concepts better, but to actually apply what we know and that’s the whole point of why we learn things in the first place. To APPLY it to the things we do and to gives us a sense of personal agency.

Working at Canal Alliance, I really just thought I was going to go and volunteer.. But it has taught me the importance of taking a stand in the issues. That is my role in the whole movement of social injustices, I have to be able to act and engage myself in the issues to understand and to gain the knowledge I need. Because again, knowledge is power. We are conditioned to think that this is the way things are and the way things are supposed to be, but they are not. And until we recognize that fact, nothing will change. Throughout this whole class and learning about Coates and the importance of history and understanding the background of each individual, of each culture gives us a better understanding of the world. Or from Freire, who asks us to challenge what we know and what we were taught in order for us to gain the knowledge we need to be better people in society. These are the things that have resonated to me, just to name a few. The way I learn is trying to connect everything.. And this is what I am doing. A few years back, when I turned 18, I started to realize that the up and coming generation, which is mine, is going to be the future. We have to be more aware of the issues. We have to be able to understand that the choices we make now will affect us in the long run, will affect our future. And even though I started to recognize this, I still wasn’t doing anything about it and this is what this class has taught me. In my own little community and in my own little ways, I need to start taking a stance on things. I have to have the will to ACT upon the issues because if I don’t, nothing will change. Of course, I think it would take a collective effort to implement GREAT change, but I also know that that change starts with me first and I have to do what I can to resonate that to other people. This is why I picked the profession I want to go into because I want to affect change. I want to have a direct impact on people and on some level be able to help and change their lives in some way. This class means a lot to me, regardless of all the struggles I have been through this semester, I appreciate this class so much and Canal Alliance so much because I have learned so much about myself and so much more about the world and my community. The true test now is HOW am I going to APPLY this knowledge and take a stand. And I will absolutely, take a stand.