Through Experience Comes Knowledge
What? In the piece, “We Make the Road by Walking” by Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, they write about how the relationship between practice, theory, and knowledge can be applied to the conversation regarding education and social change. Freire says that a theory is an idea that one creates in order to gain knowledge, but before you can gain knowledge one must practice the theory, which results in knowledge (Freire, 98). It should be noted that one’s theory, “…determines what you want to do in terms of helping people grow. So it’s extremely important that you have a theory about it that helps you decide” (Horton, 100). Essentially this quote means that one should come up with a theory that will benefit people with education or with social change at the point that they are at and not where you are at with the theory. Because there is a chance that the theory might not reach the practice stage if the starting point is too ambiguous for the people you are working with. Personally, I have not had the chance or experience of creating a theory that I could practice at my community partner site, because I have not had the chance to. Although, to be completely honest, I am not sure how I would create a theory for this group and then practice the theory with Young Moms Marin.
After reading this piece and participating in the WOKE presentation, I was able to draw some connections between Freire, Horton, and the WOKE presenters. I learned that the WOKE presenters had followed a similar approach as Freire and Horton did when addressing educational and social change. The WOKE presenters program also uses theories, then tests their theories, and gain knowledge from their practice. Specifically, for WOKE they saw that there was a problem with education equity, then decided to come up with a theory that would allow them to achieve educational equity within the education system. Next the group went to Venetia Valley to practice their theory to see where education inequity comes from. Finally, the WOKE group was able to come up with some explanations and gain partial knowledge as to why there wasn’t education equity within the school systems. However, WORE and Freire has indicated that, “knowledge is changed to the extent that reality also moves and changes. Then theory also does the same. It’s not something stabilized, immobilized” (Freire, 101).
So What? Personally, I believe that being neutral is problematic when attempting to make changes to the structural inequalities that marginalizes groups of people as “others.” I feel that in order to make an impact or change, one must take a strong position on the issues. As Horton says, “… about changed society, it became more and more obvious that you’ve got to take sides. You need to know why you take sides; you should be able to justify it” (Horton, 102). In Freire and Horton’s argument they are saying that people use the term neutral to cover up the side that one is truly on. For example, with our current political situation a person may say to another person that they don’t really have an opinion on President Trump, which suggest that they are open to listening to the other person’s view. However, in reality that person isn’t really open to hearing the other person’s opinion, because he or she has already taken a side whether they like Trump or are against him. Therefore, the individual is using “neutrality,” “to hide his or her choice, you see. If you are not interested in proclaiming your choices, then you have to say that you are neutral. But if in being neutral, you are just hiding your choice because it seems possible to be neutral in the relationship between the oppressors and the oppressed, it’s absolutely impossible” (Freire, 103–104).
In relation to my community partner, Young Moms Marin, many of the moms have become neutral when it comes to changing their image as the “other,” because the moms have come to terms of being the “other.” The moms are using neutrality as, “an excuse” (Horton, 102) to not address the structural problem that need attending to regarding the marginalization of their group.
Now What? Upon completion of Freire and Horton’s piece and participating in the WOKE presentation, I learned that every single person has their own unique individual stories and background that shaped who they are and their passion to be a part of social justice. The three WOKE presenters made me realize that I too have my own story that has shaped my passions and desires to engage with others and work in communities. I discovered that my passion to work with others developed when I was a little girl in India.
When I was six-years-old I was still living in an orphanage in India taking care of my friends and the other infants that were also there. Over the course of time that I was in the orphanage, I saw that many of the children were struggling, which made me want to do something to make them more comfortable and at ease in our circumstance. However, at six-years-old with no form of power I knew that I was not going to be able to do anything that would best improve our lives. As I became older, I knew that I wanted to follow my desire, so I began volunteering at an Indonesian martial arts studio in my neighborhood, which gave me the opportunity to engage with children of all different backgrounds. Those particular personal experiences, allowed me to have more compassion towards others, that ultimately lead my passion and desire to engage with others and work with the communities around me.
The colloquium themes of identity and agency, who owns culture, race, class, privilege and power, and critical consciousness and social justice has informed my education significantly, because I am now more aware of how the themes affect everyone. Through the course, I had the chance to learn and discuses all the themes, and then was given the opportunity to use my knowledge and witness how those central themes played a role in the mom’s life at my community partner, Young Moms Marin. For example, many of the moms in this community have difficulties and struggles with their identity, but over the course of time the moms have been able to slowly come to the terms of who they are even if it’s hard to acknowledge at times. I learned that after the WOKE presenters came to our class and talked about a person’s social biography, that I could use my own social biography to make stronger connections with the moms at my community partner site. Creating those stronger connections would then allow me to have a better understanding of who the moms are. As Freire say, “my quest is not to go alone, but to go with the people” (Freire, 101).
