Raquel
Alicia Coy
Professor
Barbara Gleason
ENGL
C0856: Adult Learners of L&L
May
6, 2014
Social Change
through Education
Achieving the
‘American Dream’ is a historic driver of citizen behavior in the U.S. It has
been a deeply-held article of faith among native-born Americans, and it has
been a significant motivator for many generations of immigrants. The ideal of
the “American Dream” is composed of many elements, but is centered on the
notion of “opportunity” in both social and economic terms. These opportunities
are closely tied to individual educational attainment.
Adult Learning
in Focus 2008
Education is central to the ideal
American Dream. White picket fences, owning property, and civil liberties might
be prominent features called to mind when pondering the American Dream, but
education is often the implied vehicle of the promise of social mobility. As
such, education is seen as a means to an end. Once social mobility is obtained
and all the benefits reaped, the education process is over. This renders
education a lifeless object, one that is used for barter, and traditional
models of education foster this concept of hollow education. However, models of
transformative education present an alternative view of education.
Transformative education treats education as a holistic approach to
enlightenment wherein education intrinsically transforms the learner. According
to Cheryl Torok Fleming and J. Bradely Garner, authors of Brief Guide for Teaching Adult Learners, transformative learning
has three basic components: “(1) the nature of life experience that is central
to adult learning; (2) critical reflection processes; (3) the connection
between adult development and the transformative process” (24). There are many
perspectives of transformative learning, including but not limited to
psychocritical, psychoanalytic, psychodevelopmental, and social emancipatory.
The social emancipatory perspective is based on Paulo Freire’s theory of
literacy education. In Freire’s theory, social justice is emphasized. Freire’s
theory exemplifies the three core concepts of transformative learning by
acknowledging the role of life experience in adult learning, by using critical
reflection processes, and by sparking a transformative change within the
student.
The first essential element in a
transformative education model is acknowledging the life experience of the
adult learner. Adult learners differ from children in that they have accumulated
more life experience. This life experience colors their beliefs, behavior, and
identities. When adults enter a classroom, they come with their own sets of
assumptions and goals. These assumptions adult learners carry with them inform
their learning experience. The transformative educator must take into account
these life experiences, for the learner often contextualizes education through her
own personal frames of references, or the “structures of assumptions and
expectations that frame an individual’s tacit points of view and influence
their thinking, beliefs, and actions” (Taylor 5). Frames of references are
pivotal to the transformative process not only because they are the initial
starting point from which learners interact with new concepts, they are also
the object of the transformative process. According to Fleming and Garner, transformative
learning initiates “as a result of a situation experienced by the learner, in
which he or she confronts a dilemma that is incongruent with his or her life
experiences” (24). In other words, in the first stage of the transformative
process, learners’ frames of references are targeted because they have been
found to be lacking or entirely false. As the learner confronts and critically
evaluates flaws in a previously held belief, the frames of references are
altered so that they can fit into new, modified frames of references that are
more discerning and complete.
As in any other transformative education
model, Freire’s theory of literacy education begins with the acknowledgment of
the learner’s life experience. In the Pedagogy
of the Oppressed, Freire outlines his theory of education. In Freire’s
model of transformative learning, the life experience acknowledged is actually
a shared life experience. His theory states that the learners’ life experience
is shaped by the oppression in an unjust society. As adults who have been
raised in an oppressive order, learners’ life experiences have been framed by
the myths of the oppressive order. These myths are the equivalent to frames of
references, in that they define and shape the beliefs and behaviors of
learners. Freire gives a list of the commons myths an oppressive order espouses
to promote an artificial “free society.” These myths are that the order
respects human rights, there is a universal right to education, all men are
equal, private property is fundamental to being a well-rounded citizen, and
that meritocracy and industriousness are the sole elements that will determine
whether a person is in a position of superiority or inferiority (Freire 130).
The myths are used to keep oppressed
populations passive by creating a static reality that the oppressed must adhere
to because there is no alternative. If the oppressed fail to conform to these
myths, their lack of prospects in life is their own fault. However, these myths
propagated by the oppressive order are not merely individually held constructs;
they are shared. In much the same way frames of references are targeted as
constructs to undergo changes, the myths of the oppressive order are challenged.
By realizing the myths for what they are and their place in past life
experiences, learners of the Freirian method are accomplishing the first stage
of transformative learning.
Pivotal to the transformative
process is critical reflection. Critical reflection occurs when a learner is
presented with a concept that conflicts with a held belief, and the student
studies the concept methodically and globally. According to Taylor, “critical
scrutiny, or more specifically critical reflection, is seen as conscious and
explicit reassessment of the consequence and origin of our meaning structures”
(6). In the second stage of the transformative process, learners use critical
reflection to examine their previously held frames of references. This critical
reflection is essential to the transformative process because it encourages
students to engage with concepts on a deep level. Because learning begins with
a concept that is self-generated, the learner’s interaction with the education
process is fundamentally deeper than the interaction learners are more likely
to have with traditional forms of education. Rather than memorize theories by rote,
students are prompted to question and internalize concepts. This reflection is
a catalyst for a shift in frames of references and shifts of perspectives.
Similarly, Freire also calls for
critical reflection in his theory of adult literacy education. In order to
provoke meaningful analysis from students, Freire uses the problem-posing
education model. This learning model subverts traditional models of education
by dismantling unjust power imbalances in the teacher-student relationship
found in the banking education model. According to Freire, the banking concept
of education espouses the belief that “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those
who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know
nothing” (72). Students are merely passive repositories that teachers fill up
with knowledge and are then required to regurgitate said knowledge on command. In
this model, all discourse in one way: from teacher to student with no chance of
true communication. On the other hand, in the problem-posing model, the teacher
poses a problem, and the student reflects critically on it and expresses her
view on the problem or theme. The teacher uses these themes as a way to
generate words that help the students illuminate theme. Through these
generative themes, knowledge is drawn out from the student and her past
experiences rather than introduced from an external, faux-omniscient source. These
themes prompt the students to think critically about the world around them and
to investigate the systems of the oppressive order. Problem-posing education is
performed through a series of dialogue that must be couched in cognition. In
addition, the process of demythologizing the falsehoods of the oppressive order
requires critical reflection. In order for liberating, transformative education
to occur, these myths need to be confronted, analyzed, and rejected.
The last stage of the transformative
education is a change in perspective for the student. The frames of references
that are critically examined in an earlier stage of the transformative process
begin to shift and reform. According to Mezirow, the result is a “new or
revised interpretation of the meaning of an experience in the world” (as cited
in Taylor 5). In essence, a new outlook informed by the learning process
substitutes the old frames of reference. The process does not end there,
though. Mezirow maintains that action upon is also critical to the
transformative process. In Mezirow’s pscychocritical learning theory, the
transformation is limited to the individual student. Once transformation has
occurred, the student must “live” the new perspective (Baumgartner 17). This
action sets transformative learning theory apart from traditional models of
education. In a traditional education model, the knowledge a student may
receive does not necessarily translate into their lives and actions. However,
the internalization of the transformation lends itself to holistic, global
changes in thinking and behavior for the learners of transformative learning
theory.
In Freire’s theory, the final stage
of transformation is open-ended as well. The student reaches a point in her
critical reflection where the critical thinking transforms into deliberate action.
Freire describes this conflagration of transformation and action upon that
transformation praxis (51). Unlike Mezirow, the action Freire encourages is
much less vague and the subsequent action the student will take will, ideally,
affect society. Once transformation occurs, a student should then use her education
to engage in social justice activism to in order to liberate her peers.
Learners who undergo Freire’s method are “constantly reflecting and acting on
the transformation of their world so it can become a more equitable place for
all to live (Taylor 12). It is that liberation that is the goal of Freire’s
theory of education.
Although Fleming and Garner do not
explicitly list the educator in the three core concepts of transformative
learning, the role an educator plays in the transformative process is a unique
one that bears exploring. According
to Fleming and Garner, the teacher in the transformative
classroom is simply a coordinator of the
transformative process, and the teacher may not enforce her own values and
beliefs onto her learners (25). While in a traditional education model the
teacher is the sole authority figure in the classroom, the teacher in the
transformative classroom must go to great lengths to create an environment
wherein students feel that they can express their views and opinions and that
they have control over their own education. Baumgartner emphasizes two ways
that can help promote instructors to relax their authoritarian grip in the
classroom: being alert to the learning style of the students and engaging with
students on a first name basis (20). An unbalanced power dynamic can adversely
affect the transformative process. Baumgartner writes, “Students who see the
professor as an authority figure may be unable or unwilling to question their teacher’s
values” (21). The danger that lies with this unwillingness to question the
authority of the professor is that the student is unlikely to switch into a
critical reflection mindset because the overbearing specter of an authority
figure may revert them back into prescriptive school of thought.
In Freire’s learning model, the teacher also
must not be dictatorial. In his theory, the authoritarian teacher is the
steward of the oppressive order, the teller in the banking concept of
education. In the problem-posing method, the teacher’s function is to promote
conscious-raising dialogue that will lead to critical reflection in much the
same way that Fleming and Garner and Baumgartner state that the teacher
facilitates transformative learning. However, the teacher in the Freirian
concept also takes on a slightly more active role. Freire writes about “the
teacher-student with student-teachers” wherein
“the teacher is no longer merely the one who teaches, but one who is
himself taught in dialogue with students, who in turn while being taught also
teach” (80). In this sense, the teacher is not simply a detached third party
who coaches from the outside. Instead, the teacher becomes part of the
transformative learning process by switching shared roles with the learners.
The
article “English and Creole: The Dialectics of Choice in a College Writing
Program” illustrates one of the ways a course can be transformative in a social
emancipatory manner as well as the complications that accompany this form of
education. Elsasser and Irvine describe a writing program which experimented
with the inclusion of both Standard English and Creole. Mirroring the Freirian
method, students were prompted to confront a particular myth of the oppressive
order: the myth that their Creole language was of low prestige and therefore
unsuited for critical study or usage. By confronting this myth, the students
were required to use their past experience with language use. Next, the
students engaged in critical reflection about the use and relegation of their
Creole language. The article displays the form their critical reflection
manifested: journal writing. One student wrote:
I
have lived in the VI for eight and a half years and yet few people ever here me
speak in the dialect, and I can speak it fluently.…For a long time I used to
put people in categories based on their speech.…I no longer picture people
based on their language but I feel the urge to mentally correct them…While I
love the Creole,…there are times when I rather not speak it or have it spoken
to me…I feel like such a hypocrite when these times come. (Elsasser and Irvine
409)
This quote shows the student carefully and
deliberately parsing previously held bias and acknowledging the conflict that
the awareness brings her. Although she can see that judging people on their
language use is wrong, she still has a need to correct a dialect she deems
incorrect. This is a perfect example of the critical reflection the students
experienced. Finally, many students seemed to have successfully reached the
third stage, action. During the program, honors students wrote and “published
original works in Creole and conducted research on attitudes toward Creole and
the use of Creole in literature, and documented sociolinguistic norms governing
code-switching (Elsasser and Irvine 409). Within the Freirian method, the
action of writing about the language use would be the praxis of this learning
situation. This liberating action—the calling attention to a social problem
through writing and publishing—is the very essence of Freirian social
emancipatory education.
Freire’s theory of education mirrors
the essential characteristics of transformative education. It acknowledges the
life experience of adult learners through the lens of social activism. It requires
critical reflection in the form of the problem-posing education model, and
results in the transformed perspective of the learner who then takes action
with that transformation in mind. Therefore, Freire’s theory is indeed an
example of transformative education, and is well suited to adult education
because it can encourage passion in adult students, passion that students can
take with them outside of the walls of the classroom.
Works Cited
Baumgartner,
Lisa M. "An Update on Transformational Learning." The New Update on
Adult
Learning Theory. Ed. Sharan B. Merriam. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley and Sons, 2001. 15-24. Print. New Directions for Adult and Continuing
Education #89.
Elsasser,
Nan, and Patricia Irvine. "English and Creole: The Dialectics of Choice in
a
College Writing Program." Harvard Educational Review 55.4 (1985):
399-415. Print
Ewell,
Peter, Patrick Kelly, and Rebecca Klein-Collins. Adult Learning in Focus:
National and
State-by-State
Data.
Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) in partnership with National Center for Higher Education
Management Systems (NCHEMS), 2008. Web. 8 April 2014.
Fleming,
Cheryl Torok, and Garner, J. Bradley. Brief
Guide for Teaching Adult Learners.
Marion, Indiana: Triangle, 2009. Print.
Freire,
Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
30th Anniversary Edition. Trans. Myra Bergman
Ramos. New York: The Continuum
International Publishing Group, 2003. Print.
Taylor, Edward. "Transformative
Learning." Third Update on Adult
Learning Theory. Ed.
Merriam, Sharan B. Hoboken NJ: John
Wiley & Sons, 2008, 5-15. Print. New Directions
for Adult and Continuing Education #119.
