"Now it is no longer to have the text without content" (43).
the problem posed is not that the reading of the word, but of a more rigorous reading of the world, which precedes the reading of the word. If the masses were rarely stimulated before to write their texts, now writing is fundamental from the very beginning of literacy, so that, in the post literacy period what can come to be a small popular library can begin, with the inclusion of pages written by those who are themselves becoming educated" (43).
Educators are naive
astutely naive
or critical
"The myth of the neutrality of education...is the point of departure for our understanding of the fundamental differences between a native practice, an astute practice, and a truly critical practice" (38).
Education is political.
It is done for whom and for what.
Who holds the power and how is it used?
Education reproduces the dominant ideology, but it should also, independent of the intentions of one who has power, offer the negation of that ideology. (Is it always a zero sum game?) This happens by observing and confronting the education and reality.
practice judges discourse--use education, literacy as a tool
Another characterization of a critical view of education is to recognize our own and others humanity and our rights to express our thoughts, our right to speak, and to be heard.
Inherent in speaking is listening and inherent in listening is letting those words be acted upon.
"To impose on them one's own understanding in the name of their liberation is to accept authoritarian solutions of freedom" (41).
To teach one needs to recognize that the learner is a subject--they are in the process of knowing more as is the teacher, and that "knowledge is not a piece of data, something immobilized, concluded, finished, something to be transferred by one who acquired it to one who still does not possess it" (41).
Teaching is helping people acquire the tools they need to change their world in a positive way. The learner is the subject, not the object. The tools are used how they wish them to be used, producing what they need.
Libraries can be depositories of a communities stories, histories, myths, and folklore. Let the learners be the subject of research not the object. Libraries can be places that the community comes and creates their own history and stories to the delight and thoughtfulness of itself.
Looking at education one must view it critically by sourcing it or by asking in favor of whom and for what?
