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[ProfessionalDevelopment 2375] Re: Critical Thinking, Education and Social ActionDAVID GREENE eagle3372 at msn.comSat Jul 19 14:09:03 EDT 2008
Dear friends, !n 2003, the New York City Department of Education announced that they were closing the Basic Education and GED classes at Our Lady of Refuge Church in Brooklyn, NY. This action would dramatically affect the 70 students that I was teaching in the basement of the church. These were free classes and there were few other educational opportunities for adult students in the area. Most students were women, minorities, immigrants and working class. They have less access to many social services, including childcare, legal aid, health care and advocacy, etc., because of budget cuts and the low priority that these occupy in governemnt agendas - city, state and federal. The urgency of the issue provided an opportunity to hold several important discussions in classes for students to learn and articulate their concerns. They studied and discussed what they could do to keep the classes open, organized a student committee and elected their leaders. They looked at past efforts to organize including the antislavery, labor and civil rights movements. They began to organize support in the church, the community, the teacher's union, and other classes. Several small news articles drew attention to the injustice that they were describing and they forced the school superintendent to meet with them. In a larger public forum they got him to sign an agreement to keep the classes open and provide many resources to the classes. This process changed the view and understanding of many invloved. It was clearly educational in many ways, and illustrated how they could change conditions if they understood what was going on. Students developed research, organizational and public speaking skills. This provided an opportunity to have the most relevant learning and discussion about government and democratic participation. It clearly allowed for and promoted a critical examination of our realities and promoted a 'we can solve this' approach. There are many issues affecting adult student lives and they are a vitally important and relevant medium for learning and critical thinking, questioning and understanding what is going on around us and why. In our world today, we face uncertain economic changes that are affecting all of us and particularly the students we teach and work with. We don't need to import an 'activist agenda', but adult education particularly needs to integrate the real world issues that confront all of us. The fact that adult education/literacy classes reach only a small fraction of the potential population and that funding for these programs is woefully inadequate, should clearly illustrate that the survival of classes is dependent on social awareness. Greater understanding of social issues, learning that is based on real life student problems and civic literacy (including organizing and advocacy) are subjects that should be taught in every program. David Greene
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