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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: September 4, 2006
Latest Update: Setpember 4, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Banking educatiion, Process education, Generative educationSome of this I lectured on in class on September 6, 2006. jeanne
The research methods in which I am most interested this semester are those that will enable you to enter and maintain complex and enjoyable discussions on transform_dom. Last semester we had lots of input in which people had a chance to explain their position on issues and to even try to persuade others that they were right. I tried to maintain illocutionary discourse, in which our object is to understand each other's positions, not to convince them to accept ours. When you're trying to persuade another that you're right, you're engaging in instrumental discourse. It's instrumental because it's an instrument to accomplish your agenda or goal.
I want our discourse to be a little different this semester. I want us to stick to illocutionary discourse. That is, spend less effort trying to think of what you can say to convince someone to take your position, and more time on tyring to empathize with theirs. Tiotol them. Hunt for little questions you can ask that might help you imagine what they're thinking, why they're saying what they are. Keep the dialog going, because in the dialog we come to understand each other.
All summer Pat and I fussed and fumed because one of her daughters took a religious position that we viewed as incredibly authoritarian. You can imagine how we reacted to that. The, two days ago, as I floundered trying to get all these essays and discussion questions fitted into place and uploaded, my husband let me stay home at my computer while he went to the Gallery to pay for two courses I'm taking on Monday and Tuesday nights, conceptual drawing and printmaking. I got so much done. I was so happy. And then he yelled at me tonight because the school doesn't pay me enough to work this hard, and I promptly started crying. The funny part of all this is that five minutes after I called Pat we were talking about these essays and our cards and planning for more projects and I discovered that human relations suck, but we can't get along without them.
I know, I know. Woody Allen said it first. But now I've experienced it as an epiphany. No, it doesn't make sense for my husband to fuss at me. But he's upset that I'm working too hard. He's right. But I have to do this. It's like my art. I can't not do it. And I'm still grateful for his helping me do it all. I couldn't have survived at Dominguez Hills without him. But he still shouldn't yell at me. And I shouldn't insist that he understand me. There's always time for illocutionary discourse for that. Finally, together tonight, Pat and I were able to agree that our families make us crazy, but that we still love them as they and we are, crazy. Pat and I actually contemplated getting on that list for that seniors home in Burbank that was in the NY Times today. But we'd miss Arnold (husband) and our families. I scared my cat yelling back, but it only lasted about five minutes, and now here I am, happily back at my computer. Now, how's that for positionality? See how it is interdependent with all the situations that pop up, when we least expect it, and when we're least prepared to cope with it all.
And that's another thing about illocutionary discourse. It doesn't happen all at once. Some of us are more able to listen than others. I must have chattered non-stop for an hour when we went shopping today for groceries and Chinese lunch. I probably made him crazy, 'cause something different was on his mind. He came in for me to help with preparing legal documents, when all I wanted to do was work on art projects and essays. Relationships are funny things. They don't happen all at once, and they never stay exactly the same. They keep growing, just the way we do. So illocutionary discourse is never over. it's hard. But we gotta keep at it, if we would like real and good relationships.
Banked education: Understanding what illocutionary discourse is and how it works is a part of banked education. You can read the essays, look at Maria Pia Lara'sMoral Textures, ask questions, and talk it over with others on transform_dom. You can't just assume you know what it is because you know what the individual words mean. You'll have to work at it, like you would if you were studying for a test, except taht we want you to do more with it than repeat some example or definition on a test.
Banked educatioin in the Bolivia vs. Bechtel case would be a general sense of what happened to cause Bechtel to claim that it had a right ot all Bolivia's rainwater, and how that case finally turned out in 2006. You won't be able to go out in your own local community to talk about the meanings of privatization unless you know the facts.
Process education: We want you to know what to do with what you've learned, in your own life, in the issues that concern you. With me and Pat and our horror of authority, we had to learn how to cope with children and husbands when they insist upon taking an authoritarian stance, and we aren't willing to toss the whole relationship as a consequence.
With Bechtel, you'll need to learn what kind of process there was to resolve the tensions between Bechtel and Bolivia, and how we and they fit into that process. That's still banked education because it's there for you to read, but you'll have to think a little about the process. Then you'll need to figure out what kind of process will enable you to share that knowledge with your local community so that they will learn from you enough facts that they'll be able to decide how they feel about the human rights to rainwater.
Generative education: Means that education has greater impact and is more, shall we say, tasteful, when it isn't thrown out you without your consent and in spite of your concerns. Freire understood that very well. As you learn the banked information we intend to discuss, and as you explore the processes by which it fits into our very own everyday lives, you're going to discover paths that intrigue you that you'd like to explore, and that we haven't included.
Cory reminded me to set up material for the 5th anniversary of September 11. I haven't got all the material I'd like up yet. But the issue of how we commemorate and how we feel about 9/11 hinges directly on how we feel about other upcoming current events, like elections, peace, violence, torture, and the imperial nature of the presidency. So we'll have lots of time to consider these issues.
The way I'd like personally to remember 9/11 is the way that Leckie School in Washington is doing it. I'd like to sit in a quiet spot and share my thoughts with a friend, a neighbor, or even a stranger at Starbucks. And if I can manage the time to make a few cards to share, so that they'll remember our conversation, I'd be pleased to give them a memento that would commemorate those who died so needlessly in a sudden fit of violence conquering our better human natures.
Discussion Questions
- What is banked education?
Consider banked education in the above essay.
- What is process education?
Consider process education in the above essay.
- What is generative education? Consider generative education in the above essay.
- What is "situated knowledge" in the Bechtel vs. Bolivia water issue?
Consider that the facts we focus on and the way we interpret them is based on which situation we're in. If we're indigenous people in Bolivia, and Bechtel says it owns our rain and we can't have it, we're likely to remember old indigenous practices and rituals and a time when Bechtel's infrastructure was as alien to us a Roman aqueduct. Our knowledge is "situated" in a different time, different place, with a different memory and a different culture to guide us.
If we're stockholders in Bechtel, we're likely to look at how much has been spent by the company on the part of the infrastructure that has been repaired, and be angry that sometimes the Bolivians were uncooperative in helping us complete the work more efficiently, and that they didn't want to pay us, when we were only demanding reasonable profits for all we had done. Our knowledge is technological, rational, aware of costs and the bottom line, and that we invested our efforts and money to make money, not to help people who are ungrateful even when you try to help them build a modern country. Our situated knowledge is very, very different from theirs. Get the picture?
Then consider that we are white middle class Americans in the 21st Century, and that they are indigenous people in a poor land that has been exploited for the better part of several centuries by people just like us. Get the picture?
- What do we mean by positiionality in the Bolivia vs. Bechtel water case?
To effectively communicate with one another from our very different situations, it is essential that we help one another understand our positioning with respect to the situation. Note that William Finnegan does not write about Bolivian indigenous people from New York City. He goes to spend time amongst them to understand and be able to relay to us what their situatedness is like. All good jouranlists do that. That's one of the wonderful advantages of such a career. You get to see situations up close and personally, in the midst of their reality, which is hard to grasp virtually or from many thousand miles away. But even then, you still are seeing their reality from our perspective. You can't see the world without the effects of technology and markets and human rights. It's all part of who you are, even in their reality. That's positionality.
Things like age, where we live, what we do for a living, the culture that we have embraced for most of our lives, all these things alter the situation from which we perceive issues, and alter who we are as we engage in the situatiion even as non-participant observers.. As you try to share your awareness of the water crisis with others, don't just tell them your perception. Tiotol them a little. Ask questions about their perceptions, see how they are reacting to the ideas you present, try to imagine how they might react to Bechtel. You might even try this out on a Bechtel employee. How would he/she react to our presentation of water crises and Bechtel's role in same?
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