Diploma VET

Stephen Brookfield
and
Paulo Freire
Brookfield
Since beginning his teaching career in 1970, Stephen Brookfield has
worked in England, Canada, Australia, and the United States, teaching
in a variety of college settings

He has written ten books on adult learning, teaching, critical thinking,

discussion methods and critical theory, four of which have won the Cyril
O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education (in 1986, 1989,
1996 and 2005). He also won the 1986 Imogene Okes Award for
Outstanding Research in Adult Education

His work has been translated into German, Finnish and Chinese. In
1991, he was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree from the
University System of New Hampshire for his contributions to
understanding adult learning

He currently serves on the editorial boards of educational journals in

Britain, Canada and Australia, as well as in the United States. During
2002, he was a Visiting Professor at Harvard University.
Do we understand ourselves
as teachers?

We misread how others perceive our actions

We teach innocently
We think we are incompetent and accept the
blame for everything
Critical reflection can solve this
Paradigmatic assumptions
Basic axioms that construct our world,
paradigmatic assumptions
We use them to order the world into
fundamental categories
Difficult to examine critically
Prescriptive Assumptions

What we think ought to happen in a particular

situation
IE: how teachers should behave, what good
education should look like
Causal Assumptions
How different parts of the world work and
about the conditions under which these can
be changed
Based on the other two assumptions, causal
assumptions deal with If... then issues.
Is critical reflection critical?
So reflection is not, by definition, critical. It is
quite possible to teach reflectively while
focusing solely on the nuts and bolts of
classroom process.
Reflection becomes critical
when..
It helps you to understand the underpinnings
that distort educational processes
It questions assumptions and practices that
appear to be making our life better but in fact
are not
What is an example of this?????
How Students Think Critically
According to Brookfield, when students think
critically, they approach the world reflectively. They
are less likely to act or make decisions out of habit.
Instead, critical thinkers ask hard questions, weigh
the evidence, interpret complex problems, and as a
result, make truly informed and wise decisions

Instructors As Facilitators
Brookfield said that instructors can play a role in
helping students become critical thinkers by helping
them probe and challenge their assumptions
whenever possible. Help students check the
accuracy of their assumptions by encouraging the
exploration of as many different perspectives,
viewpoints, and sources as possible.
Challenging Assumptions
Getting students to challenge their assumptions and
think critically about them isn't always easy. The key
is to start by asking students to examine the views
they hold that have the least influence over who
they are as individuals.

"As an instructor, the goal is to encourage students

to challenge assumptions and think critically about
them without taking the exercise to a point where it
threatens students' self-esteem and learning
What Is A Reflective Teaching
Statement (RTS)?
Also known as a teaching philosophy statement, the
Reflective Teaching Statement is, as Stephen
Brookfield defines it a personal vision of teaching; a
critical rationale of teaching; sense of purposes of
teaching.
Specifically, the statement is a short reflective essay
that describes your teaching philosophy, strategies,
methods and objectives.
RTS typically include your beliefs about optimal
teaching and learning, examples of how you put
these beliefs into practice, and your goalsboth
your teaching goals and your goals for students
learning.
Further readings on TAFEVC
Chapters from Becoming a Critically
Reflective Teacher by Stephen Brookfield
How to RTS (Reflective Teaching Statement)
optional but worth the trouble
Freire
The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire is among most the influential
educational thinkers of the late 20th century. Born in Recife,
Brazil, on September 19, 1921, Freire died of heart failure in Sao
Paulo, Brazil on May 2, 1997

After a brief career as a lawyer, he taught Portuguese in

secondary schools from 1941-1947

He subsequently became active in adult education and workers'

training, and became the first Director of the Department of
Cultural Extension of the University of Recife (1961-1964)
 Freire's most well known work is Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).
Throughout this and subsequent books, he argues for system of
education that emphasizes learning as an act of culture and freedom.
He is most well known for concepts such as:
"Banking" Education, in which passive learners have pre-selected
knowledge deposited in their minds;
"Conscientization", a process by which the learner advances towards critical
consciousness;
the "Culture of Silence", in which dominated individuals lose the means by
which to critically respond to the culture that is forced on them by a dominant
culture.
Other important concepts developed by Freire include: "Dialectic",
"Empowerment", "Generative Themes/Words", "Humanization",
"Liberatory Education", "Mystification", "Praxis", " Problematization",
and "Transformation of the World".
Freires Pedagogy

Education should raise the awareness of the

students so that they become subjects, rather
than objects, of the world. This is done by
teaching students to think democratically and
to continually question and make meaning
from (critically view) everything they learn.
 Knowledge is a social construct.
Freire discusses two types of knowledge,
unconscious, sometimes practical knowledge
and critical, reflective or theory knowledge.
Beliefs are shaped into knowledge by
discussion and critical reflection.
 Freire talks about the fallacy of looking at the
education system like a bank, a large repository
where students come to withdraw the knowledge
they need for life.
Knowledge is not a set commodity that is passed
from the teachers to the students.
Students must construct knowledge from knowledge
they already possess.
Teachers must learn how the students understand
the world so that the teacher understands how the
student can learn.
 Teaching is a political process. It must be a
democratic process to avoid teaching
authority dependence.
The teacher must learn about (and from) the
student so that knowledge can be
constructed in ways that are meaningful to
the student.
The teachers must become learners and the
learners must become teachers.
Conscientization:

Conscientization is an ongoing process by

which a learner moves toward critical
consciousness).
Conscientization means breaking through
prevailing mythologies to reach new levels of
awareness--in particular, awareness of
oppression, being an "object" in a world
where only "subjects" have power.
Praxis
Praxis is a complex activity by which
individuals create culture and society, and
become critically conscious human beings.
Praxis comprises a cycle of action-reflection-
action which is central to liberatory education.
Characteristics of praxis include self-
determination (as opposed to coercion),
intentionality (as opposed to reaction),
creativity (as opposed to homogeneity), and
rationality (as opposed to chance).
What is Critical Pedagogy?
Traditionally refers to educational theory and
teaching and learning practices that are
designed to raise learners critical
consciousness
Critical consciousness challenges and
transforms oppressive social conditions
Critical educators fight oppressive regimes of
power and reconfigure teacher/student
relationships
http://www3.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/resour
ces/Documents/FreireIssues.cfm#conscientiz
ation