One of the "questioning the texts" items asked us
what the difference between Wallerstein's (and Freire's) problem-posing
curriculum and our 1-2-3 project.
The problem-posing curriculum does not assume neutrality.
The interaction between the educator and the student does not occur in a vacuum,
but we co-participate in the learning process. The purpose of the educational process
is to engage in a dialogue that will promote critical thinking and lead to the
participant's awareness of the possibility of change. The tools of
problem-posing are listening, dialogue, and action. The "curriculum"
will evolve from these processes.
Considering this, I think some of the difference relates to positionality
- where I am - what role I play, or would play, in either situation. However,
it is not as straightforward as it might seem at first. For the project, I feel
I must assume neutrality. I need to put myself in the place of an observer -
which is related to listening, and certainly, I plan to engage in a dialogue
that will help me understand how the literacy event I have chosen to study is
understood in the workplace (it gets a little messy here because we are talking
about my co-workers - my workplace). I can feel the tension, because I have an
opinion about the phenomena I want to study and the 1-2-3 project is not about
me. The project will be about revealing the tensions surrounding the literacy
event and looking at those through the lenses of critical theory, trying to
identify what causes resistance to the literacy event, and how meaning is
construed from artifacts that codify the event. My goal will be to look at the
event from the edges and not place myself into the process. The project will stop short of the final
problem-posing step of "action."
In the project, I will be a researcher rather than an
educator. While there is some overlap in research tools such as observing and
interviewing with listening and discourse analysis/dialogue, the difference
will be that for the 1-2-3 project I want to explore and discover (reveal)
literacy practices in a given workplace. My neutral stance will help me to
question critically what I am seeing and hearing. In the problem-posing model,
I am an educator involved in "arousing consciousness and critical
awareness among the students about the need for and possibility of
change." I am learning with the students and our respective values and
experiences interact in a social exchange that creates learning. I think, too,
that in the 1-2-3 project to a certain degree, I will "name" the
world. Whereas in problem-posing, the students name their world. Although I have tried to lay out these things logically, I am very aware of the tension between the two roles and realize keeping them separate will be difficult.
Susan, thank you for putting the issue of neutrality out there for us to examine! I agree that being detached enough to "hear" the other's voice is imperative. To quote Simone Weil “A way of looking that is first of all attentive. The soul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive into itself the being it is looking at, just as he [sic] is, in all his truth.”
ReplyDeleteHowever...is this the only way to be a researcher? And, how exactly do we do this emptying? Is it not sometimes quite "uncovering" to allow ourselves to "feel" our own subjective emotions when we are interviewing, for example? I think your last sentence is the best of all: There's a role for detachment and attachment in research, but keeping them separate, or at least being aware of our efforts to keep them 'in their places' is key...