Brain Storming

Paulo Freire: dialogue, praxis and eduacation

Paulo Freire: dialogue, praxis and education

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Paulo Freire, dialogue, praxis and education. Perhaps the most influential thinker about education in the late twentieth century, Paulo Freire has been particularly popular with informal educators with his emphasis on dialogue and his concern for the oppressed.

Paulo Freire (1921 – 1997), the Brazilian educationalist, has left a significant mark on thinking about progressive practice. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed is currently one of the most quoted educational texts (especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia). Freire was able to draw upon, and weave together, a number of strands of thinking about educational practice and liberation. Sometimes some rather excessive claims are made for his work e.g. ‘the most significant educational thinker of the twentieth century’. He wasn’t – John Dewey would probably take that honour – but Freire certainly made a number of important theoretical innovations that have had a considerable impact on the development of educational practice – and on informal education and popular education in particular. In this piece we assess these – and briefly examine some of the critiques that can be made of his work.

Contribution

Five aspects of Paulo Freire’s work have a particular significance for our purposes here. First, his emphasis on dialogue has struck a very strong chord with those concerned with popular and informal education. Given that informal education is a dialogical (or conversational) rather than a curricula form this is hardly surprising. However, Paulo Freire was able to take the discussion on several steps with his insistence that dialogue involves respect. It should not involve one person acting on another, but rather people working with each other. Too much education, Paulo Freire argues, involves ‘banking’ – the educator making ‘deposits’ in the educatee.

Second, Paulo Freire was concerned with praxis – action that is informed (and linked to certain values). Dialogue wasn’t just about deepening understanding – but was part of making a difference in the world. Dialogue in itself is a co-operative activity involving respect. The process is important and can be seen as enhancing community and building social capital and to leading us to act in ways that make for justice and human flourishing. Informal and popular educators have had a long-standing orientation to action – so the emphasis on change in the world was welcome. But there was a sting in the tail. Paulo Freire argued for informed action and as such provided a useful counter-balance to those who want to diminish theory.

Third, Freire’s attention to naming the world has been of great significance to those educators who have traditionally worked with those who do not have a voice, and who are oppressed. The idea of building a ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ or a ‘pedagogy of hope’ and how this may be carried forward has formed a significant impetus to work. An important element of this was his concern with conscientization – developing consciousness, but consciousness that is understood to have the power to transform reality’ (Taylor 1993: 52).

Fourth, Paulo Freire’s insistence on situating educational activity in the lived experience of participants has opened up a series of possibilities for the way informal educators can approach practice. His concern to look for words that have the possibility of generating new ways of naming and acting in the world when working with people around literacies is a good example of this.

Fifth, a number of informal educators have connected with Paulo Freire’s use of metaphors drawn from Christian sources. An example of this is the way in which the divide between teachers and learners can be transcended. In part this is to occur as learners develop their consciousness, but mainly it comes through the ‘class suicide’ or ‘Easter experience’ of the teacher.

The educator for liberation has to die as the unilateral educator of the educatees, in order to be born again as the educator-educatee of the educatees-educators. An educator is a person who has to live in the deep significance of Easter. Quoted by Paul Taylor (1993: 53)

http://infed.org/mobi/paulo-freire-dialogue-praxis-and-education/

Aleaciones en química

Alloys

There are a few more words you might hear when people talk about mixtures. We can't cover all of them, but we'll give you a quick overview of the biggies. Alloys are basically a mixture of two or more metals. Don't forget that there are many elements on the periodic table. Elements like calcium (Ca) and potassium (K) are considered metals. Of course, there are also metals like silver (Ag) and gold (Au). You can also have alloys that include small amounts of non-metallic elements like carbon (C). Metals are the key thing to remember for alloys.

The main idea with alloys is that the combinations work better together than any of the metals do alone. Metallurgists (people who work with metals) sometimes add chromium (Cr) and/or nickel (Ni) to steel. While steel is already an alloy that is a very strong metal, the addition of small amounts of the other metals help steel resist rusting. Depending on what element is added, you could create Stainless Steel or Galvanized Steel. It's always about improving specific qualities of the original. Another good example of an alloy happens when metallurgists add carbon to steel. A tiny amount of carbon (a non-metallic element) makes steel stronger. These special carbon-steel alloys are used in armor plating and weapons.

Amalgams

Amalgams are a special type of alloy. We like them because we think mercury (Hg) is a cool element. You might know mercury as "quicksilver" or the metal that is liquid at room temperature. Anyway, amalgams are alloys that combine mercury and other metals in the periodic table. The most obvious place you may have seen amalgams is in old dental work. The fillings in the mouths of your grandparents may have been amalgams. We already talked about mercury being a liquid at room temperature. That physical trait was an advantage when they made fillings. Let's say you have an amalgam of mercury and silver (Ag). When it is created, it is very soft. As time passes, the mercury leaves the amalgam and the silver remains. The silver left over is very hard. Voila! You have a filling!

NOTE: Never, ever, play with mercury! It is very poisonous. You shouldn't even touch it, because it will seep into your skin. Dentists don't usually use amalgams with mercury anymore, because some scientists think the mercury can get people sick. When there was extra mercury left in the fillings, it could seep into the blood stream. Most of you will never even have silver fillings. Many dentists use resin fillings, which are made up of plastic and very fine particles of glass.

Emulsions

Let's finish up with a little information on emulsions. These special colloids (another type of mixture) have a mixture of oils and waters. Think about a bottle of salad dressing. Before you mix it, there are two separate layers of liquids. When you shake the bottle, you create an emulsion. As time passes, the oil and water will separate, because emulsions are mixtures


http://www.chem4kids.com/files/matter_mixture2.html

Resumen

Algunas aleaciones

Coltan, el nuevo oro.

Coltan: a new blood mineral

The controversy surrounding blood diamonds from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has made headlines over the past decade, but a relatively obscure mineral is also prompting international concern.

Human rights observers charge that coltan, used in electronic devices such as cellphones, DVD players, video game systems and computers, has been directly linked to financing civil wars in Africa, especially in the DRC.
Men, women and children are said to be forced at gunpoint to mine coltan that is then shipped out of the country at huge profits.
"Coltan is extracted under terrible working conditions in mines in eastern Congo," DanChurchAid, a Danish humanitarian nongovernmental organization, reported in 2006. "The United Nations reports child labour in Africa has significantly increased in coltan mines. In some regions of the Congo, about 30 per cent of schoolchildren are now forced to work in the mines."
On Friday, the Global e-Sustainability Initiative and the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition announced the launch of a Conflict-Free Smelter (CFS) program to combat the problem.
"The CFS program aims to identify smelters that can demonstrate through an independent third-party assessment that the raw materials they procured did not originate from sources that contribute to conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo," stated the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, a Washington-based industry group whose members include Apple, Celestica, IBM and Cisco.
Canadian New Democrat MP Paul Dewar introduced a bill in the House of Commons recently to fight the mining of conflict minerals in Central Africa, specifically in the Democratic Republic of Congo. If successful, Dewar's bill and similar initiatives around the world could prompt stricter guidelines and control on where the mineral is sourced by the major electronics producers.

What is Coltan?

Coltan, also known as columbite-tantalite, is a dull black metallic mineral containing the elements niobium and tantalum. Tantalum, a heat-resistant material that can hold a strong electrical charge, is used to make capacitors used in a wide variety of electronic devices, from cellphones to nuclear reactors. It is also used in high-heat-resistant steel alloys for applications such as aircraft engines.

Where is it found?

The mineral is found in a number of countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada and China, in addition to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Potential mines are also being explored in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greenland, Mozambique, the United States, Finland, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Colombia.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/coltan-a-new-blood-mineral-1.894027

Crucigrama Coltan

Luego de realizar la lectura del artículo, completa el siguiente CRUCIGRAMA