PopEd Theory

Popular Education is a group facilitation technique to raise consciousness and become aware of how an individual's personal experiences are connected to larger societal problems. The theory was  expressed by Paulo Freire in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  Freire worked to empower peasants in Brazil through literacy. Since that time it has been used for a great many purposes in both the North and South.

The book AH-HAH!: A New Approach to Popular Education, describes the approach:

Freire distinguishes his approach to education from the traditional "banking" approach where participants are treated as empty vessels that must be filled with information.  The underlying implication of the traditional approach is that students are "uneducated" and in need of knowledge that can come only from teachers or experts.  This need creates a dependency and reinforces a sense of powerlessness.  People learn to distrust themselves, their knowledge and intuitions and this can lead to confusion.  They often feel there is something wrong but they are not sure what.  Freire's method encourages participants to see themselves as a fount of information and knowledge about the real world.  When they are encouraged to work with knowledge they have from their own experience they can develop strategies together to change their immediate situations.

Educating for Change follows this process for doing popular education:

• Start by drawing out participants' experience
• Look for shared patterns of experience and knowledge
• Add new information and ideas
• Practice skills and plan for Action
• Take action

The Popular Education Research Group describes popular education as a cycle of stages:

• Beginning with people's own experiences;
• Moving from experience to analysis;
• Moving from Analysis to encouraging collective action to change oppressive systems;
• Reflection and evaluation of its own process.

And furthermore, it is a type of education which:

• takes place within a democratic framework;
• is based on what learners are concerned about;
• poses questions and problems;
• examines unequal power relations in society;
• encourages everyone to learn and everyone to teach;
• involves high levels of participation;
• includes people's emotions, actions, intellects and creativity;
• uses varied activities.

In this model everyone teaches and everyone learns in a collective process of creating new knowledge.

There is much to be said about popular education, so if you know any good exercises, links, or books that you would like to add to this list, please send them to me.

• Online Popular Education Exercises (Ozone Protection & Sustainable Transportation)
• Links to other sites with information about Popular Education
• Other references on Popular Education.

The Resource Manual for a Living Revolution summarizes Freire's Theory

1. Preliminary Investigation
• Facilitators investigate the existing situation of the group with which the curriculum is to be developed.
• Secondary sources are used
1. Investigation

Meeting with the group

1. Explanation of the investigation process finding the group's themes and then turning them into problems (codification) to be examined (decodified) by the group.
2. Discussion on the theory/process of education.
3. Gaining group approval for participation in the learning process.
4. Asking for volunteers from the group who will be co-investigators for themes with the facilitators. (Co-investigation is part of the learning process; it develops proficiency in critical analysis.)

Investigation

1. Facilitators and participants (Facilitators and participants both play an active role in this learning process.  The term "facilitators" refer to a person who also performs a specialized role of thinking about and helping the group through the process.) make concrete observations of the conditions of the group (work, play, social customs, authority, religion, etc.)
• Observations by the facilitators should be as value free as possible
• These observations take apart (decodify) the people's life in order to examine it in more detail.
2. Evaluation
• Draw up brief reports of findings
• Look for nuclei of contradictions (small contradictions in everyday life which might have societal causes), and look for possible limit situations.
• Investigate with the group the level of its awareness of the limit situations.  (The same limit situations for different groups in different geographical locations may imply different themes and limit acts.)
• Group must begin to recognize different limit situations which have not been tested by action.
2. Codification:  Making the Theme into a Problem
Codification
    Team of investigators selects several themes and the contradictions contained within the themes to develop into a problem.
Guidelines for Codification
1. The problem must represent a familiar and easily recognized situation of the group being investigated.
2. The nucleus of the problem, the contradiction, must not be overly clear nor overly perplexing.  The problem should allow for a variety of solutions.
3. The problems (codifications) should be organized into a thematic fan; themes should connect in that analysis of one should open up in the direction of other themes.  The themes should make up a total picture of the lives of the group.
4. Contradictions within one problem should include contradictions which are part of a system of contradictions under study.
5. The problem must relate the felt needs of the group.

Codification (Problem) Types
    The first codification is a very simple one;  it serves to introduce the group to the theme and to process of dialogic examination (decodification).  this is known as an "essential" codification.  The "essential" codification is followed by other "auxiliary" codifications which broaden the theme and are more difficult.  The combination of "essential" and "auxiliary" codifications (problems) gives the group a chance to examine the totality of the theme.  "Individuals who were submerged (dominated) in reality, merely feeling their needs, emerge from reality and perceive the causes of their needs."
Codification (Problem) Possibilities

Simple
Visual - Pictures, movies, film strips, etc.
Tactile - Encounter/group dynamics, etc.
Auditory - newspaper clippings, brief reports, records, songs of the group, poem, etc..

Compound

Combinations of simple ones above.
Activities such as Street Speaking, Radical Street Theatre, Role-playing, Strategy Games, Quick Decision exercises, Situation Analysis, etc.

Hinged Themes - themes which connect one thematic problem to another - may be introduced by the facilitator to ease the transition from one problem to another.

3. Decodification - Problem Solving
• Group selects a theme that has been turned into a problem (codified), examines it, discusses it, explores causes and limit situations and possible limit acts.
• Facilitator acts as co-ordinator of decodification by listening, challenging individuals and posing problems, using the codified problem and its answers.
4. Interdisciplinary Study and Final Codifications
• Themes are categorized into different social science disciplines and a detailed study is made.  Each social scientist then presents a proposed breakdown or elaboration of his/her theme, noting the contradictions and possible problems that could be created from them.  Different themes are discussed and modified and the rest of the team makes suggestions.  The group explores hinged themes, those themes which facilitate the transition from one major theme to another.  A bibliography is prepared.
• Final Codification
5. Represent to the People Their Own Themes in the Form of Codifications
6. Decodification - Problem Solving (Problems - Causes - Solutions - Actions)