Wrap-Up

Wrap-Up

Aim

This Wrap-Up will help to explain the links between Andragogy and Dialgoue Education with Transformative Learning Theory and the work of Paulo Freire.

Comments

After being introduced to Andragogy, the first paradigm presented at this course of Adult Education for Community Workers is Dialogue Education by Jane Vella, followed by the Transformative Learning Theory by Jack Mezirow and the Critical Pedagogy from Paulo Freire. In relation to Dialogue Education, Jane Vella worked with communities and her steps and principles can be easily applied inside this context and connected to Mezirow’s and Freire’s work.

One common thread that can be noticed across these approaches is how important it is to learn about the background of the learners, listen to their needs, concerns and expectations. Dialogue Education connects to Freire in the sense that listening is important both figuratively and physically. Vella’s second principle of Dialogue Education is Safety and it has an emotional component, we can only work productively if we have the safety. This is also reflected in Freire's approach where safety is built on mutual respect. Similarly, the critical thinking and reflection required in Transformative Learning cannot happen without a safe learning environment. The Adult Learners have the need to feel that educators are competent and that they care about them.

Vella’s sixth principle is Learners as Decision Makers. Transformation doesn’t happen with passive learners, they need to be seen as active human beings in charge of the situation that decide what to engage with. This relates to the concept of Student-teacher and the Teacher-student in Freire’s work where sometimes the learner assumes the role of an educator.

Mezirow connects not only with Vella but also Freire as after 1985 he was influenced by Malcolm Knowles and started to use the concept of self-directed learning. The way Mezirow describes the learning process is similar to that of Freirean problem posing. Mezirow describes learning process as making assumptions explicit, interrogating where these assumptions are coming from, contextualizing, validating and acting on them. Learning involves trying to understand where our ideas and knowledge are coming from with the aim of engaging critically with other points of view and ideas.

Going back to Freire, having worked closely with the communities he developed a teaching methodology which focused on how to enact the social change. He inspired millions of people in Brazil and Latin America shifting the focus of adult education to that committed to social change and political literacy.

To work effectively with adults for social change, we can take all the valuable lessons from Freire while following the steps given by Vella and using Mezirow’s contribution on how to get involved on this process in a systematic, organized and conscious way.

At the end of this journey, it is clear that there isn’t just one right path to follow, we need to go back to our own contexts inside the communities and find our own paths creating our designs and approaches based on what we learned during these five weeks from all these different and important contributors to education and social change.

Weekly assignment For this week, please share with us your final thoughts on how learnings from this course can be applied in your specific context as well as any other comments or thoughts.

Thank you and we hope you enjoyed our mini-course!