The Popular Education News Continues With A New Editor!!
The Popular Education News is a free email newsletter about popular education and community organizing resources for facilitators and practitioners. Thanks to Kim Walsh who has taken on the task of editing and publishing the newsletter it is continuing. The current issue, No. 71 is now out.
To subscribe see the information at the bottom of the current issue.
We would also like to announce that a new project has begun, the creation of an online Popular Education Archive which has the goal of saving and making available to organizers, activists, and community-based educators and researchers materials and information from the approximately 40 years of the popular education movement in North America. Information about new project will be posted on this web site as well as on the future site under development: www.populareducationarchive.org
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Popular education is the education in popular movements, i.e., democratic social movements against oppression and violence, and for sustainability, human rights, justice and peace. The point of view of this newsletter is that popular education is a broad framework of political and pedagogical principles from which all who do education can learn – whether they are community organizers, activists, community-based educators, or classroom teachers. These principles have multiple roots. Among those roots are:
- the work of Paulo Freire and the many who were inspired by his work - including their rich contributions for social analysis and using the arts in education and organizing
- Myles Horton and the Highlander Center who knew which side they were on - their simple and powerful processes helped communities name their problems and figure out what to do about them
- The Training Movement that included the materials developed by the National Training Laboratory - materials that include many participatory activites focusing on communication skills, group work, simulations, etc., tools for building a better society
- the feminist movement that brought new issues to the foreground and a new language of equity to popular education work.
Popular education provides inspiration and hope to communities and people in them who are struggling against oppression and violence. It brings a wide range of resources for improving and strengthening educational work, starting from personal experience, and moving to shared and social understanding. Democratic, participatory educational methods that create inclusion, give voice, and honor each person’s humanity are central to this approach. It is centered on people’s knowledge, providing tools to help people identify what they know, acknowledging people’s understanding of their own problems and having faith in people’s ability to find and create the knowledge they need to solve them. It provides a rich repertoire of the use of music, theater, and the arts in educational work. Finally, it builds on actions for democratic change and emphasizes systematic techniques and tools for reflection on that action.
Feedback and suggestions for this website are welcomed.
Site updated 3/27/2012