The Popular Education News
The Popular Education News is a free monthly email newsletter about popular education and community organizing resources for facilitators and practitioners. You can contribute to future issues by sending suggestions, notices of materials, and short reviews. Please contact us to subscribe or for further information. All back issues are archived on this website.
The current issue for Dec-Jan 2010 is the 65th issue of this newsletter. The featured review is of a fine new book, Lifted By The Heart edited by Chris Spicer. The book is a collection of articles from the Folk Education Association of America's journal Option - "the best introduction to folk school and folk education in North America."
This issue also includes a new section "MISC ANNOUNCEMENTS" about items of interest to popular educators.
As always this issue includes where popular educators will gather.
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:
- 1) 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
- 2) 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
- 3) 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
- 4) 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.
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Site updated 01/21/2010