For the first introductory meeting, I chose the book by Paolo Freire The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a book that I had wanted to read for a long time but hadn’t had an opportunity until now.
The key point for me in relation to my teaching practice is on the use of dialogue, or what is coined as dialogical teaching.
The dialogue is extremely important in teaching in fine art as most teaching sessions happen within workshops, 1-1 or group tutorials, group crits and seminars.
For Freire, the fundamental goal of dialogical teaching is to create a process of learning and knowing. This requires an epistemological curiosity about the very elements of the dialogue.
That is to say, dialogue must require an ever-present curiosity about the object of knowledge. Thus, dialogue is never an end in itself but a means to develop a better comprehension about the object of knowledge.
Otherwise, one could end up with dialogue as conversation where individual lived experiences are given primacy.
I think this is particularly important in relation to teaching theory or running seminars after lectures. Here, the illuminating point is on not focussing on one’s own lived experience as “over-celebration of one’s own location and history often eclipses the possibility of engaging the object of knowledge by refusing to struggle directly, for instance, with readings involving an object of knowledge, particularly if these readings involve theory.”
I take this as a prompt and will use a question and answer approach for my next post-lecture seminar. Focussing on a theory or artwork mentioned and device a number of questions for students.
I really like the book ‘The Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ by Paulo Freire, and its focuse on dialogical teaching. I think it could be great if you could expand on the concept of the ‘oppressed’ as it could be ambiguous and interesting to critically reflect on. You could add one sentence about who ‘the oppressed’ is in Freire’s book, and then contextualise it within teaching at UAL. Is the ‘oppressed’ the minority of home student who are less wealthy than the majority of international students? Are us – as educators – oppressed between top-down pressures from the University and growing expectations from the students? Overall, it is very good that you have explained what dialogue and dialogical teaching mean, that you have reflected on your own practice, and made plans to embed this learning into your teaching going forwards. Well done!
Thank you for your comment! I don’t think categorising particular students as the “oppressed” would be useful as it creates further division. Students come from all sorts of backgrounds, wealth is definitely a privilege and gives you an advantage but it is by no means the only one. Parents’ education, cultural capital one grew up with or even as basic as being loved and heard, can form part of privilege.
The core idea I’d like to take from Freire’s work I believe is the idea of dismantling the banking system of pedagogy and focus on productive and effective dialogue where knowledge exchange can take place.