This workshop on Neo-Marxisms was just one in a long day at the Radical Theory Forum , organised as an autonomous space during the European Social Forum in London . It was originated by young, politically active academics, who wanted to create a space where education and activism could be interlinked. The well-kept social centre 491 gallery , which served as the venue, helped this to be not only a successful but also an enjoyable event. The workshops covered ‘Anti-Consumerism', ‘Feminist Theory' and ‘Practice at the ESF/WSF', as well as the philosophical and explosive question who the ‘we' in the Social Movements is. The discussions were at the highest level, but not exclusionary.
This is what democracy in education looks like. And this workshop was one possibility for what popular education can look like. But are Social Forums likely to be the place for such kind of learning?
At the Radical Theory Forum there were not only workshops practicing popular education, there were also workshops on popular education itself: about its underlying ideas, about existing projects like ‘Other Worlds' in the UK on globalisation issues, and about possibilities to connect the different approaches in order to have access to each others tools. Popular education has also been a widely debated topic at other recent activist conferences, such as Life After Capitalism in New York in August 2004, which had its forerunner during the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2003. Something is happening here. Why?
Systematic political education is clearly underdeveloped among emancipatory movements struggling for another globalization . Although there are a significant number of critical analyses written for an academic audience, materials and methods of knowledge transfer for people's education are rare. Additionally, at the Social Forums the seminars often remind you very much of university lectures – and they are about as inspiring as them. Yet, even if you are the type of person that is into the academic style, have you ever wondered why you did not read an essay by this person instead of listening to him or her for hours, whilst sitting on an uncomfortable chair?
There is no fixed definition of popular education. Rather it is seen as a concept that is based on the struggle of people and related to their history. Last but not least, it is used to keep people in the room despite their previous experiences with education.
Popular education originally emerged and is emerging again and again in oppressed groups, but it is also closely related with the name of Paulo Freire. He conceptualised it, and while it stems from many different parts of the world and many different movements, Freire was the one who described it first. Besides, he wrote his best-known book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) after staying in exile for seventeen years. During these years he had the chance to get to know many different realities, struggles and ways of doing popular education. This accumulation of experiences makes his contribution even more valuable.
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed Freire argues against the traditional form of education, where students in schools were closed up behind banks and simply had to learn what the teacher explained. This also used to be the way that traditional left-wing organisations dealt with education. In contrast, Freire assumes, “We can learn a great deal from the students we teach.” This would not mean that students and teachers are the same. Freire sees a difference between the educator and the student. However, when educators are conscious of this tension and this difference, they must be constantly alert to not let these differences become antagonistic. He sees “a gross distortion of the Marxist position on the fundamental question of the subject-object relationship”:
“For Marx, these relationships are contradictory and dynamic. Subject and object are not found to be dichotomized or constituting one identity, but one dialectical unity, the same dialectical unity in which we find theory and practice”.
Freire refers constantly to the relationship between subject and object, theory and practice, thought and being, consciousness and reality. He considers any attempt to deal with the relationship that is based on the subject-object dualism, while denying their dialectical unity , as unable to satisfactorily explain this relationship. For him, consciousness is not just a copy of the real, nor is the real only a capricious construction of consciousness. That is why he thinks education needs to take into account the role of consciousness or of the conscious being in the transformation of reality.
“It is only as beings of praxis, in accepting our concrete situations as a challenging condition, that we are able to change its meaning by our action”.
That is why a true praxis is impossible when we are driven by a subject-object dichotomy: cut off from practice, theory becomes a simple verbalism. Separated from theory, practice is nothing but blind activism. In the same way, there is no theoretical context if it is not in a dialectical unity with the concrete context . In the concrete context, we are subjects and objects in a dialectical relationship with reality. This makes up the unity – not the separation – between practice and theory, action and reflection. Otherwise we would be stuck in a world that is the result of actions that are made mechanical or bureaucratic. When Freire says “There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis,” he explains that the action and the reflection both produce the word. At the same time, the word is work - is praxis.
A woman at the workshop in New York hit the point, when she said: “That's what popular education is about. We do not do it in order to get as many people as possible on a protest. Popular education is about real social change. And real social change goes together with personal transformation. Popular education is another piece of the puzzle.”
It is a piece of the puzzle towards another world, and it is the one that connects to all those tired of long speeches and watching prominent faces, of those not willing to imbue themselves into dry texts and of those not able to speak one of the imperialist languages. It is one of the most needed pieces at all, because it enables us to learn from all of us and to change the world while trying to put this into praxis.
At the WSF 2005 in Porto Alegre a workshop called “Connecting Popular Education worldwide,” on the 29th January, will serve as a meeting place and attempt to coordinate such initiatives from different parts of the world.
By Friederike Habermann