The Power of Subversive Education: Freedom Schools Past and Present
Abstract
Recent events further indicate a consideration of education's future while maintaining its current trajectory is futile. We must now ask ourselves what knowledge is of value for students today and how they might best
experience it. Freire (1970) writes, “Education is the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (p. 16). Historically and presently, schools, as Althusser suggests, are part of the ideological state apparatus, maintaining systemic racism and the ongoing exploitation of the poor and working class. Altering the nation’s approach to education from indoctrinational to liberatory within the current framework is a bootless errand. Alternatively, a consideration of successful, liberatory, and democratic educational movements within, but not necessarily limited to, the United States casts light on the successful work of freedom and citizenship schools, grassroots efforts with significant and ongoing positive individual and societal impact.
Presentation Description
See Abstract
Keywords
education, freedom schools, citizenship schools, grassroots
Location
Stream A: Critical Schooling (Curriculum Dialogues)
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Whitcomb, Caroline, "The Power of Subversive Education: Freedom Schools Past and Present" (2021). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 1.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2021/2021/1
The Power of Subversive Education: Freedom Schools Past and Present
Stream A: Critical Schooling (Curriculum Dialogues)
Recent events further indicate a consideration of education's future while maintaining its current trajectory is futile. We must now ask ourselves what knowledge is of value for students today and how they might best
experience it. Freire (1970) writes, “Education is the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (p. 16). Historically and presently, schools, as Althusser suggests, are part of the ideological state apparatus, maintaining systemic racism and the ongoing exploitation of the poor and working class. Altering the nation’s approach to education from indoctrinational to liberatory within the current framework is a bootless errand. Alternatively, a consideration of successful, liberatory, and democratic educational movements within, but not necessarily limited to, the United States casts light on the successful work of freedom and citizenship schools, grassroots efforts with significant and ongoing positive individual and societal impact.
