“knowledge has historicity. That is, knowledge never is static. It’s always in the process,” (Freire 194).
While I had never heard reference of Myles Horton and his Highlander school, learning of the radical educational project he brought to the United States & its similarities with Paulo Freire's programs with impoverished Brazilians, brought assurance to me that there is always the possibility for subversion and liberation. In doing so through a transcribed series of conversations in 1988 conveys integrity throughout.
The two describe how their upbringing and professional/interpersonal experience has shaped their epistemologies, despite the continued development which has followed them into their retirement.
Horton and Freire align in fundamental principle yet differ in implementation – Myles teaching workshops of adult organizers on how to facilitate change, Paulo teaching literacy, history, and humanities generally inaccessible to the plethora of young Brazilians. Both aim to foster critical engagement with education by emboldening the students to view education as relational to their own subjectivities: able to be molded, adapted, and subverted entirely.
“reading is also an act of beauty because it has to do with the reader rewriting the text. It’s an aesthetical event,”(Freire 27).
The nonpartisan, ‘objective’ framing of systemic education is illegitimate to both authors – abstaining from engaging with conflict implies one’s preference for the status quo, and in teaching through such disconnect from reality alienate their students. “Neutrality is just following the crowd … Neutrality, in other words, is an immoral act,”(Horton, 102). Material (primarily history and cultural/social sciences) deemed natural and finalized dissuades students from realizing their ability to change these fields for the betterment of their kin, replacing the inherent joy and wonder and resonance of knowledge with instrumentalism.
“Until they pose the question that has some relevance to them, they’re not going to pay any attention to it,”(Horton 107). In the margins I wrote ‘Epistemological Modification to coax subjects into Participation!’ which I doubt is faithful to Myles’ view of doctrine.
Allowing one directly affected by the object of study to take responsibility for the direction of the course, with guidance (not lecturing), from one aiming to lead one to their own conclusion, provides the greatest challenge for hegemonic suppression. The two radical educators depict students – who initially believed their total ignorance – finding their own answers through trusting and delving in their experience, with the help of Horton/Freire’s suggestions (based upon what has worked for others of similar aims).
“You have to know something; they know something. You have to respect their knowledge, which they don’t respect, and help them to respect their knowledge. These seeds were planted there,” (Horton 55).
It is integral for the project of education to embrace the student and their knowledge, leading them through ways of interacting with the material and eventually to conclusions invigoratingly liberatory. They are able to believe in a future shapable by students just like themselves. There is no authoritarian classroom structure, no anarchic egalitarianism, rather, education in its purest form: a process in which one may discover their placement within the development of knowledge, recognize their ability to further said knowledge in a particular direction, and embrace the satisfaction that comes from understanding abstract principles through the confidence of one’s subjectivity.
Horton and Freire demonstrate their infallible knowledge of critical pedagogy and, more broadly, knowledge-production as a whole. They humbly suggest that they have only brought revolutionary students to their own conclusions, while sharpening their distanced guidance with every workshop or session. Yet they do not entirely abandon these systems, some will for systemic reform yet many aim to change systemic education from within (Paulo deems most effective given the hidden element). Familial love is integral to embracing this radical epistemology, bringing unconditional support for those attempting to understand their placement in our historical development. Reciprocal education comes from a communal ethic as well.
“a good radical education … would be loving people first … next is respect for people’s abilities to learn and to act and to shape their lives … and that is that you value their experiences,” (Horton 177).
They convey the fulfillment of seeing one reach that potential. They encourage future generations to do the same, building upon history, not forgetting it in historicized narrative. They have led many to walk down a road where futurities arise, whereas their pupils have made the road on their own, through their motivation to understand themselves along with a resolve to play with reactionaries in the field of epistemology. Myles and Paulo merely told them to start walking. That is praxis.
“without practice there’s no knowledge … But practice in itself is not its theory. It creates knowledge, but it is not its own theory,” (Freire 98).