DIVINE PEDAGOGY

Resumo: Idéias principais do texto

– O A.T ( Antigo Testamento): modelo de uma pedagogia divina para a salvação das pessoas.
Há dois livros de Pedagogia de Paulo Freire: Pedagogia do Oprimido e Pedagogia da Esperança.
Os dois títulos acima podem descrever dimensões do A.T. O choro dos hebreus oprimidos levou Deus a libertá-los ( esperança e atendimento de seus sonhos, unidade do povo-Abraão).
A pedagogia envolve a aprendizagem na ordem de promover a sabedoria ( =entendimento)
A idéia é demonstrar que a revelação divina ocorreu com palavras escritas decorrentes do que as pessoas escutaram e aprenderam e das reações das mesmas, para situar o nível de entendimento.

– Há diferentes modelos pedagógicos.
As pessoas mudam seus dramas pessoais e procuram esperanças inseridos nos sonhos e conquistas de peregrinação ( espírito dinâmico que movimenta a pessoa através do tempo.)

– A luta sem esperança leva ao desespero e sem a luta não há esperança.
A pedagogia é um processo dinâmico da educação sendo necessário o envolvimento de atores diferentes com diferentes papéis.
Em uma tropa, há uma harmoniosa mistura de pessoas, mas com variadas funções: algumas coordenam, outras são o foco, objetivo da dinâmica.
Há ainda aquelas que a vida preparou para o “palco” = entendimento onde várias experiências acontecem.

– Na educação adulta todos os grupos ( alunos e professores) vivem as mesmas experiências: ensinam e aprendem com cada um. Mas há dois extremos que devem ser evitados: 1) professores que impõem a sua maneira própria de ler o mundo, provocando inibição, passividade, desligamento de outras possibilidades presentes e futuras ( crescimento).
2) importância de uma visão de que ensinar e aprender são importantes no processo de saber; determinar o aqui ( o que já sabem e aprenderam= palavras, experiências, tudo o que for preciso para entender o lá.
Na escola formal o lá é pré-determinado pelo sistema de educação ( currículo, testes e notas).
Na vida real, na educação informal, o lá = lembra o sonho, esperança.
As pessoas tentam entender que as coisas são como elas acham.
Se perguntam: o que as levaram para aquele ponto e como poderiam ser diferentes?

– Processo de mudança: como elas poderiam juntas, forçar tal mudança?
A política está presente onde as pessoas estão juntas.
Arranjos são feitos com a determinação de cada um.
Se o processo da educação política é progressivo, de acordo com Paulo Freire, devemos entender que o mundo é constituído por grupos populares, expressos pelos seus discursos, sintaxe, semântica, sonhos e desejos.
O entendimento pode começar a mudar o momento, retirar a máscara da concreta realidade e tudo isso começa com os porquês.
– Importante notar: a mudança do entendimento não muda o fato, mas muda a maneira de interpretar o fato.
Em qualquer experiência há sempre um ganho de conhecimento e sabedoria. Ignorar isto é violar o método científico causando injustiça às pessoas envolvidas, devido atitudes elitistas do avaliador.
Bom senso e técnica de observação não são restritas somente aos possuidores de instrução superior na educação.
– Há muita sabedoria nas classes pobres e trabalhadoras. Elas não são dementes e nem ignorantes. São frustradas.

– Em alguns encontros de vizinhança, constatamos linhas diferentes de conversação e de como eles são escravizados pelo status, pois não conseguem fazer mudanças na estrutura sócio-econômica-política.
– Injustas observações podem desumanizar e marcar não somente aos que foram roubados, mas também, de maneira diferente, aqueles que roubaram.
É uma distorção da vocação de transformar o homem mais humano e mais completo.
O que separa os grupos é o pensamento, a filosofia, o significado de Deus. Vivem diferentes realidades e a realidade não é estática, mas um processo constante de transformação.
– Se as pessoas procuram sua vocação ontológica de humanização, vão perceber que na educação bancária há contradições e nega o processo de libertação ( dominação não questionável).
Uma quebra desse tipo de educação, seria através do diálogo e investigação ( escuta do professor com respeito e amor ao mundo e por todos que vivem nele)
Para isso é necessário intensa fé no homem: capacidade de fazer, refazer, criar e recriar.

MODELOS DE PEDAGOGIA

O diálogo crítico é a liberalização dos opressores e oprimidos.
Precisa ser carregado na fé das pessoas de acordo com as circunstâncias.
Além de escutar, envolve revelação das esperanças e sonhos, além da dor e frustração vivida pelos participantes.
O resultado de libertação = o comando de seu próprio barco.
– Esse resultado abrange cinco pontos em relação á aprendizagem:
1) decidir o que aprender; 2)direcionar a aprendizagem
3) aprender pela experiência; 4) ser aprendiz intencional; 5) ter ações
As pessoas não são padronizadas.
– No modo de leitura há diferentes tipos de aprendizes: o flutuante, o visual e outros.
O processo de aprendizagem pela experiência, forma e atualiza as potencialidades mentais. É um processo social.
(Tradução por Caureb)

“The Old Testament as a model of divine pedagogy for the salvation of peoples” is a very challenging title for a term paper. A look in the on-line catalog of the university library for helpful ideas revealed there were only two books under the key-word pedagogy, both written by Paulo Freire. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed, written many years ago, was very impressive and gained world wide recognition. The other more recent book was Pedagogy of Hope. With even a superficial familiarity of the Bible one can readily see that both titles could describe the Old Testament–the cry of the oppressed Hebrews is what brought God “down” to realize their liberation (Ex 3:7-8). God would give them hope of reaching their dream of a united people in their own land as promised to Abraham.

Pedagogy involves both teaching and learning in order to promote knowledge that leads to understanding. The task is to demonstrate that divine revelation was God¿s means of teaching and show that the written word described what the people had heard and learned. It would also be helpful to look at the biblical people¿s reactions to learn to what degree that knowledge realized an acceptance and an understanding of the message.

The following pages focus on the meaning of pedagogy and on different pedagogical models that could possibly be available to the writers of the Old Testament. A search through the Old Testament ought to reveal examples of the pedagogy God used in dealing with the chosen people throughout their ever changing social dramas covering a millennium and a half. The search became one illuminated by the concept of hope. Hope involves dreams, a conquest or pilgrimage, a struggle, and a goal; hope is dynamic, it moves one over time to action. The action may change in depth, scope, and application with changing circumstances. Freire’s words ring true in this regard: “The struggle has historicity. It changes from one space-time to another space-time. To struggle without hope leads to despair, to hope without a struggle leads to hopelessness”. The goal of this paper is to show all of the above is relevant to and basic in the Old Testament.

Pedagogy is the dynamics within the educational process. It necessarily involves actors with different roles and a stage on which to take place. Effectively the whole troop consists of an harmonious mix of people. Some are directing or coordinating the educational activities, others are the focus and actual subjects of the dynamics. Finally, there are those whose lives have prepared the stage for understanding, in which the various experiences happen.
One calls the first group teachers and the second students. In adult education, which is of concern here, both groups are knowing and experiencing; both groups teach and learn from each other. However, there are two extremes to be carefully avoided. One would be for the teachers to restrict and “to impose on their pupils their own ‘reading of the world'”. All people have been taught by their socio-cultural experiences to understand the world around them in their own way. This way is part of their personal “truth” and has helped shape them to become who they are. Equally disastrous would be the nullifying of the teachers’ authority that would “plunge the educand into a permissive climate and equally permissive practice”. The danger here would be to give the students the impression that their outlook is always the best one or, even worse, the only one. A consequence of this would be to shut down the present and future possibilities of their growing as well balanced and well rounded individuals by supporting an ego-centric world view.

Teaching and learning are the complementary movements in the process of knowing. They both involve a “here” and a “there”. The triple function of teaching is to determine the “here” of the students, discover what they already know and what they have learned previously from their life experiences, and attempt to coordinate the means of accompanying them from the “here” to the achievement of an understanding of the “there.” In formal schooling, the “there” is generally pre-determined by the established educational system. It involves curricula, testing, grade levels, etc. In real life and informal or political education, the “there” closely resembles a dream, an ethereal hope. People see what goes on around them and try to understand why things are as they find them. They may ask themselves who has led them to this point and how things could have been different. They may wonder if they ought to be involved in the process of change and question what that could involve and how they could join forces with others. Politics is present wherever people join together. Political jostling determines cliques and “pecking order” among members of a group. Arrangements are made according to each one’s determination of how much control is negotiable and to what extent.

If the learning process of political education is to be progressive, according to Paulo Freire, it must take into account the “reading of the world being made by popular groups and expressed in their discourse, their syntax, their semantics, their dreams and desires”.
He continues: “The understanding of the world can begin to change the moment the unmasking of concrete reality begins to lay bare the ‘whys’ of what the actual understanding had been up until then”. It is important to note that a change in understanding does not change any facts. It does, however, effect a change in the manner of interpreting the facts.

In any lived experience, whether recognized or not, there is some gain in knowledge and wisdom. To ignore the importance of this is a gross violation to the scientific method and an injustice to the people involved. It would indicate a selective or elitist attitude on the part of the evaluator (PH 84). Good sense and techniques of observation are not restricted to those who hold higher degrees in formal education. One must, therefore, admit to differences in the evaluations and understandings of the same lived experiences by people of different cultures, education, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

There is much wisdom to be found in the poor and working classes. They are neither dumb nor ignorant; they are only frustrated and helpless. After a neighborhood meeting one evening, three of the leaders in a Brazilian slum were chatting in a makeshift garage. Between the lines of their conversation, these men, none of whom had finished fourth-grade, were talking Bible, which they couldn’t even read. There was no hatred of the people they were talking about, living on the hill above them. There was no rancor about those who represented the powerful and opulent, living in their big houses surrounded by eight-foot high walls. The two groups just walked in different worlds and talked in different languages–they used the same words but with different connotations.

The conversation in the garage revealed the understanding these oppressed men had of the world. They may not have been church members but they were so insecure and their lives were always so full of danger that they, and their wives and children, walked with God every minute of the day. It would be an exercise in futility to compare the stories of the men in the garage with those of the people on the hill. Both groups were enslaved victims of the status quo; neither group had the power to make permanent or even noticeable changes in the socioeconomic and political structures that engulfed them. Freire rightly observes, “Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (but in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human” . It was not words used that separated these two groups. What set them apart was the thinking, the philosophy of life in the background, and their meaning of God. They lived different realities.
Freire affirms that reality is not static. Rather, it is a process undergoing constant transformation. If people “are searchers and their ontological vocation is humanization, sooner or later they may perceive the contradiction in which banking education seeks to maintain them, and then engage themselves in the struggle for their liberation”. This “banking” education is a product of the establishment in which students are told what they are to learn, what they should understand about what they have learned, and what they are to do with it. It is a “deposit” made by the dominators to bring them “interest” through submissive, non-questioning dominated.

A break away from a banking education is best achieved by dialogue. Dialogue is neither argumentation nor manipulation. It is investigation into the thoughts, understandings, and reasons of the other. It is a listening to the other with respect and, even more basically, with a profound love for the world and for all that lives in it . It requires “an intense faith in man, faith in his power to make and remake, to create and recreate, faith in his vocation to be more fully human (which is not the privilege of an elite, but the birthright of all men)”.

Models of Pedagogy

Critical dialogue, which is liberating to the oppressors as well as the oppressed, must be carried on faithfully by people according to the circumstances they happen to be in. Besides listening, critical dialogue involves revelation of the hopes and dreams as well as the pain and frustration lived by the participants. Any effort to detour from the deepening of their understanding of each other¿s points of view, their hopes, and the causes of their being in their present life situation would be an affront to the participants. To promote ideas foreign to the participants would be to use instruments of oppression; to evade their reflection and participation in the dialogue would be to treat them as objects rather than subjects in the process of liberation .