Thanks a lot for this, Marina.
An example of what sounds like truly a "transformative" learning model, where
community problem-solving by that very community forms the core of both its
curriculum and most importantly, its explicit value system -- true commitment
to each other in that community. The most important commons educational
premise of all.
Also, interested to see the concept of Restorative Justice woven into it.
Especially as this much older form of "justice" upends our power/punishment
top-down systems for much healthier restoration of the broken relationships and
empathetic learning of the harm done, to heal that harm to all involved for the
entire community. Just attended a workshop of this very thing, Restorative
Justice for Schools in Essex, so thrilled to see the concept spreading as it is
so effective in redefining crime and punishment in terms of learning about harm
done on humane, interpersonal realities rather than only economic-private
property and hierarchal-authority terms.
So really appreciated the piece Marina,
June
June Gorman,
Educator and Educational Theorist
Founder,
Transformative Education Forum<http://www.tef-global.org/>
Learning Research
Fellow, Schumacher Institute http://www.schumacherinstitute.org.uk
Education Advisor,
UN SafePlanet Campaign <http://www.safepla.net/>
Board Project
Director for Outreach, International Model United Nations
Association<http://imuna.org/>
Steering Committee,
(UNESCO/Global Compact) K-12 Sector for Sustainability Education
<http://www.uspartnership.org/main/view_archive/1> )
Member, UN Education
Caucus for Sustainable Development
Member UN, Commons Cluster
________________________________
From: Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>
To: p2p-foundation <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 5:03 AM
Subject: [P2P-F] Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] Fwd: ZNet Commentary: Marina Sitrin:
Bachilleratos Populares
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ZCommunications <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 9:43 AM
Subject: ZNet Commentary: Marina Sitrin: Bachilleratos Populares
To: [email protected]
Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
Marina Sitrin: Bachilleratos PopularesZ Communications Daily Commentary
We arrived late to the graduation. The entire block was full and there wasn’t a
free seat in sight. Hundreds of people filled the street. Some people came
dressed from work, and others, who had loved ones graduating, were dressed in
their best clothes, cameras ready. I had no idea it would be such an elegant
event. Incongruously it was held in the street that the neighbors had shut
down, with chairs lent from the recuperated factory hosting the event,
neighbor’s homes, a retirement home across the street and wood benches
constructed just for the event. The stage was a makeshift construction with a
hand-held microphone from the 1980s. But the people, the people attending were
so elegant. The women graduating looked like they were going to their proms or
quince celebrations in elaborate dresses, hair and faces made up and high
heeled shoes – although many were decades older than fifteen or prom age. The
spirit, joy, and pride on their faces and those
of their families and neighbors was palpable. It was contagious. The pride was
for graduating high school: something many people in poor and low working-class
neighborhoods in Argentina do not get to do. For me, the joy of course was
sharing in their pride at graduating, but also in recognizing how ‘regular’
this sort of thing had become for the community. The graduation took place in
the street in front of the recuperated print shop Chilavert where the students
had completed their three years of study: a street that the workers and
families had shut down because they needed to. It was all so normal – normal in
the revolutionary sense that Che Guevara spoke of normal – remarking that when
the extraordinary becomes everyday you know it is a revolutionary time.
The above described celebration took place in 2009, marking the first
graduation of a Bachillerato Popular in Chilavert, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I was again in Chilavert, speaking with popular educators from the Bachillerato
five years later. The evolution since that first graduating class is
remarkable, both within Chilavert and throughout Argentina. Already impressive
in 2009, after only three years with more than 40 popular education centers and
over 5000 students, five years later, that number has more than doubled with
over 100 bachilleratos and many thousands of students.
When one thinks of alternative high school programs certain images often come
to mind, such as a wide diversity of participants based in age and experience.
And when one thinks of popular education, one imagines learning and teaching
based in local knowledge bases of the participants. The bachilleratos reflect
these elements, and so much more. Ages of participants range from teens who
were kicked out of high school often for alleged behavioral issues, to parents
and grandparents, and all ages in between, including in one bachillerato on the
outskirts of Buenos Aires where two of the students, in their later 70s, are
the parents of one of the workers in the recuperated factory that houses that
particular alternative high school diploma program. Most students come from
poor, working poor and unemployed families, and most of the bachilleratos are
located in these neighborhoods, ranging from those on the periphery of cities,
in neighborhoods that resemble
shanty towns, to ones such as Las Tunes, 40 kilometers outside Buenos Aires,
which is self organized. Las Tunes is run by the community, using assemblies
and is located on what was once a trash dump. The community has collectively
built homes for the families in the town and many collective spaces, including
a school and a bachillerato.
As for popular education, this is where the bachilleratos are most innovative,
creating new ways of not only teaching and learning, but relating to the
community. Ninety-nine percent of the students in each bachillerato come from
that community, thus there is a real dedication by the neighbors and people in
the area for the success of the students and project. Many neighbors support
the process in various ways from attending public events the students organize
to bringing food and helping to build and later clean the spaces for education.
Classes are organized with face-to-face meetings, influenced by or using direct
democracy, striving for full participation and the breaking down of hierarchy.
The size of the groups range from ten to thirty people, with each group
choosing what they will study, how, where, and then what they will do at the
end of the study process.
To say the students choose what course of study they will undertake is to say a
great deal. When do students anywhere get to enter a classroom setting and
decide the themes around which they will learn? In the bachilleratos they do.
For example, in the bachillerato in Chilavert the education is organized around
the ideas of coopertivism and its interpretation via recuperation – so more
along the lines of self organization and horizontalism than traditional
concepts of cooperatives. Not only do the students have an underlying course of
study of self organization in Chilavert, but since its inception in 2007, the
bachilleratos now include classes taught by a few of the workers.
Not only does the bachillerato in Chilavert decide how and what to study
collectively and democratically they also collectively deal with whatever
tensions or problems arise in the classroom. This is based in the agreement
that no student will be expelled from the bachillerato. It is a bit tricky
since there are agreements that have to be met so that a person can graduate.
So, what happens then if a person does not comply with an agreement? Rather
than punishing that student, they organize an assembly of all students and
teachers and also include a few of the workers from Chilavert. They discuss the
issue collectively and decide what can be done so as to remedy the problem.
Generally this has only been reflected in small issues such as missing too many
classes or a lack of participation. There is a mechanism however for a more
serious transgression, which did occur once, and in that case the student was
asked to leave for a short period of time, reflect
on what happened and then write and present something based on their
reflections to the entire group – students, teachers and workers. It was
successful. It is very much reminiscent of the circle justice forms used by
some First Nations in Canada
Each graduating class of a bachillerato has to create a collective project.
These are quite wide ranging depending on the location and thematic of the
course of the education. In Chilavert, each year, the students have created
various publications and over time also community radio programs. The first
graduating class created notebooks that they printed together on the machines
of the workplace, having learned the basics of printing from the workers. The
notebooks are for sale to the community to offset the cost of printing and then
free for the next entering bachillerato class. Inside the notebooks, on the
margins of every page are quotations from the students reflecting their
thoughts and feelings regarding education. They see this as sharing and passing
down some of their knowledge about education. For example, a few read,
“Education is not a business – Education makes us free.”
“We dedicate ourselves every day to fight for an education that includes
everyone.”
“Opening schools and fighting for popular and public education.”
Since the first graduating class the projects in Chilavert have become
increasingly sophisticated, in content and in form, including not only
notebooks, but calendars, note cards and pamphlets. And the students who
graduate have increasingly continued to help the incoming classes, with tow
graduates even becoming teachers and now participating in the Bachillerato
Popular in IMPA, another recuperated workplace and community center in Buenos
Aires.
This is just one example of the now over 100 Bachilleratos Populares in
Argentina. There are, as with all of the movements in Argentina, differences
and tensions in how to self organize, and in particular in relationship to the
state. The government recognizes the bachilleratos and the degrees that the
students receive, though whether a bachillerato receives subsidies for the
teachers is another question and one based in how that particular high school
diploma course is organized. For example, the state demands that there is a
formal hierarchy of roles with the teachers and a specific form of division of
money – something that I have heard is not evenly complied with in reality but
is on paper. There are other similar such requirements that have resulted in
some bachilleratos not taking money from the state while others use it as a way
to help a movement or community survive, dividing the money the teachers
receive more evenly among the teachers and in
the community. It is yet another way the government has managed to appear as
if it is playing a totally supportive role, yet underneath there are divisions
in the movements emerging based on this support.
Participants in the movement reflect that the self organized nature of the
schools is directly connected to the horizontal and assembly based movements
that came out of the popular rebellion of December 19 and 20, 2001. Recuperated
workplaces, neighborhood assemblies, unemployed movements, occupations of land
and self organized art and media groups emerged in massive numbers throughout
the country after 2001. The Bachilleratos Populares are a sort of hijo (child)
of this form of organization and continue the in the same form and spirit as
those out of the rebellion of the 19/20th.
ZCommunications, 215 Atlantic Ave, Hull, MA, USA, 02045
Unsubscribe | Manage Subscription
If you'd like to unsubscribe and stop receiving these emails click here.
_______________________________________________
NetworkedLabour mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour
--
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
_______________________________________________
P2P Foundation - Mailing list
http://www.p2pfoundation.net
https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
_______________________________________________
P2P Foundation - Mailing list
http://www.p2pfoundation.net
https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
