Toward Communication Praxis: Reflections on the Pedagogy of Paulo freire and Educational Change in Grenada

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In February 1980, Paulo Freire and four other educators led a two-week seminar for 55 Grenadian teachers to consider how to implement one of the important principles of the Grenada Revolution: the integration of work and study. At first the teachers understood work-study as being essentially a school program of timetabled practical subjects such as agriculture and handicraft. Through dialogue the seminar participants redefined work-study as an approach or philosophy that should unify and mutually enrich the activities of school and community. Together they wrote a booklet that synthesized their reflections and set out implementation strategies that seemed feasible in the supportive environment of the Revolution. In the three and a half remaining years of the Revolution, Grenadian teachers worked in many education projects which had been established to launch the concept of work-study. However, most of these projects did not seem to embody the integrated approach to community development put forward in the Freire seminar. It is suggested that the seminar participants may not have fully carried out their potential for helping other groups develop toward this ideal. The paper explores possible factors which may have hindered the transition from radical communication to radical action.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: