EDUCATION RIGHTS

Abstract

With the advent of artificial intelligence and pervasive use of social media, alienation and social isolation has increased, and political and commercial manipulation have reached new heights.  This paper makes the case for a humanizing pedagogy to cultivate creativity, agency, empathy, critical thinking and problem solving.  The paper shows how schools, universities and organizations that are committed to using education as a resource for social change can utilize a humanizing pedagogy to counter misinformation and social control.  In this paper I describe the theoretical foundations of a humanising pedagogy, and offer a framework that can be used to develop curricula.

Introduction

Though my work in recent years has focused largely on the policy and political debates in the United States over the direction of education,[1] I have not lost my interest in the larger questions related to the potential for education to serve to serve as a means to create broader societal transformation.  For my entire professional career (over 40 years), I have worked on the belief that education can play a role in creating a more, just, humane and sustainable society.  For that reason, this objective is at the heart of why a humanising pedagogy is needed.

The need for education to play a role in changing the way people perceive the world and their relationship to it, drew me to the field as a college student.  Over the past four decades, I have worked on adult literacy campaigns in Nicaragua and Grenada, participated in organizing efforts aimed at empowering marginalized parents and youth, and engaged in struggles to promote peace and justice in various parts of the world, including the global effort to end US support for the Apartheid regime in South Africa. In each of these efforts, education played a central role.  I have long believed that genuine social change requires more than a change in economic structures and laws.  Evidence shows that lasting social change is the byproduct of the way people think and act in relation to oppressive and unjust conditions (Freire, 1968).

The challenge today is to use education as a resource in efforts to counter passive acceptance of the challenges facing the world. The effects of climate change (as well as denial of its threat), persistent poverty and violence, as well as war and the politics of repression, are just some examples of the perils facing humanity.  Such issues have never been merely a matter of scholarly interest to me.  For the past forty years I have worked on the assumption that education can be a resource that we can use to respond to these and other challenges threatening the world.  My experience has led me to believe that the development and dissemination of a humanising pedagogy must be central to our efforts to learn to create a new world.  It is a task we must take on with urgency.

I still have fond memories of my visit to the Western Cape of South Africa, and the time I spent with colleagues at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in Port Elizabeth back in 2011, and again in 2013.  Having been a student activist at Berkeley during the 1980s and participated actively in the international movement against Apartheid, I had longed to visit South Africa.  I wanted to see for myself how the effort to dismantle Apartheid was progressing.  I was inspired when I read that the new constitution called for the creation of a non-racial democracy, and I wanted to understand how pursuit of that goal would play itself out.  Could a nation that had managed to peacefully end the brutal Apartheid regime succeed in bringing about genuine, lasting change? I wanted to know and learn from the experience.

During my first visit to South Africa in 2011, I quickly realized that ending Apartheid was a process that was still unfolding.  The contrast between living conditions I observed in the townships outside of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, with the affluence of the suburbs, was striking and disturbing.  Walking the streets of Gugulethu with an old friend I was struck by the vastness of the shanty town, and the harsh impoverished conditions under which many lived.  Later, when I was taken to visit the luxurious wineries of Stellenbosch, and I left wondering if Apartheid had really ended at all.  As I learned from educators and activists in the country, I came to adopt a more nuanced perspective about South Africa and the process of change.  I began to understand where progress in expanding social and economic justice for the Black majority had been made, and where it had stalled.  I also began to understand that the post-Apartheid struggle had taken a different form than the pre-Apartheid struggle, and that education and educational institutions like NMU were playing a leading role in this phase of societal transformation.

While visiting with my colleagues at NMU, I learned that they were grappling with how to implement what we called a humanising pedagogy.  For my NMU colleagues and me, the need for a humanizing pedagogy was more than an abstract intellectual exercise.  Under the leadership of Dr. Denise Zinn, the School of Education had been charged with the task of producing a new generation of educators who could serve as “educational midwives” in creating a new, post-Apartheid South Africa.  Education was seen as an essential ingredient to the process of societal transformation.  While the ANC-led government was charged with adopting new laws to dismantle the Apartheid state and uplift the long-oppressed Black population, educators were charged with the responsibility of educating a generation of post-Apartheid youth to ensure that they had the mindsets, knowledge and skills needed to create a more just and equal society.

Our discussions about the work that needed to be done was not limited to the pedagogical approach that was needed with university students.  It also included detailed discussions over how to bring a humanising pedagogy to the work that was being done with primary and secondary students at a network of schools in the townships.  Under the direction of my friend, Dr. Allistair Whitten, the Center for the Community School (CCS) at NMU built a network of schools in the townships that worked together with the university in devising strategies to address the complex social and economic challenges facing students, residents and schools.

During a visit to Sapphire Roads primary school, we learned about the transformative work that had been undertaken under the direction of the principal, Bruce Damons.  Over several years, the school had developed a number of partnerships with the community to provide resources and services to address community problems and challenges impacting children, the school and residents.  CCS wanted to determine if a similar approach could be applied successfully in other township schools.

In 2013, we visited a secondary school located not far from Sapphire Roads. I saw firsthand how complex applying the lessons learned would be. During a group discussion about student tardiness I listened as an older resident who identified himself as a veteran of the anti-Apartheid struggle, accused students of arriving late to school because they were drinking and smoking marijuana.  “I see you laughing, smoking and drinking when you should be in school,” he charged.  Rather than deny the accusation, some students laughed as if they were guilty as charged.  Finally, a young woman spoke up, “It is true, some students do smoke and drink before school.  Many of these youth have no parents, and many haven’t eaten. What can the school do to help them so that they will come to school on time?” I found the exchange enlightening and challenging.  Certainly, the school had to find ways to get students to attend on time.  However, addressing their basic needs for food and adult guidance was a challenge that could not be ignored.  I knew then that we needed a humanising pedagogy that would not ignore basic needs if we were going to succeed in engaging learners and educators in the process of societal change.

My visits to South Africa allowed me to learn more about the challenges facing the nation and its people, and to understand why a humanising pedagogy was needed.  In the following pages I describe the theoretical foundations that I believe must serve as the basis of such a pedagogy, and put forward a framework that I hope can be used by those who develop school curricula.  As I lay out the case for a humanising pedagogy, I will also address what it is, why it is needed, and what it consists of.   I hope this contribution will be helpful in pushing the work of education and societal transformation forward.

Education and Society: The Case for a Humanising Pedagogy

In any and all societies, education plays a critical role in ensuring that the knowledge and skills from one generation are passed to the next (Brint, 2006).  In modern times, this largely occurs through formal institutions – schools, universities, trade schools – and consists primarily of transmitting academic skills, and to some degree, the technical knowledge needed to fill positions that are vital to the economy and society. In most postcolonial societies, there is a mismatch between the education provided in schools and the needs of the society.  Having been designed by colonial powers, educational institutions typically reproduce the ideological and structural features required to sustain the inequitable features of the colonial project (Carnoy and Samoff, 1990; Brint, 2006)).  Educational institutions serve as a key mechanism for rationalizing the State’s exercise of power (Morrow and Torres, 1995).  In societies like the United States where there are large numbers of privately run educational institutions, the State still plays a major role in regulating and funding (often through grants) these institutions.  (This is the reason why the Trump administration is now able to extract significant political and financial institutions from institutions like Harvard and Columbia which fear losing federal grants.)[2]

While imparting academic skills is typically treated as the priority for schools and tertiary institutions, social skills broadly related to citizenship and workforce readiness (e.g. punctuality, rule compliance, etc.) are also taught.  These “soft” skills are sometimes taught explicitly as an integral part of the curriculum.  Additionally, educational institutions play a key role in preserving and reproducing social hierarchies and the dominant culture of society (Willis, 1981).  The official language and customs of the dominant social group, or colonizing power, are generally taught explicitly, while those of subordinate groups are either ignored or given significantly less attention (Bernstein, 2000; Brint, 2006).  State control over what is taught – the official curriculum, serves as a means to ensure that groups that control the political and economic order maintain their dominant position (Morrow and Torres, 1995).   In many cases, beliefs related to the status and treatment of groups and individuals who are subordinated based on racial, ethnic and gender status, are also taught, sometimes implicitly as a feature of the “hidden curriculum”[3].   Transmission of these beliefs makes it possible for dominant groups in society to retain their dominance (Bourdieu, 2000).  Although I won’t elaborate on this topic in this paper, several scholars have written extensively about the role education played in maintaining the Apartheid regime, and in the struggle to resist it (Ocampo, 2004).

In addition to preparing students for society as it is, nations also look to schools and universities for solutions to the problems they face.  Investments are made in students – human capital, and in educational institutions that train them, in the hope that future generations will acquire knowledge that can be used to serve societal needs and solve problems previous generations could not.

However, as State-run and funded enterprises, educational institutions are expected to prioritize the preservation and productivity of society as it is – despite its blatant inequities, rather than being used to serve the needs of society as a whole, and to address future challenges.  To the degree that societal challenges related to poverty, health, violence or threats to the environment, are taken up by educational institutions, most often it is as tasks reserved for “experts”,  charged with conducting research under the directives of the state (Carnoy and Samoff, 1990).

The Case for a Humanising Pedagogy

What I have described thus far might be thought of as my spin on “textbook” descriptions on the role of education in society.  My description follows the well-worn path taken by many scholars (Willis, 1981; Bouurdieu, 2000; Morrow and Torres, 1995, etc.) in emphasizing the role of education in reproducing social and economic structures in society.  Missing from this discourse is what we might term the humanising purpose and potential of education.  Unlike the economic and social purposes of education, education’s role in promoting human development and furthering human progress forces us to examine its’ role in addressing human needs and aspirations.  It also compels us to ask: what type of pedagogy do humans need to create just and sustainable societies at this critical stage in history?

At various times in history, education has played a role in fostering critical thinking and human agency.  Both are central goals of a humanising pedagogy.  For example, following the end of slavery in the United States during the period referred to as Reconstruction, formerly enslaved people created schools and helped pass laws to establish public education as a right and available to all (Black, white and Indigenous; Dubois, 1935).  For many Black leaders at the time, the goal of education was much more than vocational training. Education was seen as the key asset needed to protect freedom and gain some degree of autonomous control over Black life (Tyack and Lowe, 1986).

In the current period, a humanising pedagogy is needed to counter the effects of dehumanization.  In capitalist societies, greater value is placed in the pursuit of profit than in addressing human needs.  Rather than countering these tendencies, education in capitalist societies frequently reinforces alienation and subordination.  To “succeed” students are required to comply with the rules and regulations of the educational process, and the ideological mandates presented to them by instructors.   In these institutions, critical thinking and creativity are less likely to be cultivated because they pose a threat to existing arrangements, even though these attributes are of critical importance to the need of humanity to find solutions to the complex challenges we face.

Of course, education is never neutral.  As the German playwright Bertolt Brecht reminds us: “Education is a double-edged sword; it can be used to liberate or indoctrinate.” (Brecht, 1931) If education is to serve as a tool to promote human liberation, a humanising pedagogy is essential.  It is the only means we have at our disposal to systematically develop the human capacity to innovate, and problem solve.  In fact, the survival of the species may very well depend upon our ability to use education in this way.

However, it is important to acknowledge that there are significant barriers to implementing a humanising pedagogy, especially in schools and universities where many traditions make efforts to apply such an approach difficult.  To successfully implement a humanising pedagogy, strategies for ove rcoming obstacles must be devised.  Otherwise, the goal of using education as a strategy for societal transformation will not be realized.

What We Can Learn from Learning That Happens Outside of School

Most of what children learn about being human they acquire from what might be thought of as the “natural” development and maturation that occurs in their homes in the company and under the guidance of parents, siblings and families (Stern, 2000).  Everything from eating (what to eat and what tastes good), laughing (what’s funny and what’s not), playing (with whom and how), working and how to deal with conflict, are typically learned, at least initially, in the home environment.  Such forms of learning are deeply embedded in culture and are largely taught through modeling.  In many cases, key aspects of cultural knowledge are not taught explicitly (e.g. who or what to fear or respect) (Gonzalez, et.al. 2000).  Instead, they are learned through exposure and largely taken for granted.  For that reason, many behaviors associated with culture are often unexamined, or best critiqued by cultural outsiders with an etic perspective.

By referring to this form of learning “natural” I am not making a judgment about its usefulness, accuracy or efficacy, nor do I mean to imply that learning that occurs in the home setting is never abusive or exploitive.  On the contrary, in almost every culture there is often wide spread child abuse and mistreatment (Stern, 2000).  Furthermore, there are numerous examples of learning in non-formal settings that perpetuate bias, superstition, and even hatred towards other groups.  In many societies, there is a high degree of tolerance of abusive treatment when carried out by parents because parents are assumed to have “right” to raise their children as they deem necessary.[4]

The key point here is that much of what we learn to become a member of society, is learned before children enter school.  Humans are social beings and don’t raise themselves.  The learning that occurs at home includes much of what children need to know to become human and function in society.  It may include physical lessons – how to cook, clean, ride a bicycle, etc. It also includes social lessons – how to behave and communicate with others, as well as emotional lessons – how to react when angry or sad, and intellectual lessons – how to reason, count and process information.

In most cultures, parents/care givers provide a form of education to their children that is similar to what they received, whether they are conscious of it or not.[5]  By the time children enter formal schooling at age five or six, they have usually already acquired a substantial body of knowledge related to what it means to live and function as a human.

Developmental psychologists have shown that how humans learn to be human is often at odds with the kind of learning that typically occurs in educational institutions.   Schools are charged with going beyond “natural development” to ensure that children learn what is needed – from an academic standpoint, to function in society.  A child may learn to read or count at home, but most often parents leave it to schools to provide more advanced formal instruction in writing, math and science, so that children are prepared to function as workers and citizens (Lareau, 2011).

It is important to note that there is often a tension between the forms of learning that occur at home and at school.  Whereas the learning that occurs at home is generally integrated – the intellectual, emotional, social and physical learning are interconnected, in school academic learning is typically treated as separate from other aspects of the human experience.  In fact, many schools will inform parents that their child is not ready for school if they have not learned to use the bathroom, tie their shoes, eat properly or engage in other activities that are assumed to be the responsibility of the home.  Learning at home typically involves a child observing an adult or older sibling as they engage in an activity and being corrected as s/he imitates the specified actions (Gonzalez, et.al. 2000).  This type of learning takes on a “natural” form because it rests on the assumption that as a member of a larger family/community, children must learn how we do things.

From Banking Education to Humanising Pedagogy

As state sponsored institutions, schools, unlike parents, are charged with serving the goals of the nation state.  Typically, this entails implementing a specific curriculum overseen and regulated by an arm of the State (typically the Ministry of Education).  The system may also administer tests designed to ensure that students acquire the academic knowledge and skills deemed to be most important.  Unlike the learning that occurs at home, the teaching and learning carried out in state-run and funded schools is generally didactic; the teacher teaches, and the students listen, follow instructions and are expected to absorb the content.  Success and failure are based on the ability of students to acquire the knowledge and skills deemed to be important.  Educational attainment is premised on the assumption that the teacher has the knowledge and the students do not.  Students are expected to passively absorb the prescribed information and to demonstrate that they have acquired it when called to do so on some form of assessment.

The type of education offered in most schools and universities tends to adhere to what Paulo Freire (1968) referred to as the “banking” method of education.  In a discussion of this approach Freire writes: “Education is carried out as an act of depositing…the teacher is the depositor, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits that students patiently receive, memorize and repeat…” (Freire, 1968: 36) Schools generally rely upon this approach because it is seen as an efficient means to monitor what is taught and what is learned. The fact that it is premised upon a hierarchical relationship between teacher and student and between the school and the state is not coincidental.  In his seminal book, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1968), Freire argued that the banking approach to education has been used widely because it reinforces hierarchical relationships in society, and ensures that subjugated classes acquiesce and remain in their subordinate position in society.

I draw upon Freire’s critique of banking education because like Freire, I regard this approach as one that is often dehumanising.  Rather than recognizing that all students come to school with knowledge and skills they have acquired from home and from life, the banking method treats students as though they know very little.  It encourages compliant thinking, passive behavior and reduces learning to rote memorization at the expense of curiosity, critical and out-of-the-box thinking.  It reinforces and reproduces social hierarchies in society by presenting society and the world as fixed entities that must be adapted to, and it treats education as a commodity to be acquired, rather than as a process designed to develop human potential.  Banking education discourages empowered learners who can apply knowledge in new and different ways. Instead, it encourages educated individuals to adapt to the structures of society as they are.  Unlike the learning that typically occurs at home and in non-formal settings, banking education largely ignores the emotional and physical dimensions of learning; dimensions that are essential to human development.  The socialization that occurs in school or that is explicitly taught through rules and the imposition of norms, is largely aimed at reinforcing the status quo and existing power relations, particularly as they pertain to markers of identity such as race, class, gender, language and sexual orientation (Bowles and Gintis, 1976).

Freire recognized the ways in which the banking method reproduced the status quo, at both an ideological and behavioral level, and normalized oppressive power arrangements in society.  As an alternative, he made the case for problem posing education premised on dialogue between the teacher and student – an approach to teaching and learning that presents what is to be learned as something unfinished until it is known/understood by the learner.  Problems and questions are used to guide learning because they require deep, immersive engagement to be known, understood, and in some cases acted upon, by the student and teacher.  Freire argued that such an approach could be used to develop human potential, and cultivate agency, both individual and collective, to challenge and subvert the structures of power in society through praxis.

Freire Explains Why Such an Approach Is Necessary:

Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings…They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world…Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not in transferals of information…problem posing education can fulfill its function as the practice of freedom only if it can overcome the contradiction (of banking education).  (p. 46)

As a radical humanist[6], Freire’s vision of education was that it could serve as a process to ensure that every person/student had access to learning experiences that provided them with the ability to reason independently, and act based upon his/her interpretation of social reality.  He understood that the teacher had responsibility to serve as the guide and facilitator of the learning experience (Freire and Horton), but rather than holding power over students and requiring them to memorize facts or acquire skills that can be applied on tests or in the workplace, Freire called for an education that enhanced the ability of students to “perceive critically the way they exist in the world”, so that they come to see “the world not as a static reality but as a reality in process, in transformation.” (p. 33). Freire argued that such a shift in pedagogy would lead to an education that could serve as the “practice of freedom”.

In making the case for humanising education I draw upon Freire’s core ideas because his vision resonates with what I perceive as critical for the world today.  Like Freire, I reject the banking model of education not only because it reinforces the status quo with its emphasis on fitting into society, or because it tends to reproduce relationships premised on inequality, hierarchy and oppression.  Freire’s liberatory approach to education is needed because we are living at a time when humans are being rendered obsolete by artificial intelligence and becoming more passive and distracted by social media. To address the many major challenges that threaten human existence we must do more than prepare students to integrate themselves into the world as it is.  Schools and universities must provide an education that empowers students to play a role in creating a more just, peaceful and sustainable future.

Although Freire never used the term humanising pedagogy, throughout several of his books he discussed the role of education in facilitating the development of human potential and liberation.  In making the case for problem posing education he argued that such an approach is necessary because humans are in the “process of becoming”.  He writes: “The unfinished character of human beings and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity.” (emphasis is mine). For Freire, education must empower students to participate in shaping their reality and resisting forms of oppression that perpetuate dehumanization.  He saw the human capacity to intervene in social reality as a unique human attribute that could be developed through an education that encourages analysis/reflection and praxis; actions that are the byproduct of critical cognition.  Freire argued that this type of learning could activate an innately human quality – the ability to create.  He writes: “The movement of inquiry must be directed toward humanisation…”, and he adds, “…the pursuit of full humanity, however, cannot be carried out in isolation or individualism, but only in fellowship and solidarity.” (p. 47)

A Framework for a Humanizing Pedagogy

Drawing upon Freire’s critique of banking education and his call for a problem posing education that affirms the human capacity to “intervene in reality”, I will use the remainder of this essay to describe a framework that can be used for the development of a humanising pedagogy.  This framework is aligned with Freire’s goal of using education to empower and enhance human potential, and to address the challenges we face in the world today through critical thinking, problem solving and creativity. For each component I explain why it is important and provide examples to show how it can be used in real world settings.

1. Integrated and Holistic

As a starting point, a humanising pedagogy must acknowledge that human beings need an education that addresses their intellectual needs in alignment with their physical, emotional and social needs.  As stated previously, in most schools and universities there is a tendency to approach learning in a fragmented manner, prioritizing intellectual development over other aspects of human development.  This approach can be attributed to the tendency in Western cultures to treat reason and emotion as separate and at times conflicting parts of the human persona.  In most traditional schools and universities, a fragmented approach to learning is premised on the assumed separation of cognition from emotions.

Educational institutions typically rely upon banking methods of instruction – lecture or direct, teacher-led instruction, to facilitate learning, and ignore the other aspects of the learners needs and interests.  In many cases they rely upon this approach even when the physical needs of students are not met.  Despite the fact that students experiencing hunger, illness, trauma or a lack of safety, often have trouble concentrating, these needs and others (e.g. transportation, housing etc.) are often ignored because they are seen as falling beyond the purview of schools and colleges.

Drawing on the work of Dewey (2007), I argue that a humanising pedagogy must provide students with an education that actively integrates their intellectual, physical, emotional and social needs into the learning experience.  Like Freire, Dewey was interested in promoting an education that furthered human development and contributed to life-long learning.  He writes: “Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself.”   Similarly, in calling for an integrated approach to education he argued: “I believe that this educational process has two sides – one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following.” (2007: 16)

A humanising pedagogy that integrates the various parts of the human condition into the learning experience acknowledges that all human beings have basic needs that must be met for growth to occur.   Neuroscientist Mary Hellen Immordino Yang shows through her research that when schools adopt a more integrated and holistic approach to learning, students benefit in a variety of ways: “Traditional educational approaches think about emotion the way Descartes did; emotion is interfering with your ability to think rationally. Neuroscience is showing us that that is absolutely not the case—when you take emotion out of thought you have no basis for thought anymore. So, we’re trying to understand how socially constructed emotion shapes learning, academic development and identity.” (2015). A humanising pedagogy must be premised upon an acknowledgement that the integration of the human persona is essential.

Schools that take a holistic approach to learning embrace a key feature of a humanising pedagogy.  They orient learning experiences around human needs and treat intellectual development in concert with other developmental needs.

To understand what this can look like it might be helpful to examine the strategies utilized at the School for Leadership Development in Brooklyn, New York; a high school designed to serve impoverished students who are academically behind.  Designated by New York City as a community school, it provides resources such as food and clothing, social workers and psychologists who provide counseling, and basic healthcare services so that needs of each student can be addressed.  Students are assigned a mentor/advisor when they enter the school who is expected to get to know the student by establishing a relationship based on trust and respect.

I worked closely with the school three years.  During that time, I met students who were experiencing homelessness, who had health conditions such as obesity and asthma, and who suffered from a variety of forms of neglect due to their impoverished backgrounds.  Rather than focusing strictly on their academic needs, the school attempted to address the physical, social and emotional needs as well.  As a result of its comprehensive focus, the school was successful in helping students to graduate and move on to college and careers, despite the obstacles they faced.

2. Dialogue, Problem Posing and the Creation of Learning Communities

Whereas the banking method of education reinforces the dichotomy and the hierarchy between teacher and student, a humanising pedagogy acknowledges that students have thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences that can and should be drawn upon in teaching and learning.  Instead depositing information for students to retain, teachers have a responsibility to develop relationships based on trust and respect with their students so that they can serve as a guide and facilitator of knowledge acquisition.  When trust and respect are the foundation of the learning process, a learning community can be created in which teachers and students are able to learn together.  The teacher is still responsible for imparting and sharing knowledge and skills, but rather than relying on a teacher-centered approach to education, teachers who are committed to a humanising pedagogy create a community of learners that they are part of, rather than reign over.

A problem posing curriculum works best in environments that are student centered rather than teacher centered.  It shifts the modality of learning from one of competition premised on individual achievement, to one in which collective interrogation and engagement are encouraged to flourish.  A problem posing curriculum frames learning challenges around problems and/or questions that the entire learning community works on to answer.  The process facilitates the development of critical thinking by fostering a community of learners in which questions are welcomed and cooperation is encouraged.  When taken to its logical extension, students who learn in such settings are more likely to embrace a cooperative approach to problem solving and recognize the impact of their behavior on others and the environment.  When teachers create learning communities with their students that are focused on problems and questions they generate and address together, the pursuit of knowledge and its application becomes a collective activity.   Research has shown that collective problem solving and project-based learning is more likely to instill a sense of social responsibility in each member of the learning community (Zhang and Ma, 2023).

When learning occurs within a community and when it is organized around a compelling problem or question, the educational process has greater relevance and meaning.  The Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley has been using this kind of pedagogical approach for many years.  It engages youth in urban planning to address the challenges facing marginalized urban communities.  For over twenty years, CC+S has used its Y-PLAN (Youth – Plan, Learn and Act Now) to engage youth in civic projects to bring about meaningful change in their communities.  CC+S has worked in dozens of schools throughout the world to design projects with young people aimed at tackling real-world challenges in their communities.  They investigate community conditions that impact their lives, analyze core elements of the problem they seek to address, and devise and implement strategies to address them.  Some of the projects undertaken have included the need for affordable housing and transportation, the effects of climate change and environmental degradation, and the need to improve the quality of schools, services, and amenities.  A look at the CC+S website (https://citiesandschools.berkeley.edu/ ) shows some of the projects schools have taken on using the Y-PLAN model in various parts of the world.

3.    An Explicit Focus on Empathy, Compassion and Social Responsibility

Given the enormity of the challenges facing the world today it is essential that students overcome the tendency to become indifferent, numb and overwhelmed by hardships and disasters that wreak havoc on others but do not affect them directly.  Such responses are understandable because we are inundated with news about environmental disasters, wars that produce immeasurable carnage and suffering, forced global migrations that risk and take lives of those who feel compelled to embark on hazardous journeys, and grueling poverty that crushes dreams and human potential.  In our fragmented world there is a tendency to tune out suffering that occurs in a land far away, or to attempt to distract ourselves with entertainment or social media so as not to absorb and internalize the suffering.  Too often, the sheer magnitude of the problems we hear about leave us feeling overwhelmed rather than compelled to act in solidarity and empathy, unless of course it affects us directly.

Our inability to demonstrate empathy or to act in solidarity with others is a byproduct of what I and others have called a crisis of connection (Way, et.al. 2014).  In our book, we made the point that a vast body of research has shown that humans are hardwired to be altruistic rather than being instinctively individualistic and selfish (Way, et.al. 2104).  However, while altruistism may be critical to our evolution as a species it must be reinforced and modeled, especially to children, if it is to continue as an attribute that supports our common humanity.  If not, human empathy and compassion can be undermined by social tendencies that reinforce individualism and the narrow pursuit of self-interest.  In a capitalist society the ethos of the market reinforces rugged individualism and competition. Several studies have shown that when human beings feel threatened by scarcity, they are more likely to become disconnected from each other, and less likely to work together to act collectively in support of their common needs (Putnam, 2000).  Social barriers related to national identity, race, class, age and sexual orientation, may accentuate feelings of disconnection, and heighten the estrangement, and the alienation we feel when others experience hardship (Way, et.al. 2014).

A humanising pedagogy must counter indifference to the suffering of others by providing students with learning experiences that generate compassion and empathy.  This is critical if we are to use education to generate broad support for collectively confronting the challenges facing the world today, even when we are not directly impacted by them.  As the following poem from a Holocaust survivor, Haim Ginot, reminds us, we cannot assume that empathy, altruism and compassion are automatic byproducts of education:

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates.
So, I am suspicious of education.

My request is this:  Help your children become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

If we heed the words of Ginot, and recognize the need to help students to become more human, which he interprets as compassionate and empathetic, a humanising pedagogy must find ways to intentionally connect us to others.  One way it can do this is by developing learning experiences that involve service to those in need (Wilson and Conyers, 2017).  Research shows that concrete actions designed to help others can produce lasting feelings of empathy and compassion among students and teachers.  This is goal is already embraced in many schools in Japan (Longhurst, 2020). By working collectively to serve those in need (e.g. the elderly or the infirmed), students learn through their actions that it is possible to make a positive difference in the lives of others.  Education scholar Michele Borba has also compiled a collection of books that can be used to help children learn about empathy through literature (https://micheleborba.com/building-moral-intelligence-and-character/50-books-for-kids-and-teens-that-teach-empathy/).

In a 2017 article by two teachers, Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers, four strategies for teaching empathy are described: modeling, teaching point of view, using literature to teach different perspectives, and listening actively to others (Wilson and Conyers, 2017).  The authors show that education can serve as a means to cultivate empathy and compassion by facilitating perspective-taking in discussions about hardships experienced by others elsewhere, by modeling empathetic behavior, and most importantly by creating opportunities for students to demonstrate empathetic behavior in their communities.

I will use the approach my wife Allyson and I took with our 13 year-old daughter Ava to illustrate how this can be done.  After much debate, my wife and I agreed to purchase Ava a cell phone when she was 12 years old (she claimed she was the only student in her class who didn’t have one, and that she felt isolated).  After just a few months with her own phone, we noticed troubling patterns: less time spent reading (prior to getting a phone she had been an avid reader), less interest in sports, theater and other activities she had previously enjoyed, and less ability to connect with her peers socially.  We also noticed that she showed less interest in learning or talking about the plight of people who were suffering when topics such as war, homelessness or environmental calamity were discussed on the news.  In response to news about Isreal’s war in Gaza or the detentions of undocumented workers in Los Angeles, rather than speak about them with us she claimed such information was too depressing to talk about.

Concerned and dismayed by the way her social skills and empathy seemed to be affected by her use of the cell phone, and by the way her values and ethics were developing during adolescence (she like many other children were also affected by the isolation endured during the pandemic lockdown), we decided to sign her up during the summer to serve as a mentor for children with autism.  To our surprise and delight, the plan worked as we hoped.  Placed in the position of modeling and teaching empathetic behavior and speech to students who often missed social cues, Ava began demonstrating the behaviors herself in other settings.  We were especially impressed when we saw these qualities manifest during a visit with her grandmother at an assisted living home for the elderly.  After speaking with one of the elderly residents, Ava came up with the idea of interviewing seniors about their life experiences and creating a podcast to share their stories with others.  The interest she showed in elders she was unrelated to, benefited her and the seniors.  Numerous seniors, especially those who were lonely, approached her to ask about being interviewed.  Nearly all commented on how delighted they were to see a young person who had an interest in the elderly.

I share this experience to illustrate how acts of service can reinforce values such as empathy and compassion.  When schools recognize the importance of incorporating empathy and compassion into a humanising pedagogy and combine it with a focus on social responsibility and service, students can become empowered as leaders, activists and agents who will address the challenges facing their communities, society and the world.  I have worked with schools and universities in a variety of communities throughout the world that have found ways to do this without imposing values or beliefs on their students, or requiring them to volunteer for activities they do not care about.While humans may be wired to exhibit altruism, empathy and compassion, it is important to recognize that in modern, capitalist societies, such attributes are not highly valued.  Individual ambition and accomplishment, competition and domination over others, conspicuous consumption and the raw exercise of power, are traits that are lauded in society and media.  However, we have growing evidence that if human beings don’t develop these traits our chance for collective survival will be greatly diminished.  For this reason, a humanising pedagogy must treat the cultivation of these pro-social attributes as integral to the work.

4. Critical Thinking, Curiosity, Problem Solving, Play and Creativity

In presenting the final component of a framework for a humansing pedagogy, I return once again to the work of Paulo Freire.  Freire’s ideas have been foundational to my own thinking on the subject of critical thinking and creativity, and though he is certainly not alone in recognizing the importance of these attributes to the human experience, I find his ideas most helpful.

Freire’s belief that human beings have the capacity to alter their reality in order to fulfill their hopes and dreams, serves as the basis of his critique of banking education which he believed crushed that ability by reinforcing oppressive relations and requiring passive acceptance of the status quo. He argued that education must cultivate critical thinking in students so that they can “acquire depth in their interpretation of problems, substituting causal principles for magical thinking”. (p. 14) Such a posture toward human engagement with their surroundings is especially important as humans face the prospect that life on earth is becoming unsustainable.  While some may cling to the hope that powerful elites will come to the rescue to produce some technological innovation to save humanity, I concur with Freire; if salvation is to be found it must come from the creativity and imagination of ordinary humans.  This after all is why Freire entitle his book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed; he believed that only those who are victimized by the system as it is would have the need and desire to challenge it.

I had the opportunity to learn directly from Freire while I was a graduate student at Berkeley.  Freire was teaching a seminar at Stanford in the summer of 1983 for students who were interested in exploring how his ideas could be applied in other contexts.  Following the revolution of 1979, I was invited to spend a year in Grenada working on the national literacy campaign (Freire served as an advisor to the effort).  I joined the seminar with Freire to explore the possibility of applying his ideas in urban schools in the US.

Throughout the seminar I was struck by Freire’s unwavering belief in the power of ordinary people to seize control of their lives and to confront the problems they faced when armed with critical thinking, creative problem solving, and a commitment to praxis.  In Grenada I had witnessed some of this as I saw ordinary farmers whose lives had changed little since the end of slavery, learning to “read the world” as they acquired literacy and grappled with the challenges facing their society (Noguera, 1996).  I won’t romanticize what they accomplished (or what the government allowed them to do) during the four and a half years of the Grenada Revolution, but I did come away inspired by the potential of a movement that aimed at engaging ordinary people through popular education to transform society.

This type of educational work is especially important in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  The mad rush to develop AI is not only driven by the pursuit of profit but by a desire by tech companies for greater power and control.  The tech billionaires understand that the control of information and attention is the ultimate source of power.  Beyond rendering many jobs and people obsolete, there is growing evidence that AI will contribute to greater elite power as technology is used to manipulate the dreams, desires and aspirations of humans.  We are already witnessing the “dumbing down” of skills such as reading and writing as AI becomes more widely available (Copur-Genturk, 2025).  Digital amnesia – the tendency to lose skills such as our ability to memorize phone numbers or driving directions, has already been documented as a byproduct of our reliance on technology (Cupur-Genturk, 2025).  As more students and adults become dependent upon AI and other forms of technology our ability to act as authentic agents who can confront injustice and the destruction of the planet, is likely to be diminished, if not lost entirely.

Creativity and critical thinking are also increasingly under attack by the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM)(Verger, et.al. 2012).  Under the premise of raising standards the World Bank has used its financial leverage to require countries dependent on its support to adopt high stakes testing and accountability measures that apply pressure on students, teachers and schools.  To obtain better scores many nations throughout world have bought into banking methods because they believe it allows them to compete with other nations.  The OECD and several other international organizations have for many years issued reports comparing the test scores obtained by different nations in science, math, reading and other subjects, ostensibly for the purpose of monitoring educational progress.  To enhance their standing, several nations have bought into the strategies endorsed by GERM which has resulted in greater emphasis on testing and memorization in schools and universities and more reliance on banking methods of teaching and learning.  Though some nations, (Finland in particular) have bucked this trend and managed to receive high scores on the international comparisons without resorting to the regimentation prescribed by GERM, most have not. At a time when critical thinking and creativity are needed more than ever, this is an ominous development.

A humanising pedagogy can serve as the basis for using education to create an alternative future.  The late Sir Ken Robinson was long an advocate for using education to develop the creativity of students.  I will quote him at length because he makes the connection between the threats we face and the need for critical thinking and creativity so clearly:

The challenges we currently face are without precedent. We’re facing an increasing strain on the world’s natural resources. Technology is advancing at a headlong rate of speed. It’s transforming how people work, think, and connect. It’s transforming our cultural values. This is really new, and we’re going to need every ounce of ingenuity, imagination, and creativity to confront these problems. …We’re living in times of massive unpredictability. The kids who are starting school this September will be retiring—if they ever do—around 2070. Nobody has a clue what the world’s going to look like in five years, or even next year actually, and yet it’s the job of education to help kids make sense of the world they’re going to live in. You know, for my generation—I was born in 1950—we were told that if you worked hard, went to college, and got a regular academic degree, you’d be set for life. Well, nobody thinks that’s true anymore, and yet we keep running our school systems as though it were.” (Interview, 2011)

Like Freire and Robinson, I believe that attributes such as curiosity, problem solving and creativity are critical to our survival and must be central to a humanising pedagogy.  Unregulated play is one way to develop these attributes in children.  Robinson and more recently, evolutionary psychologist Peter Gray, recognized the importance of child-centered play.  Both recognized that play could serve as an antidote to the threat posed by standardized testing and standardization in the curriculum.  In a recent article, Gray writes:

The decline in opportunity to play has also been accompanied by a decline in empathy and a rise in narcissism… A decline of empathy and a rise in narcissism are exactly what we would expect to see in children who have little opportunity to play socially. Children can’t learn social skills and values in school, because school is an authoritarian, not a democratic setting. School fosters competition, not co-operation;… If we love our children and want them to thrive, we must allow them more time and opportunity to play, not less.  (Gray, 2013)

I don’t agree entirely with Gray on whether schools can foster creativity.  I think they can, because I have seen schools that do so by incorporating play into learning.  However, I agree that institutions that adhere to the curriculum and structures of GERM probably cannot.  In order for schools and universities to actively encourage curiosity, exploration and discovery, they must foster an environment where play is allowed, and critical thinking can flourish.  I have seen schools that use debate, simulations, project-based learning and field studies to engage students actively in learning that promotes critical inquiry.  For this reason I concur with Gray when he adds: “We cannot teach creativity, but we can let it blossom through play” (Gray, 2013).

The next generation must have the ability to solve (or at least address) the problems they have inherited from previous generations. Albert Einstein issued a warning several years ago when he realized that scientists had used his theories to develop nuclear weapons that could destroy the earth.  He advised, “thinking that produced the problems we face will be unlikely to solve them” (Russell-Einstein, 1955).  I believe Einstein’s admonition is as relevant today as it was then.  This is why the need for a humanising pedagogy is much more than an academic exercise; it is an imperative for those who understand that human survival is contingent on our ability to transform how we live in the world.

Final Thoughts on the Potential of Humanising Pedagogy

I was pleased when I learned that my colleagues at Nelson Mandela University had not given up on the idea of promoting a humanising pedagogy, an idea we had discussed several years ago.  My only hope is that they/we don’t limit this work to the universities where we are employed.  If a humanising pedagogy is to live up to its transformative potential it must be made widely available, to children and adults in all walks of life.

Like Freire, I believe that humans have the unique power to use our ability to learn to confront the problems we face; to adapt and intervene in circumstances that oppress, stifle freedom and threaten us; to devise new approaches to doing things so that we don’t give up and succumb with fatalism to seemingly intractable challenges; to devise alternatives to plundering and polluting our environment and exploiting each other; to transforming how we live together so that peace and justice can flourish.

Those of us committed to developing and utilizing a humanising pedagogy must harness the power of learning to confront the threats that jeopardize the earth.  We cannot afford to wait for experts or some new hero to save us. We must save ourselves. We can do so by engaging in popular forms of education, utilizing every medium and tool available to us to unleash the ingenuity and imagination of as many people as possible.

Finally, while this work is profoundly educational in nature, we must not fool ourselves into believing that it will not involve struggle.  History shows that resistance always elicits conflict and repression.  Those who remain invested in the status quo and protecting current hierarchies are likely to oppose this work in every way they can.  On this point, Freire is clear:

Problem posing education as a humanist and liberating praxis, posits as fundamental that the people subjected to domination must fight for their emancipation.  To that end, it enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality. The world – no longer something to be described with deceptive words – becomes the object of that transforming action by men and women which results in their humanization. (p. 12)

Let us embrace the work of using a humanising pedagogy to create a future that affirms life, counters dehumanization, and creates a path that leads to peace, justice and sustainability.

Footnotes