Seeking and Finding a Democratic Education

Education is the practice of freedom, and freedom is the practice of our hearts. Those of us interested in critical pedagogy have long sought spaces for the articulation of this liberating vision of education. We seek spaces for the expression of our hopes and our dreams, as well as our fears and our insecurities. We seek a space wherein the life-sustaining practice of dialogue is used as a strategy for seeking truth and understanding. We seek a space for the development of our critical abilities to facilitate the change we wish to see in the world. Freedom School at the Intercultural Resource Center is emerging as such a space.

In the summer of 1964, over a thousand volunteers (mostly white, Northern college students) travelled to Mississippi to participate in what has since been termed “Freedom Summer.” A number of civil rights groups, including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, organized this initiative in order to register black voters and educate students in “Freedom Schools.” The long-term goal of the initiative was to fundamentally change the power relations in Mississippi politics and to train revolutionaries who would transform their individual and collective realities, but the Freedom Summer also had practical, short-term goals. Volunteers created the multicultural Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in order to counter the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party and to secure seats at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. By the end of the summer, four civil rights workers were dead, a thousand people were imprisoned, and surely a litany of additional undocumented atrocities had been committed. Any understanding of this period of history must take into account the constant threat of violence under which the Freedom Summer volunteers worked.

The Freedom Schools of 1964 must be viewed within the context of Mississippi’s separate but unequal education system. In 1964, state educational expenditures presented unconscionable disparities between black and white students. Because there was no mandatory education law, black schools were a source of cheap labor during the fall cotton harvest. Charlie Cobb, the chief architect of the Freedom Schools and SNCC, described the mission of the Freedom Schools as a project “to provide an educational experience for students which will make it possible for them to challenge the myths of our society, to perceive more clearly its realities, and to find alternatives, or new directions for action.” The original curriculum focused on three principal areas—academic work (ranging from remedial math to French studies), recreational and cultural activities, and leadership development (e.g. philosophy of “the movement”).

The Freedom School at Columbia’s Intercultural Resource Center operates within this rich tradition. Three years ago, members of the student group Students Promoting Empowerment and Knowledge sought to create a space for democratic, popular education. They wanted to link their political activism with their classroom work. Some members of SPEaK also happened to be residents of the IRC, which requires its residents to conduct programming with a social justice focus. Taking advantage of this opportunity, visionary students began Freedom School as a program at the IRC to promote the aims of social justice, with the explicit purpose of providing an alternative space for the enhancement of critical pedagogies. To address the particular needs of critiquing and enhancing a Columbia education, the Freedom School at the IRC has in recent years operated as a supplement to the Core Curriculum. For example, last year students visited Five Points in Queens to view intricate graffiti art and to consider whether or not this art form could be considered a masterpiece of Western art, and why.

The Freedom School’s particular approach is heavily influenced by Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy. Now, I have repeatedly advocated for the philosophy of critical pedagogy in this column, and to do so again seems somewhat redundant. Yet the reader will appreciate a review of key points. First and foremost, education is the practice of freedom, and liberation is the subject of every class, regardless of content. Second, the relationship between teacher and student is reformulated as the relationship between teacher/student and student/teacher, both of whom simultaneously teach and learn. Lastly, Freire’s model of education is centered on dialogue. Students/teachers and teachers/students problem-solve collaboratively and retain a stance of radical openness, remaining open to the possibilities of radical change.

The first Freedom School meeting of the year took place on Sunday. We discussed the history of Freedom Summer, Freedom Schools in general, and Freedom Schools at the IRC, much of which has been recounted here. We established community principles, negotiated our objectives and goals for the year, and brainstormed future topics of discussion and critical, intellectual inquiry. We seek to promote a model of democratic education that need not exist only in marginal spaces but that could expand into our everyday experiences in the classroom. With this ambitious hope, Freedom School ceases to exist only in the hearts of the determined few and begins to inspire the hearts of those who will transform our community, and ultimately, the world.

Anthony Kelley is a Columbia College senior majoring in women’s and gender studies. Strength to Love runs alternate Tuesdays. Opinion@columbiaspectator.com">Opinion@columbiaspectator.com