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How Is Education Valued In The 21st Century?

How Is Education Valued In The 21st Century?

Nicholas Vieira

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00:00-17:24

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The podcast discusses the importance of education in the 21st century. The host explores the work of Paulo Freire, who challenges established educational theories and emphasizes the need for social justice and discourse. Bell Hooks also builds on Freire's work, advocating for inclusive, democratic learning environments. The current education system often focuses on memorization rather than critical thinking. By promoting dialogue and challenging assumptions, education can be valued and applied more effectively in contemporary society. Hello and welcome to Education's Impact, Quality, Identity, and Value in the 21st Century, the show that reveals how the perceived status of educational institutions impacts student engagement, self-identity formation, and the perceived value of education in the 21st century. I'm your host, Nick Vieira. In today's episode, we will discuss how is education valued in the 21st century. Our first point of discussion draws inspiration from Paulo Freire's groundbreaking work entitled Pedagogy of the Oppressed. See, in this, Freire challenges established educational theories and advocates for a pedagogy rooted in emancipation and critical consciousness. By examining the dynamics of power and oppression within educational institutions, Freire highlights the importance of social justice, praxis, and discourse. In order for one, the person who's listening, to grasp the conceptual background of current discussions within the 21st century over the importance of education, first, you must understand Freire's viewpoint, making him the framework for our understanding. So, when we talk about Freire's work, we want to talk about his work in terms of structure, right? So, when you build a house, you first need to lay out the foundation, and then you start building the structure of the house. You work on the frames, all the things that are going to hold this house up, hold this roof above your head. And what Paulo Freire's work does is exactly that. Like I said, he challenges established educational theories through the dynamics of power and oppression within these educational institutions and highlights the importance of social justice and discourse. Now, we see this all the time, even throughout the 21st century, which is why his work is so extremely important. He laid out this foundation, this understanding, for us to be able to understand how education is valued in the 21st century through his work. Now, another important influential perspective on education's value within the modern era is bell hooks. Now, bell hooks, for just some background information, really based a lot of her findings on Paulo Freire. So, that's why, that's another reason why Paulo Freire's work is so extremely important to understanding how education is valued in the 21st century. Without Paulo Freire's work, none of bell hooks' work would have any meaning whatsoever. So, let's delve into what bell hooks has stated. Taking specific examples from her book, Teaching to Transgress, Education as the Practice of Freedom, which was a book that we did several analyses on within our English class, bell hooks explores the relationship between education, power, and freedom. So, we see somewhat of the same use of wording here as she takes inspiration from Paulo Freire in terms of her talking about, obviously, education, because that's the main topic of this podcast, but she also talks about power and freedom. Paulo Freire talks about these same things. However, the way he words them is slightly different. He talks about social justice and discourse. So, what bell hooks is doing is essentially taking Paulo Freire's work and she's making it more relatable to modern minds, to the people of the 21st century that are listening in and trying to understand how this education is valued. She advocates for a pedagogy that empowers students to critically engage with social and cultural issues, promoting inclusive democratic learning environments. This is nearly identical to what Paulo Freire is saying. However, the main difference is Paulo Freire did not make the same connections that Hooks did. Within Hooks's work, she talks about democratic learning environments. Now, obviously, democracy, what we have here in the United States in terms of our government and things like that, is not necessarily something that Paulo Freire touched on. He talked about the importance of social justice and the power dynamics of oppression and power within educational institutions, but he never delved as deep in terms of him actually, like he never actually put a label on what it is that he was talking about. And Hooks does that very well here when she says that they empower students to critically engage with social and cultural issues, promoting inclusive democratic learning environments. There is where she puts that label on exactly what Paulo Freire was talking about. She says, By challenging prevailing assumptions and promoting dialogue, there are revolutionary insights into the value and application of education in contemporary society. So what this means here is that by challenging assumptions that are made within education and promoting simply a simple, simple thing, by simply just promoting talking within classrooms, which sadly we don't see a lot of, we can gain these revolutionary insights into how education is valued and how education is applied in our society today. Unfortunately, the way classrooms are set up, especially nowadays, is you have the teacher who stands above all of the students, right? The students are always at the bottom, or so they feel. There's not much dialogue, right? You just have the teacher speaking at the students, not to the students, but just speaking at them. And the students are expected to simply just retain that information and understand it, absorb it all, and spit it back out on the test, right? But what both Paulo Freire and Bell Hooks are explaining is that there needs to be a democratic learning environment, as Hooks has labeled what Paulo Freire's work is explaining. There needs to be dialogue between both the teachers and the students on a regular basis in order for students to properly value and apply the things that they have learned within a classroom. If a teacher is just talking at the students, the students don't get past simple memorization. There's a concept called Bloom's Taxonomy. And what Bloom's Taxonomy states, it's almost like a pyramid, is on the bottom of the pyramid, there's remembrance. And this is simply recalling facts and basic concepts, just defining stuff, duplicating stuff, etc. And this is what people in classrooms within the 21st century typically do. They typically don't go any higher than this, right? You just have students who are memorizing things, spitting them back out. The second tier is understanding, explaining ideas and concepts, describing, discussing, things of that nature. Especially in college, when you have to attend these lectures, these things don't happen. You don't typically get class discussions where you're able to truly understand the material. The third stage of Bloom's Taxonomy is applying, right, so taking the information that you have gained and understood and applying it to new situations that come your way. The next stage is analyzing. Analyzing is drawing connections between ideas, right? So you first have to remember, then understand, then apply, and then you're able to analyze this information and create connections between what you're seeing and what you're noticing. The second to last stage of Bloom's Taxonomy is evaluation. This is justifying a stand or decision. This is you coming up with a decision and standing on that, right? Without being able to even understand the material, you can't have a decision about anything. If you don't properly understand the material and you don't properly understand what is being said, there is no way for you to have a decision on it. And that's what Bloom's Taxonomy is trying to tell us. And then there's this last stage right here, which is create. And this is producing new or original work. So by the time you've remembered the material, you've then begun to understand it, right? And when you understand the material, you're able to apply the material to new situations. And when you're able to realize these new situations that you're able to apply the material to, you're then able to analyze the material and draw different connections between all of the different things. Then once you're able to analyze the material, you're then able to properly justify your decision or your stance on the material itself. And then once you're able to have a stand or a decision on the material, you're then able to produce your own work based on that material. And as unfortunate as it is, schools within the 21st century typically do not do things that way. As I said before, students are typically stuck at the memorization stage. They're stuck at the bottom-most stage of this hierarchy. However, we have begun to see students who look for things that interest them will begin to value education because they need the education in order to advance up that hierarchy, up Bloom's taxonomy. They're able to advance up that and they need education in order to do that. So, today we've explored two fundamental perspectives on educational value in the 21st century. The first one was Paulo Freire's emphasis on emancipation and critical consciousness, the foundation for all of the things that we have talked about today, as well as Bell Hook's advocacy for inclusive, democratic learning environments as she builds on Paulo Freire's work and what that has taught us. Be sure to watch all of our previous episodes brought to you by Hannah, Peyton, and Paris. I'm your host, Nick Vieira, and thank you for tuning in to another episode, the last episode of Education's Impact, Quality, Identity, and Value in the 21st Century.