Transformative Pedagogy in Times of Crisis:
Education for Healing, Love & Liberation
WHAT IS TPTC?
We started using the term transformative pedagogy to describe something our students were demonstrating and naming to us. There were experiences in and through our classes that not only changed the content of knowledge the students had, but changed their entire way of understanding and relating to the world and themselves. That is to say, we witnessed students not only learn, but transform their perception of reality— including how they understood themselves—as well as what the role of knowledge, truth and education were in that. Not only did they learn new material, but they gained clarity and confidence about who they were and wanted to be. Notably this took place most often in classes that were explicitly geared at addressing forms or systems of oppression– often systems that have been so naturalized that they are like the water fish swim in. Increasingly we believe these approaches are valid for learning more generally.
Notably, Transformative, or “aha”, moments are enabled when our classes incorporate a series of practices that were contemplative, nervous-system (or trauma) sensitive, and that pushed students to see complexity, interconnectedness and wholeness (rather than segmented) views of problems, reality and solutions. These practices and ways of thinking, teaching and learning became, along with the larger goal of seeing and undoing systems of oppression (the shadows of our culture) the sources and pillars of our work. ps most acutely, those coming into adulthood at this particular time.
Education: Crisis & Opportunity
(all caps or first letter cap?)
In some ways one of the biggest crises of our time is education. What is it for? How do we do it well? What practices, skills and values are we trying to transmit, cultivate, co-create? What kind of world(s) and subjects?
For our project it is clear that education today is simultaneously a key part of the problem, and a space of real opportunity for meeting the intense changes, uncertainties and challenges of our time.
However, to do so, we must recognize education as a healing and liberatory practice– seeking to restore our societies, and the people in them, to live with more integrity, as full selves. At its core, we along with key thinkers and practitioners understand education as a practice of healing, of seeking to restore wholeness.
As Parker Palmer put it over 25 years ago:
…education at its best— these profound human transactions called knowing, teaching, and learning—are not just about information, and they’re not just about getting jobs. They are about healing. They are about wholeness. They are about empowerment, liberation, transcendence. They are about reclaiming the vitality of life.
Palmer, The Grace of Great Things, from the Heart of Learning, 3 (1999).
Rachel Naomi Remen concurs, and adds that one of the core goals of education is to serve wholeness:
Of all of the contemporary cultural institutions, education holds the greatest promise for healing the wounds of the cultural shadow. In some ways, education has historically held this responsibility. Educare, the root of the word education, means ‘to lead forth the hidden wholeness,’ the innate integrity that is in every person. And as such, there is a place where ‘to educate’ and ‘to heal’ mean the same thing. Educators are healers. Educators and healers both trust in the wholeness of life and in the wholeness of people. Both have come to serve this wholeness.
But quite importantly, she recognizes that “as educators, we cannot heal the shadow of our culture by educating people to succeed in society as it is.” (Remen, Educating for Mission, Meaning and Compassion, The Heart of Learning (1999).
In other words the work of education is to transform the conditions of possibility. For some, this requires recognizing the role of education as sacred– meaning not simply transactional or materialist. If the word sacred provokes discomfort, consider bell hooks’ description of education as the practice of freedom:
To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.”
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, 1994, Routledge
As such the method and goals of this project are two-fold: to address the core blindspots and shadows of our cultures, and to cultivate freedom, transformation and wholeness. As such, we first need to see, acknowledge and then undo the shadows of our culture– including White Supremacy, Capitalism, Patriarchy and Individualism– all of which are tightly woven with ideas of success, progress and development, deeply entrenched in our views of education. Second, but sometimes done at the same time, we seek to cultivate notions of learning that remind people of their full and true selves.
To quote bel hooks, one of the main inspirations, for our work once more:
While this might sound lofty and philosophical, one of the best parts of this is that the work is very practical, in fact it requires returning us to practice and to our bodies.
Key to this work is remembering that our minds are part of our bodies, and that learning, especially about difficult shadowy or just controversial material, happens best when our nervous systems are regulated. In fact, real growth happens when our nervous systems are settled enough to meet stress and growth edges, without getting dysregulated or taken out of what gets referred to as, “the window of presence.” One of the most important aspects of this work is learning about our nervous systems where stress, trauma, and many other ailments live– and where, on the flip-side, possibilities for presence, growth and freedom live as well.
TPTC 