Neoliberalism, Pedagogy and Human Development by Kontopodis Michalis;

Author:Kontopodis, Michalis;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

4 Doing Collective Pasts and Futures

Pedagogia da Terra in the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement in Brazil, Espírito Santo

The Freedom Writers project, which I examined in Chapter 3, this volume, can be seen as a best practice example of how crises in which marginalized students find themselves can be resolved by creating the means to transform at the same time as the students themselves and the broader societal-eco- nomical and ethical-political relations in which they participate. Dealing with the broader societal-economical and ethical-political contradictions that are reflected in the dramas of marginalized students cannot, however, take place within a single school project. Escaping marginalization and overcoming neoliberal socio-economic and ethical-political contradictions requires large-scale and long-term collective action, that is, a social move- ment , in the broadest sense of the word.

This exactly has been the limitation of the Freedom Writers project, which did not prove to be viable in the long term. Of course, the project became well known, has inspired further educational practices and there is a non-profit organization founded by E. Gruwell, which disseminates this best practice all over the U.S. However, the very fact that the curriculum, the various edu- cational practices and the U.S. school institution as a whole did not change through the Freedom Writers project—not even at the local school in which the Freedom Writers Project took place—is a manifestation of the micro- political limitations of such projects. Below, the narrative will move from urban to countryside schools and from studying single projects to exploring a whole educational and socio-political movement. A complex understanding of what “virtual” development can be will thus be opposed to the dominant, individualized notion of “potential” development. I will discuss how the col- lective doing of pasts and futures can create very different conditions for the development of even the most marginalized populations.

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