"Knowing has everything to do with growing.” Paulo Freire Winter School[1]
December 20 – 31, 2010 At BCCE, we believe that education should raise the awareness of the students so that they become subjects, rather than objects, of the world. This awareness can be achieved by teaching students to think democratically and to continually question and make meaning from (critically view) everything they learn. That’s what we intend to achieve through our Winter School program.
Our leading volunteer-tutor at BCCE affirms that critical reflection on practice is a requirement of the relationship between theory and practice when he said, “I want to let the students know that that I will learn with them together and guide them. I'll learn and relearn in the process as well.”
Our Winter School will cover a teaching/learning of subjects such as World History, English, Mathematics, and introduction to sciences including physics, chemistry, and biology. The bottom line of our Winter School is to enable our students connecting the details and the world they live with[2], the concept that they do not receive much in a conventional school. By introducing them to this concept, we would like the students know that so many valuable materials and resources are out there. Another benefit our students will receive is the assured grasp of the subjects as far as the languages spoken and applied at our Winter School are concerned. This is available at no other place, but only at BCCE.
We explain to our parents about the pedagogical task for them is to make it clear to their children that parental participation in the decision-making process is not an intrusion but a duty, so long as the parents have no intention of deciding on behalf of their children. In our community, however, we are constantly faced with the problem of lack of parental involvement. The issue is not one of parental indifference, but incapability. Many of our parents come to this country with very little or no formal education. But, their desire for the children’s education is vivid and solid.
At BCCE, we have no intention to take over the role of parents of our students. Instead, as the elder children of the community, we would like to work with the parents and ensure their understanding that the participation of the parents is most opportune in helping the children analyze the possible consequences of the decision that is to be taken in their lives. --- [1] As a strictly human experience, I could never treat education as something cold, mental, merely technical, and without soul, where feelings, sensibility, desires, and dreams had no place, as if repressed by some kind of reactionary dictatorship. In addition, I never saw educative practice as an experience that could be considered valid if it lacked rigor and intellectual discipline. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom. [2] Why not establish an intimate connection between knowledge considered basic to any school curriculum and knowledge that is the fruit of the lived experience of these students as individuals? Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom. |  Winter School 2010 |
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