Out of Step, that seems to be a modest phrase for something creative and progressive as Pop-ed. Pop-Ed, or Popular Education, is a lattice-work of multifarious forms of pedagogical frameworks from different groups, disciplines and genres - from the critical and concientisizing pedagogy set forth by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, whose seminal work on theory and practice of education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, set the tone for an alternative paradigm of education, to the banana que vendor in our "kanto" engage in his daily business affairs; or from J. Krishnamurti's Oriental outlooks on consciousness, to the Post-structuralist and Postmodern exhortations of Continental thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Jean Francois Lyotard - conceived in the very recent theoretical history and historical past by educators, community workers and non-government organizations.
And yet behind this complexity lies the simplicity of Pop-ed. In fact, simplicity is one of the key features of Popular Education. As former TESDA head and Popular Democracy advocate Edicio dela Torre puts it:
""Pop-ed is accessible, it is not elitist. It simplifies...puwedeng maintindihan ng nakararami, but it is not boring. Kwuela, enjoy kaya tanggap... It has a standpoint...it emphasizes content: whatever is 'true' and 'correct'. It is liberating, empowering; it allows people to creatively express themselves, not necessarily 'correctly', but certainly 'authentically' ".
Pop-ed, as a learner-centered pedagogy, is participative in its approach. Everyone, teacher and students alike, has a stake in the generation and sharing of knowledge by using their experiences as rudimentary elements in the collective learning process. This creative, emancipator and critical facet of Pop-Ed makes education more in touch with reality and therefore tenaciously overcoming the learner's "alienation" to education.
Pop-Ed, being less expert oriented and more learner centered, tries to efface relations of power. The orthodox conception that teacher is the sole source of knowledge and authority is no longer viewed from a liberating standpoint is no longer the case as far as Pop-Ed is concerned. Firmly entrench in its goal of empowering each individual, Pop-Ed makes people/students to listen to views other than their own (even if these views are contrary to what they strongly believe in), emboldens them to read reality (their social and historical conditions, the dilemmas within their families and community, and if possible relate these to national situation), and encourages them to speak and mobilize them to action (making the necessary steps to solve these problems).
Pop-Ed presents a very enriching, enlivening and encouraging alternative to present pedagogical frameworks. Although Pop-Ed is widely used in literacy and numeracy campaigns in community development efforts and in the nonformal education sector by NGOs, it still has to see action in the formal educational sphere. Be that as it may, it still has to attain wide acceptance, as Popular Educators are not created overnight. Training is only a portion of it. It also takes skill, as education becomes an art. Also, academics and teachers still cling to orthodox methods of teaching from which they have either learned or have imbibed from their predecessors and/or colleagues and have come to embrace due putative practices.
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