Lachney_MEMO_2


 * Horton, Myles and Paulo Frerie. //We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change.// Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. **


 * Michael Lachney – ECO ED – 2014 – Annotation **

I want to consider a specific thematic context that Horton and Freire (1990) speak from during their “//Conversations on Education and Social Change//.” Specifically, I want to consider the transformative role of radical Christianity in Horton and Freire’s lives in motivating their adult literacy campaigns. I want to locate the authors in relationship to radical communities of faith. There are many other points of entry where I could locate Horton and Freire, but this one allows me to consider ecological education at the intersections between Christian socialism (Horton), liberation theology (Freire), and the engaged program of STS (Sismondo 2008). In the engaged program politics and interventions in the techno-social world become the site of study in which theories of expertise, knowledge, hybrids, and practices are relevant. I want to suggest that a view of nature/culture hybrids in scientific and religious community life is an avenue toward popular sustainability education.

This is certainly risky considering the Steve Fuller controversy during the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial (See Fuller 2007 for his explanation). I do not believe that Fuller’s testimony for the teaching of ID in schools is an appropriate example for how STS should intervene in K-12 science education; it was downright destructive. I do believe STS scholars have expertise on the issue but not in terms of whether it should or should not be taught. Conversely, in my consideration of Horton and Freire I want to consider what STS and radical Christianity have to offer each other in terms of building ecological education among communities of faith. In American terms this is a “popular education” that fits more in terms of the Highlander philosophy, but may also want to be considered in terms of private religious schools.

Horton and Freire both locate their Christian identities as formative in their radical attitudes toward education. For Freire, his Roman Catholic roots motivated his radical notions of “consistency “ for justice and “tolerance” for difference (1990, 243-244). Freire’s (1970) religious understanding of humans emerges in //Pedagogy of the Oppressed// as a purity myth of “dehumanization,” which is reminiscent of the fall from grace (I think this purity myth is problematic but I will draw on it later to discuss STS and liberation theology). In theory and action Freire mixes Christian ethics with Marxist critique: “…my “meetings” with Marx never suggested to me to stop, “meeting” Christ” (1990, 246). Freire’s early work in the 1950s-60s with the Catholic Action movement in Brazil helped lay the groundwork for the liberation theology movement. The early literacy campaigns were teaching peasants to read; for many to read the Bible. This is a radical proposition, in that when literacy is democratized power is taken away from the literate elite (e.g. the church). As Freire explains post-exile in Brazil: “[peasants] began also to have their study circles to study, discussing the Gospels, and thinking about the political and social circumstances in which they were interpreting the Gospels” (1990, 211). It is an interesting fact that in the United States Freire’s work is read more in theology departments than education departments (Freire 1998). Freire continued to engage with liberation theology throughout his life and the presence of his work in the movement continues to help draw connections between the teachings of Jesus and the standpoint/struggle of poor folks.

Horton, on the other hand, moved away from his Christian foundations as he began to be more involved in Highlander. But Horton’s path towards social justice partly began at the Union Seminary where he was influenced by the Christian Marxism of Reinhold Niebuhr; who helped to fund the opening of the Highlander school in 1932. Horton explains that he did not fit into Union but “Niebuhr was there for the first year, and he was a flaming Socialist, a pacifist, with a lot of qualifications…But most of all, he’d run a workers’ church in Detroit.” (Horton 2003, 127). For Horton, Christianity served as an inspiration for social service and an intervention point for organizing the labor movement. Indeed, just as Horton sought to work outside of the school system so as to not reproduce existing power structures (1990, 202-207), he may have seen the Church as a place to organize outside of labor forces. Unlike Freire who saw “co-optation [as] a tactical moment of the struggle” (1990, 206), Horton saw co-option as a failure of the movement to subvert the system on the activists’ own terms. Horton’s role of Christianity is one of moral righteousness that is obtained through aligning Jesus’ message with social justice/activist education and civil disobedience.

Horton and Freire both identify religious life as a source of radical transformation of the material world. Drawing on the Christian cultural foundation of social service, the two educators use the teachings of Jesus to motivate material changes in labor and literacy that challenged powers of capital. I want to suggest that like science, religion is one of the fibers that make up the thread of social life in a community. If literacies emerge through community struggles between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic frameworks (Roth and Barton 2004) and it is part of the job of STS to scale scholarship of sustainability into community social life and education (EcoEd 2014), then paying attention to where counter-hegemonic narratives and frameworks are necessary. According to the work and lives of Freire and Horton, Christianity (at least certain kinds) provides a space (literally as a church and figuratively for theory play) for counter-hegemonic popular education (in the Highlander sense). But what exactly would STS contribute to sustainability education in radical theology?

Freire’s fall from grace narrative of dehumanization speaks well to ideas of environmental stewardship. The pollution of the Earth by humans brings it further away from God’s purity. Furthermore, there are large overlaps between the secular and religious goals of environmental stewardship (Wilson 2007). And more importantly there are intersecting goals between sustainability, liberation theology, and eco-feminism (Wright). In talking to ecological educators, radical theologians, and STS scholars, I think the idea of “hybrids” (Latour 1993) helps move past purity narratives that may get in the way of social action and collaboration. Not only should we think through science in terms of nature/culture hybrids, but also through religion as well. The hybrids of nonhuman/Godly nature and human culture must be understood as a mutually constituting system. The objectivity of science and the divinity of God must both be seen as always-distant ideals that do not exist in the present mess of nature/culture hybrids. As part of the engage program of STS, theories of nature/culture hybrids need to come to bear on how STS can move across social worlds (religious and secular) in ways to foster ecological literacies among diverse communities. Moving forward with this program, theories of hybrids can be used to understand religious communities actions towards environmental justice.

References:

Horton, Myles. (2003). //The Myles Horton reader: Education for social change//. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

Freire, Paulo. (1998). //Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage//. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Freire, Paulo. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed//. New York: Continuum//.

Fuller, Steve. (2007) //Science vs religion: intelligent design and the problem of evolution//. Cambridge: Polity.

Latour, Bruno. (1993). //We Have Never Been Modern.// Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Roth, Wolff-Michael, and Angela Calabrese Barton. //Rethinking Scientific Literacy.// New York: Routledge, 2004.

Sismondo, Sergio. (2008) "Science and technology studies and an engaged program." //The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies//. Cambridge: MIT Press, 13-31.

Wilson, E. O. (2006). //The creation: An appeal to save life on earth//. New York: Norton.

Write, Nancy, Christianity and Environmental Justice. Accessed March 25, 2014 http://www.mipandl.org/faith_resources/Christianity%20and%20Environmental%20Justice.pdf