Communication: Resolving to Evolve and Become

Both Dewey and Freire introduce the idea that education is about communication.  “All communication (and hence all genuine social life) is educative. To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience.” (Dewey) For Dewey, the purpose of education for him is, at a basic level, “to enable them to share in a common life,” or to establish the rules of a society and perpetuate it. This education is very practical and useful.  For Freire “solidarity [or becoming unified as a group through feeling and action] requires true communication” and “only through communication can human life hold meaning.”

“But in an advanced culture… there is the standing danger that the material of formal instruction will be merely the subject matter of schools, isolated from the subject matter of life-experience.” (Dewey) We can see this in Freire’s theory on “banking” education, where students are receptacles to be filled with material and not encouraged to think and apply. It becomes only about information not growing. “The scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and story the deposits.” (Freire, 72) This is exactly what happens in the evolution of debate as seen in Resolved (Whiteley, 2007). In the past it was about understanding an argument and reasoning it out. But the debate program has evolved into where it is about breadth of information stored and the speed at which it is shared. It has become impractical just as Dewey feared, and oppressing as Freire describes, because it reinforces an existing way and hinders growth and thought.  In Resolved Sam and Matt try a little to think outside the box by battling with philosophy instead of facts, but ultimately their goal is about winning, and therefore moves away from the idea of communicating to be unified.

Richard and Louis recognize this about the debate culture and want to change things. Freire introduces the idea of “problem-posing” education, a solution to the banking theory and the current state of debate, where communication (i.e. education) exists more as a two-way thing rather than a deposit. “Problem-posing” education allows teachers to be students and students to also be teachers.

Dewey expounds that communication affects the experience of not only the one being communicated to, but the one communicating because they have to formulate their experience and in doing so “has his [or her] own attitude modified.” At least it should. But it won’t if it’s only about gathering and organizing information. So Richard and Louis come up with a plan of identity, purpose, and method. They win by engaging their opponents, not overwhelming them and speaking over their heads.  They take debate and make it personal because like all students, they have background and experiences that contribute to the learning process of both the teacher and the student. They apply it to themselves and make it practical like Dewey hopes, but also involve “a constant unveiling of reality” by exposing the current debate culture for what it really is. They help reform and liberate by introducing “action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” Freire’s ideal shows in the way Louis and Richard educate their opponents and the judges, but also in the way their teacher educates them. Their debate coach recognizes that their not empty vessels and helps them use what they already know to build and enhance instead of oppressing them to an existing reality. Richard, Louis, and their coach embody Freire’s idea that the present is dynamic and fluidity is essential. They are encouraged and they encourage others to transcend themselves, move, forward, look ahead, and continue in the process of becoming. (Freire, 84)

References:
John Dewey's Democracy and Education Chapter 1: Education as a Necessity of Life
Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed Chapter 2 pp. 71-86
Greg Whiteley's "Resolved" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1068161/