Education as the Practice of Freedom: Educating Adult Learners about Social Change
Session Abstract
Advocacy and social change are (in part) contingent upon decolonizing andragogy that connect students with communities. A grassroots approach to education relies on connecting theory to practice and in developing knowledge that invests in the lives of communities we serve.
Target Audience
Audience members should be invested with developing curriculum across communities and understand the function of popular education in creating transformative social change. We must consider the role of educators as community organizers who are willing to empower community members to shape research and curriculum. Administrators and educators invested in developing new models for participatory action research would find this presentation challenging and empowering.
Session Description
This interactive critically-engaging presentation is in response to our increasingly social justice-minded environment where communities are looking to places of higher learning to aid in their empowerment project. By placing communities at the center of our curriculum and mission (side by side with the mission of the College/University) it will require us to think critically about the history of higher education and it's need to have a paradigm shift in the direction of empowerment and social change.