Celebrating 25 years of educating for transformation
by Kathleen McBride, regional co-director for Central America and adjunct professor, Center for Global Education
THE NUMBERS
TRAVEL SEMINARS
850—sponsored groups CGE has worked with
12,000+—travel seminar participants
SEMESTERS ABROAD
300—colleges, whose study semesters are arranged by CGE,
including institutions in the U.S., Germany, Canada, and Norway
1,900 semester program participants
COUNTRIES VISITED
40+—in Mexico, Central America, South
America, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, the Middle
East, India, Southeast Asia, China, and Hong Kong,
and the U.S.
CGE FACULTY AND STAFF LOCATIONS
9—Minneapolis
16—Mexico
9—Nicaragua
1—El Salvador
2—Guatemala
8—Namibia
And, millions of stories shared, hearts touched, and
perceptions changed over 25 years across the globe.
Crossing borders and challenging boundaries is a powerful metaphor for our journey of the last 25 years. It is the title of the first Center for Global Education publication that documented the collective memory of our first years of work. The Center’s initial experiences in 1979 included crossing the Mexican border with students for short-term educational experiences. Since that time, thousands of participants have joined the Center’s travel seminars to Mexico, Central America, the Philippines, the Middle East, Southern Africa, and [locations in the U.S.].
As educators, we see our role as one that engages students and participants in the world, facilitating critical analysis and reflection that leads to action. We believe that intercultural dialogue and collaboration with decision makers and historically disadvantaged urban and rural communities are a way of developing greater understanding of the power relations in the world and planting seeds towards more just relations and fair practices. These assumptions are at the root our pedagogical model.
An expanded pedagogical framework
While the pedagogy of Paulo Freire continues to
be the foundation of our educational process (experience—
reflection—action), in recent years
other kindred approaches, including feminist and
indigenous pedagogies, have influenced our
practice and strengthened our analysis. All of
these pedagogies place significant emphasis on
learning in community. For Freire, learning in
community is one of the foundations of liberating
education. Historically, learning in community has
been a fundamental characteristic of indigenous
teaching and learning, though underrepresented
in traditional educational systems. Similarly, feminist
pedagogy upholds learning in community as
central to educational processes that gives voice
to all people, particularly women, whose experience
and voice have oftentimes been silenced.
Concepts of autonomy and empowerment that are
key to feminist and indigenous scholarship have
informed our methodologies and expanded our understanding
of the world and of the educational
process. Our efforts to foster ongoing critical
analysis of power relations in the world are
grounded in a practice of intercultural dialogue
and experiences that continue to break open new
understandings of the world, leading us to a
deeper analysis that continually informs our
teaching
Ongoing challenges
While our role has become clearer with regard to
our niche in the field of transformative education,
we still face significant challenges. As we facilitate
participants’ reflections on educational experiences
and encourage the exploration and implementation
of action steps, we are confronted with an institutional
challenge if we are in fact going to
continue to practice what we teach. To fully engage
the circle of praxis with the goal of transforming society,
follow-up to participants’ experience as they
return to their home communities is essential. How
do we, as an institution, provide a space for participants
and students to fully engage the circle of
praxis upon their return? How can we facilitate the
exploration of actions steps in participants’ home
communities? …
The Center for Global Education’s work today
continues to be the fruit of dialogue and reflections
with staff and resource people from over a dozen
countries and hundreds of students and participants
from the United States who have inspired our work,
shaped our analysis, challenged our language, and
informed our worldview. We are excited to be engaged
in an educational process that will continue
to be refined and changed in the coming years by
new generations of staff and participants engaged in
transformative education.
Excerpted from Global News & Notes, Summer 2007; 25th Anniversary Issue: “Building a Just and Sustainable World: Educating for Transformation”
