Last year, I returned to the Pacific: the island Republic of Palau. Palau is a very new country in the political sense (as was Armenia), but the culture of the indigenous people has existed since ancient times. Palau had been a colonial possession for some 300 years until she was granted independence four years ago.
I am currently teaching at a community college here in Palau, which is both modeled after a US prototype and accredited by the Western Association of State Colleges, an organization that serves the west coast of the US and the Pacific Islands. My students are in a rather unique situation here as they are truly bi-conversant (Palauan and English), but they are not academically literate in any language because their first language, Palauan, is a predominatly oral language. The college's language of instruction is English, so I am faced with the task of teaching "college-level" liberal arts courses to kids in their second "oral" language while trying to teach basic literacy skills at the same time.
In my first year, I have had some success with Ira Shor's idea to "negotiate the syllabus" (See Practice), but I am still struggling for a teaching methodology (pedagogy) which will serve to truly "liberate" my students from 50 years of American colonialism and the new intense pressures of both mass media and the astounding pace of development in the tourism industry in Palau (many people contend that Palau has the BEST scuba diving in the world). Obviously, the tourism industry has already started to impact the pristine environment of Palau, so I'm beginning to grasp some of the basic issues in the economic development/environmental preservation debate in order to re-present the issue to my students and work this "theme" into our Composition class. I hope to run two or three "generative themes" (based on student input) through a fifteen week semester in order to open critical dialogue in my English classes. I believe that the only way for my students to begin "academic" or critical thinking is to root our exploration in the examination of the reality experienced by these students. As both Paulo Freire and Ira Shor suggest, I want to re-present everyday experience to my students and allow THEM to take it apart, or experience it in a new way for themselves. There is a need to problematize the "everyday" so that these students can begin to see their opportunity to intervene in both their own lives and the life of their young nation. The challenge here is that the "everyday" is changing at an astounding rate; a decade ago there was no regular utility service (electricty, cable tv, telephone, etc) while currently my students, (predominately 18-20 years old), see all of these modern amenities as "normal."
I am considering organizing my Composition course around the themes of "Work," "Development," and possibly "Play" for the coming semester. The idea is to have students objectify these everyday realities so that they can see them as created rather than "naturally" occuring. Ira Shor explicates methods which he has used to allow students to further delve into their themes using increasing advanced levels of critical thinking as the semester progresses. These themes will replace the traditional "rhetorical" models: example, compare and contrast, classification, and analysis normally taught at the college English level here. I hope that the students will provide enough input into these areas so that I can truly be an educator/student this semester rather than a "talking teacher." Ira Shor reflects on his experience using generative themes at CUNY in his powerful book, Critical Teaching and Everyday Life. For this and other recommended titles for Liberatory Education, please support our group and my research by visiting the Liberatory Education Book Shoppe that is associated withAmazon.com.
