Elizabeth Wallace

Thank you to everyone who joined in our conversation about Freire at the Halpern Centre at SFU on March 29.  It was inspiring to hear the exchanges between experienced faculty and new instructors over the challenges of "educating for freedom" which Paulo urges us to do in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Many thanks to SFU's Media Services for obtaining the recordings made at U of T, with Alan Thomas and Roby Kidd speaking with Paulo Freire when he visited in 1979.  The news is that the two DVDs (Letters in the Earth and Becoming a Christian) have been purchased and are in fact part of SFU's library collection although they were so new they hadn't been catalogued when I showed them to the group. They will be catalogued by the first week of April, so available to be borrowed after that. A copy of the videotape, Guns and Pencils, will be added to the collection soon.

I'm adding to this forum a copy of the questions that I circulated with regard to the Forewords and Chapters 1,3,4. If they are useful for any of your teaching and learning activities, please use them freely.  Our discussion on the relevance of Paulo's comments in Chapter 2 to our work at SFU was most interesting, and I hope everyone will continue to reflect on the messages in that chapter.

I welcome comments here, not only from the educators who joined us on the hill, but from anyone who is interested in the writings of Paulo Freire and their relevance to education in the 21st century.

Liz

We are pleased at the interest generated by the series of readers' group gatherings hosted by the Learning and Instructional Development Centre (LIDC) at SFU.  Some of the most committed and thoughtful educators at the campus on the hill are coming together each month to talk about publications that address teaching practices and the underpinning theories.

On Thursday, March 29, the third conversation in the series will take place at the Halpern Centre, 10:30 - noon.  An invitation has been sent out to the SFU community and we look forward to another gathering.

The book we're reading in March is Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed,  published by Continuum, New York, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original printing. This edition has a shiny red cover, but the content is essentially the same as the original. A new introduction by Donaldo Marcedo adds an extra 14 pages at the beginning, but Freire's four thought-provoking chapters are intact.

This forum is set up for those who want to discuss what they are reading and learning.  What's your first reaction to the book?  Did you revel in Freire's opening chapter on the nature of oppression?  Was the Chapter 2 discussion of the "banking" concept of eduation more approachable?  We'll discuss these questions on the 29th but your comments are welcome here.

Many thanks to the Douglas College folks who made us so welcome at our Spring meeting on Friday, 16th.  The room was ideal, the coffee was hot and the lunch arrangements worked beautifully.  We appreciate all the effort, and we're glad that the memories of the Nov. 27th snowstorm can now be put to rest.

About 25 people gathered to share ideas and exchange information about what is happening at the variously named teaching/learning centres in our BC post-secondary institutions. More detailed notes will be shared shortly, but this forum is being set up to continue the conversations that we began at Douglas, and to invite those who couldn't join us to ask questions and contribute their thoughts.

Please note that two Polls are available on the UCIPD homepage, which can also be reached by clicking on: _{http://scope.lidc.sfu.ca/course/view.php?id=22} We look forward to getting your vote on choice of name and whether these discussion should continue to be password protected. When you use the poll tool, you will be prompted for a password which, for most UCIPD members, was originally set up using your email address as an ID and the first part of your email address as the Password. You may have changed it since. For example, my ID was originally ewallace@sfu.ca and my password was ewallace.

Your response to this message, and to the other message regarding formalizing and affilitating UCIPD which has also been sent out to you, is most welcome.

Cheers,

Liz

During the UCIPD meeting, there was a conversation about the pros and cons of turning our loosely-knit network into a more formal organization, and affiliating with other provincial organizations.

For example, one pro is that incorporation would bring protection if we had board members. If we were to affiliate with BCcampus, we might have greater access to funding, and that's also a pro.

One of the cons for many people is that they like the strength of loose ties that we've created in UCIPD. Why fix it if it ain't broke?

What do you think of these ideas? What pros and cons can you think of?  Click on View in context to go the SCoPE and see the postings, or choose to reply directly.

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Note: If you click on View or Reply below you will be prompted for your SCoPE ID and Password. When it was originally set up for you, your ID was your email address, and your Password was the first part of your email address. So originally my ID was ewallace@sfu.ca and my password was ewallace. (I went into my profile and edited it later and so can you.) For info contact me at ewallace@sfu.ca. Note we now have two polls in the UCIPD SIG:

http://scope.lidc.sfu.ca/course/view.php?id=22

This message is coming to you from SCoPE, the Community of Practice site hosted by SFU.  If you click on the "View this in Context" message at the bottom of this screen, it will take you directly to SCoPE. There are over 600 members discussing a wide variety of topics, and you are able to browse through all of them except a few private Password protected areas.

This particular Special Interest Group (SIG) has been set up in response to requests by some of the participants in our first Teaching and Learning Readers' Group gathering in January. Cheryl Amundsen was our guest and it was very enjoyable -- but of course too short. The online environment gives you a space to raise issues that we didn't have time for, and to continue the conversation we started.

This SIG can be read by anyone, but if you wish to post a new topic or reply to a posting, you will be prompted for your user name and password. A separate message should have reached you about this by now, but if not, please contact me at ewallace@sfu.ca 

Regards,

Liz