Week 2 - Conscientization

 As Freire (1974) describes there are three levels of consciousness. The first being a magical consciousness where we accept our lives as we see it in our immediate vicinity and are not aware of the wider socio-economic complications or contradictions. I can relate this to my own personal story as I grew up in an affluent area of Auckland, attended good schools, went on domestic and international holidays and watched those around me do the same. Adults in the home went to work at well paid jobs, we lived in a large house with bedrooms for everyone and a large outdoor space with a swimming pool. This was what I saw day in and day out and this is what I believed to be the “norm” for everyone. Through my magical consciousness I had constructed a view of not only my world but the world beyond as being the same.


This stage of magical consciousness stayed with me for a very long time, all the way through university until I took my first teaching job in a fairly remote part of Northern Hawkes Bay where I lived and taught in a community that was completely paradoxical. On one hand there were well established generational farming families whose children attended the local primary school until Year 8 and then went off to board in Napier or Hastings at private schools. Alternatively there were transient families who had moved predominantly from Wairoa in search of cheaper accommodation and/or jobs, and life was a struggle. This movement to viewing life through the lens of a naive consciousness was where I started to see the different parts of society - those similar to my own life and those that were different. I can honestly say that at this stage there was definitely naivety about the difference in my circumstances and those of others. I was busy saving money to head off on an overseas adventure after my two year contract ended and easily saved a sizeable amount each payday to allow me to travel internationally before starting work based in London. I recognised the differences, but did not recognise the systemic societal issues that contribute to these differences.


At the age of approximately 40, I began to do some in-depth work around Te Tiriti, culturally responsive pedagogy and education reform through Poutama Pounamu from the University of Waikato. When I look back through my notes we addressed conscientization but I actually have no recollection of this, nor had any real understanding of it until now. “Conscientisation requires understanding the part we each play in supporting a system that continues to perpetuate harm on disproportionate numbers of Māori learners.” (University of Waikato, n.d., para. 4). I started to see the part that I played in keeping the status quo, keeping the privileged position I was in and the dominant narrative that was upheld throughout the education system and society. This was an uncomfortable space for me to sit in. I started to realise that merely acknowledging the issue was insufficient and did nothing to address the harm. I needed to critically reflect on what my part might be in creating more equitable social realities (University of Waikato, n.d.). 


Engaging in critical consciousness allowed me to develop an understanding that the dominant narrative or dominant culture had become ingrained in schools and the wider education system. Freire (1970) describes two stages of confronting oppressive practices. In the first stage the oppressed identify those structures and practices and commit to transforming the oppression. In the second stage, the transformation means that there is a shared pedagogy for all, to liberate everyone. In my own story or path to being more critically conscious, I started to see that marginalised areas of society were not at fault or to blame. There were significant barriers to not only education, but a complete imbalance of power structures within society. I started to look at the development of a counter-narrative and how I as an educator could address some of those barriers. 


I found it incredibly easy to relate to Paulo Freire’s three levels of consciousness (Freire, 1973). I could easily identify my journey through them and was surprised at how accurately they described my level of critical reflection about the world around me.


References:

Freire, P. (1974). Education for critical consciousness. New York, NY: Continuum.

University of Waikato. (n.d.). Activating Critical Theories. Poutama Pounamu

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