Education and resistance: Testimonios for critical pedagogy and literacy

• Main Author: Moratilla, Noel Christian A.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2012
• Subjects: Critical pedagogy; Literacy; Reportage literature; Education; Nonfiction
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/9149
• Institution: De La Salle University

The exploratory/theoretical essay discusses the potential of testimonios or testimonial narratives in critical pedagogy and literacy, especially as or when practiced in Third World/Post-Colonial countries such as the Philippines. The discussion foregrounds the possibility of using testimonial narratives to underscore the dialectical connection between, and conflation of, the individual and collective spheres, and relate the same to an authentic teaching-learning process schematized according to/around the languages of critique/opposition and possibility/hope that a critical, praxis-oriented pedagogy would advocate. It is assumed that the use of such non-canonical texts can be constitutive of more egalitarian teaching practices in language pedagogy, aimed not only at widening the range of representations but also at developing critical, resistant, and emancipatory attitudes among teachers and learners. As 'grassroots literature' (i.e., as a mode by which marginal sectors of society can give voice to their otherity), testimonies may well exemplify the 'authentic' texts propounded by Freire and other theoreticians of similar persuasion, which would enable teachers and students (as cultural workers and as transformative intellectuals) to 'read the word and the world' and render social change possible.