By Karen Andrews (she/her), teacher, Terrace; Corin Browne (she/her), teacher, Vancouver; Chiana van Katwijk (she/her), teacher, Victoria; Kristin Singbeil (she/her), teacher-librarian, Nanaimo
In 2023, we had an opportunity to participate in the first International Solidarity Teacher Inquiry Project (TIP), and the first province-wide TIP, as part of the BCTF’s work with the Paulo Freire Institute in São Paulo, Brazil. We each came into the project hoping to see Freirean pedagogy in action, gain clarity about our roles within chronically underfunded and systematically flawed education systems, and find inspiration to create change in our own practices. We completed the project feeling connected, inspired, and hopeful.
We began this TIP by reading a book together, The Pedagogy of Hope by Paulo Freire, which we discussed and used as a framework to come up with a guiding theme for our inquiry. A quote from the book that resonated was, “There is no change without dream, and there is no dream without hope.”1 From this came our overarching theme: Hope is an action/Hope in action.
Each participant in this inquiry project was supported in pursuing their own inquiry related to our overarching theme. We visited the Paulo Freire Institute to observe, engage in dialogue, and learn from our colleagues in Brazil. Following our visit, we came together to discuss our personal inquiries.
We spent five days learning about Freirean pedagogy at the Paulo Freire Institute and visited two schools that both received the Paulo Freire Municipal Education Quality Award, which recognized projects developed and initiated by educators that improve the quality of education. The first school, Pérola Ellis Byington, is an early childhood education school that received the award for its initiative called Our Identity, Our People, Our Struggle: Anti-Racist Education for Young Children. This school-wide initiative had students researching and celebrating Afro-Brazilian culture to reduce racism in the school and community.
The second award-winning school, Campos Salles, was transformed into a community space for learners of all ages. Daycare, elementary and high school, technical college, university, and adult continuing studies are all located in one central community space that exemplifies community, autonomy, participation, and social transformation.
Both school visits allowed us to witness transformative and innovative education that inspired our own practices within our schools.
Individual inquiry snapshots
Creating community through joyful play
Chiana’s inquiry: How does intentional, unstructured play serve to reject the idea of middle schoolers as “adults in training” and instead co-create and foster a sense of community, joy, and love in my classroom and school ecosystem?
In many of the middle years spaces we visited during our trip to Brazil, the tweens were given the space to be kids while also treated as competent, capable humans. This dichotomy spurred me to investigate the ways in which play seems to disappear in the middle years.
I integrated more play and connection time in my classroom after talking to students about their thoughts on play and how/if they felt connected to their classroom community. While I started off small with more games in math, longer breaks outside, and more hands-on activities, it quickly evolved into blocks of unstructured free play where I provided toys like Lego, Magna-Tiles, wooden blocks, art supplies, board games, and other materials.
I noticed a huge improvement in the overall sense of community in my class. There was a tangible sense of closeness that had been fostered through play. It led to larger projects like creating a classroom garden, some students starting a comic book series and collaborative novel series, and other creative endeavours.
I was able to renew my identity as a teacher, and I saw my middle schoolers reclaim their identities as kids.
From dream to production: Animation that shows what is possible in education
Corin’s inquiry: To investigate, apply, and review how a Freirean practice of dialogue can be used to develop an animation production unit where students collectively imagine, pitch, and animate a scene that explores their dream school.
I took the opportunity of the purposeful and focused self- reflection time of the TIP process to ask myself some import-ant questions about how my teaching practice aligns with my dreams and goals for social justice and youth liberation. Teaching is my second career, and I felt like I had so much freedom as a community-engaged artist to do really meaningful, authentic, and activist-based work with kids. It’s not always easy to find space for that as a public school teacher when you add the challenges of a structure that dictates schedules, the work of assessments, classroom management, and the limited autonomy that a lot of students face in a school system. This process reminded me that making purposeful and mentored space for imagination and dialogue can be as important and meaningful as the work I was doing in community before I started teaching. And it’s always possible (and so joyful) to design projects that encourage students to use art-making as the springboard for connecting hope and social change.
Literature for liberation
Karen’s inquiry: How can the use of literature inspire teachers to practise critical pedagogy—one of liberation—when working with young students?
Although it is challenging for teachers to unpack difficult topics, students are ready to engage. Literacy is a tool that can help foster critical consciousness and bring structures of oppression to the forefront. As teachers, we are facilitators of change. As such, we have to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
My learning from this TIP has allowed me to take on more difficult topics with my students. I see that, even at a young age, learners can make meaningful connections, reflect on change, take action, and transform the world around them.
Finding hope
Kristin’s inquiry: What is hope?
As the TIP facilitator for this project, I did not have a formal TIP but was inspired by the work of everyone involved. This led me to explore what hope means in relation to schools and education systems. I asked everyone involved in this project, including educators, students, and families, to find out what a dream education system would like.
Music, art, flexibility in schedules, choice, outdoor education, collaboration across grades, and community were all response for dream schools. Interestingly, we saw all these things in action in São Paulo schools.
We witnessed community involvement, student-selected committees for assessment, multiple teachers and students working together in one room (one Grade 1 class had 90 students and 3 teachers working together in one space), outdoor art, sensory spaces outdoors, and playgrounds at both primary and secondary schools. Lunches were made at the schools and eating together was a priority every day. The community and cultural connections were everywhere in the school spaces. We make learning accessible collectively. It will take collective action to improve our education system so every student can attend a dream school.
Bringing our learning home
We learned from our colleagues at the Paulo Freire Institute that Freire believed it is impossible to teach without learning. We are students as we teach and teachers as we learn. Our participation in this project was a reminder that we can be learners in our own classrooms and have so much to learn from our colleagues around the world. The BCTF International Solidarity Program has allowed us to bring knowledge from our colleagues in Brazil to our British Columbian schools.
We also learned that Freire never wanted to be copied, but instead reinvented. We can reinvent the ways we apply Freirean pedagogy to our unique settings, so that we can create school communities grounded in collective care.
We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to connect with each other, and our inspiring colleagues in Brazil, who reinforced that the impacts we have within our classrooms are the most important thing each of us can do in terms of activism right now. Choosing joy and love in teaching is a radical act. It dispels the notion that education is transactional, one-dimensional, and apolitical.
This experience filled us with hope that we can create a “world where it is less hard to love,” a saying from the staff at the Paulo Freire Institute that resonated.
