Commentary on The Act of Study by Paulo Friere
One of the first questions to be answered is why The Act of Study as a commencing read? Friere’s text is dynamic in the context of his language, especially from such works as Pedagogy of the Opressed in mind he points out the importance of being able to identify yourself and not to be dominated or domesticated, but to deeply identifying dialetictical relationships with and within the subject of study. The Act of Study in particular begins with a reference in understanding bibliographical sources as a fundemental element for studying. How does one begin a study? How does one refine a study? He also reveals that (b) The act of study, in sum, is an attitude towards the world. Because the act of study is an attitude toward the world, the act of study cannot be reduced to the relationship of reader to book or reader to text. page 3. This attitude is also the formation of our unique opinions and comprehending where we stand with in the context of our study.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed Chapter 2
Poignant observations and conclusion about the education system, but brings forth the language in which Friere speaks in
Excerpts from - The Act of Study
(a) The reader should assume the role of subject of the act.
(b) The act of study, in sum, is an attitude towards the world.
(c) Studying a specific subject calls for us, whenever possible, to be familiar with a given bibliography, in either a general subject or the area of our ongoing inquiry.
(d) The act of study assumes a dialectical relationship between reader and author, whose reflections are found within the themes he treats.
(c) The act of study demands a sense of modesty.
Other Personal Notes on Studying:
Studying is multi dimensional. Cultural Social, Political, Philosophical, Psychological, Economical, Geographical, Technological, Anthrological, Epistimological, Archaelogical or non of the above. There are many discplinary forms of studying and many languages in a study. Exercise intuition. We are complex architectures of infrastructures with abilities to communicate in plethora, all things must be considered. Foundations, bibliographies, canons, sources, experience, reflection, experiments, creating maps and equations are just a few keys to help one to investigate and navigate. Be analytical, be critical - why do you understand the subject? Why do you not understand the subject? What will it take for you to understand the subject? What is your relationship with the subject? Self-study, self-organize, self-educate do not let the current study completely dominate and consume you unless you want it to, perhaps that is the study. Studying is everything. We are studies. Form it in how it wishes to form, a study has a life of its own you cannot stop this only learn from it. Studying text cannot be limited, our response cannot be limited to the obvious or to the conditioned.
The following are examples of different people and ways to study:
Robert Henri – An american painter who was part of the Ashcan school movement in the late tweiinth century and within a book entitled The Art Spirit, a collection of letters and notes he wrote for his students. Mostly for students of art to help them in the process of painting or drawing, many parts of the book can be ultimately applied in the act of studying. Some of his ideas are similar to Paulo Friere.
Excerpt from page 233 –
Ways of Study:
THE school is not a place where students are fitted into the groove of rule and regulation, but where personality and orginality of vision are encouraged, and inventive genius in the search for specific expression is stimulated.
The real study of technique is not the acquirement of vast stock of pat phrases, but rather the avoidance of such, and the creation of a phrase special to the idea. To accomplish this, one must first have the idea and then active inventive wit to make the specifying phrase. This places the idea prior to the technique as a cause for the latter, contrary to the academic idea, which is in reverse.
Excerpt from page 120 -
LET a student enter the school with this advice:
No matter how good the school is, his education is in his own hands. All education must be self education.
Let him realize the truth of this, and no school will be a danger to him. The school is a thing of the period. It either uses the student for its own success or the self educating student uses it for his success. This is generally true of all school and students of our time.
It is up to the student whether he becomes a school-made man or whether he uses the school as a place of experience where there are both good and bad advices, where there are strengths and weakness, where there are facilities, and much to be gained by association with the other students. He may learn equally from the strong and the weak students. There are models to work from and a place to work in.
The self-educator judges his own course, judges advices, judges evidences about him. He realizes that he is no longer an infant. He is already a man: has his own development in process.
Pitt Rivers – noted for his innovation in modern archaeology is known for his vast collection in Oxford England. He often taught his classes surround buy his cabinets of curiosity, an important example of studying not only by the book, but having examples readily avaiable at hand to examine or reference to in the immeadiate. In addition a scientific method of working is always useful to observe in the physical to begin descriptive and creative analysis. Pitt Rivers was a persistant advocator on using the collections for self aducation, which is why it is open to the public for free.
William Upski Wimsatt a graffiti artist, author and activist - a familiar name in the midwest to students unhappy with the educational system, street artists and culturist, underground hip hop scene. His personal philsophies written for a particular audience is still highly insightful of how one can self educate himself.
How I Got my D.I.Y. Degree ... at the University of Planet Earth
