“If I do not love the world—if I do not love life—if I do not love people—I cann
“If I do not love the world—if I do not love life—if I do not love people—I cannot enter into dialogue (Friere,90).”
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed fundamentally lays out that love is the backbone of education and without love there can be no liberation, freedom, or self actualization. Liberation, freedom, self actualization, all three of these words define the aims of education. To liberate individuals with new ideas, new possibilities, new ways of looking at the world, to free individuals from oppression, self doubt, dehumanization, and to enter into the process of self actualization allowing for compassion, conversation, true thinking, and hope are the ultimate goals of education.
It is human nature to love. It is conceivably the most fundamental characteristic of humans; as social animals we are built to work in groups and create relationships based on mutual love. Love is human nature and it is not just a word or phenomenon, but chemicals. Love can be sexual with hormones like testosterone and estrogen, but also love can be platonic involving chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin or even the feeling of attachment and care is a form of love triggered by chemicals like norepinephrine and serotonin. Love can take on many forms and has many definitions, but to bell hooks, love is “a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust (Teaching Communities,134).” This is a pedagogy of love revolving around the seemingly simple notion that love should exist in education, and without love, education becomes a draining and monotonous task. Using the ideas of Plato, Freire, and hooks and the definition of love by hooks, I aim to discuss why and how love is connected to education and necessary for the progression towards liberation, freedom, and self actualization. In the final paragraph, I will discuss and present my thoughts on a question that has remained in my head. Is love a necessity or an ideal in education?
Location:
My location for my pedagogy of love takes place in a college classroom. Similar to the core structure of this class, my class will take place in workshop fashion. Workshops are first designed by the leaders of the class until everyone understands what a workshop is, how they operate, and then the workshops will be designed by the other class participants. However, this class is fundamentally different from others because it is based on the philosophy of “DeCals” at UC Berkeley. DeCals allow students to teach their own class, with a faculty mentor, to the student population. Taking ideas from both DeCals and Out the Cave, my class will be a workshop based class led by a student with the help of a professor taken by both students and professors alike. Placing everyone on the same plane of authority, everyone taking the class should go by their preferred name, not by a formal title like doctor or professor. While a class just taken by students is necessary and can inspire students with ne