Learning about Te Tiriti o Waitangi often involves a significant shift in our view of our society or world view. Conscious-raising or conscientisation was described by famous adult educator, Paolo Freire (1992), as learning to ‘decode’ your world based on new information. Each person has their own way of doing this, so we give participants time to absorb new information with visual and experiential activities.
Adult learners carry a lifetime of knowledge and experience with them. Our activities are designed to give participants an opportunity to share what they know or add their own knowledge to the topic at hand.
We have also borrowed from language teaching methodology using interactive group work to minimise ‘TTT’ or ‘teacher talking time’. Other examples of these strategies include pre-teaching vocabulary, using prediction questions before reading, eliciting rather than telling, and sharing information between participants who then teach each other.
Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Bloomsbury