USFT's philosophy of education centers around the concept of Popular Education. We strive to integrate democratic education and consciousness raising into all of our work. Read more about what Popular Education is and check out our resources.

Popular education is:

• rooted in the real interests and struggles of ordinary people;
• overtly political and critical of the status quo;
• committed to progressive social and political change in the interests of a fairer and more egalitarian society;
• its curriculum comes out of the concrete experience and interests of people in communities of resistance and struggle;
• its pedagogy is collective, focused primarily on group learning and development for action.

Popular Education is a cyclical process that starts by drawing out participants' experience, looks for shared patterns of experience and knowledge, moves from experience to analysis; adds new information and ideas, then moves from analysis to encouraging collective action to change oppressive systems, and then reflects and evaluates its own process.

Popular Education is a type of education that:

• takes place within a democratic framework;
• is based on what learners are concerned about;
• poses questions and problems;
• examines unequal power relations in society;
• encourages everyone to learn and everyone to teach;
• involves high levels of participation;
• includes people's emotions, actions, intellects and creativity;
• uses varied activities;
• Everyone teaches and everyone learns in a collective process of creating new knowledge.
  

USFT values Popular Education because we believe that methods of education must be consistent with the goals of education. Authoritarian, top down methods of teaching treat learners as objects, empty vessels who are passively waiting to be filled with knowledge. Paulo Freire calls the top-down approach the "banking" method of education, because teachers make “deposits" of knowledge into their students' minds. By contrast, democratic education treats students as learners who are actively engaged in thinking and contributing. The teacher has knowledge to share, and so does the student. Democratic education is based on dialogue and mutual interaction between members of a learning community, including both teachers and students, and emphasizes collective action for community driven social change.

Popular Education Resources:

Online Resources (Please share yours with us!):

PopEd ToolKit - a great resource of Popular Education content, exercises and theory
Catalyst Centre - a sweet NGO that works on Popular Education
Highlander Center - they work to provide education and support to poor and working people fighting economic injustice, poverty, prejudice, and environmental destruction
Center for Popular Education and Participatory Research

Curriculum for you to use with your Fair Trade Group:

Debt Game

Popular Education 101

Hot Cocoa Game

Pizza Game