Toward a liberatory pedagogy: A reflexive journey of relational care and critical consciousness

Abstract

Too often, education is treated as a one-way transfer of information, where an expert shares knowledge for students to absorb and reproduce. These traditional banking models tend to ignore how systems of power and oppression shape people’s ways of knowing, doing, being, and healing. In response to these limitations, I explore in this paper a different kind of educational praxis grounded in critical pedagogy and the problem-posing model (Freire, 2000), liberation psychology (Martín-Baró, 1996), decoloniality (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Quijano, 2000), relationality (Wilson, 2008), lived experience, and community building.

I begin the article by reflecting on my early experiences with rigid educational systems, the impacts of displacement and migration, and the online counterspaces that provided me with opportunities for critical discussions and connection. These early experiences laid the foundation for my ongoing journey of unlearning, healing, teaching, research, organizing, and adopting liberatory, relational, and community-oriented praxis. Praxis is foundational to any form of knowledge creation and inquiry because it is a process that weaves together cyclical critical reflection and transformative action.

Building on that reflection, I explore pedagogical methods and relational practices based on a course I have been developing: Transformative Praxis and the Pluriversal Way of Knowing, Being, and Doing.  I designed the course with both university and community settings in mind, where participants can co-create knowledge and cultivate critical consciousness by reflecting on systems of power, critical theories, and their lived experiences. The course also invites us to practice relational care and accountability, and to imagine new ways of knowing, being, and doing.

This paper is not a syllabus or a formal curriculum evaluation. It is based on my reflections of a pedagogical framework that is still unfolding and that is shaped by ongoing conversations, community organizing, facilitation, and my research on creating collectives of care, healing, resistance, and community building. I share my insights in the spirit of dialogue and shared learning, as one contribution among many to the broader attempts of reimagining education as a praxis of liberation. My hope is that others engaged in similar work will find something here to connect with, adapt, or build upon, as we continue to ask: What does it mean to learn and teach in ways that are relational, liberatory, and grounded in community building?