An education based on cooperation among community members will always be more beneficial to it than an education based on competition between people. This is the commitment of ABACOenRed, a virtual educational platform that emerged in Nicaragua that tries to extend this way of understanding learning throughout Latin America by organizing different courses and seminars through the internet.
One of these courses will begin on June 15: the second edition of its International Course in Popular Education, for which registration is open until day 10. Of all that ABACOenRed can teach us in these courses, as well as the fundamentals and general principles of the platform, see the following interview, to which three people have responded: Herman Van de Velde, ABACOenRed coordinator, Maribel Ochoa, course facilitator and Carla Caballero, technical-administrative team coordinator.
Positive News: When, where and why did ABACOenRed arise?
ABACOenRed: ABACOenRed is an initiative that arises as a result of 28 years of shared educational experiences and joint construction, from Nicaragua first (years 80-90) and later also at the Central American level.
Educational experiences from the Sandinista Popular Revolution, such as the National Literacy Crusade, as well as our active participation in Curriculum Transformation processes in, for example, the Normal Schools and the Adult Education area, were constituted as The basics for this whole process.
Subsequently we had (among several people now involved in ABACOenRed) the experience of being able to accompany pedagogically-methodologically between 10 to 15 socio-educational projects in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. As part of this experience it was possible to build, together, an integral learning opportunity in the field of Community Development management, always with a projection at the Central American level. From this dialogue between a Central American educational practice and theoretical critical reflection, a methodological and pedagogical proposal was created and built, which is still being built, now with contributions from all over Latin America.
After so many years of experience, we feel the need and desire to share and deepen throughout Latin America, so we created ABACOenRed. From this virtual space, from Latin America, in Latin America and to Latin America, with a 'Cooperative Learning Without Borders' approach, we continue to build another Possible Latin America together, contributing through a comprehensive and innovative pedagogical-methodological approach.
N +: What kind of professionals are part of ABACOenRed?
ABACOenRed: Educators of trajectory all and all. With a career because we have worked as educators with children, with young people, with women, both in the city and in the rural area, in formal institutional spaces, as well as in more spontaneous and free spaces, in state institutions and non-governmental organizations.
We have a highly committed staff, not only with their professional work, but also with their citizen duty, in the construction of citizenship and a society characterized by equity and social justice.
We are characterized by worrying about our permanent theoretical-practical training, which has allowed to systematize very diverse educational experiences and at all educational levels (preschool, primary, secondary, higher education) and also go beyond our academic levels, such that in this At the moment we have, among the ABACOenRed staff, with a doctorate in pedagogical sciences, master's degree and specialty in community development management, master's degree in psychology - personalized attention and community development, diplomas in facilitation of learning from virtual environments, diplomas in facilitation and timely accompaniment of learning processes, expertise and specialty in scientific research methodologies (educational), etc.
N +: ABACOenRed is also the acronym for Learning Based on Cooperative Attitudes. They defend an education focused on cooperation, rather than competition. Why do you bet on that route?
ABACOenRed: We are definitely convinced that 'competition' is a measure imposed by a system of society in which 'brute force' rules, such as 'wild capitalism', it is not a value inherent in the human being. The human essence does not imply a tendency to competition but rather a tendency to co-operation, to work together, to sign up to build social works, works of social interest, works of interest to the community, as well as to people that constitute the community. Personal interest and community interest are not antagonistic but inherent in each other.
Contrary to the case of competition, cooperation, in essence, in addition to being an educational act, is also characteristic of the human being. Hence, we believe that our learning processes should be oriented both methodologically and in terms of content by the 5 pillars of all genuine cooperation:
The art of listening (opening)
The ability to interpret (read)
The will to share (tenderness)
The willingness to compromise (posture)
The vision of integration (contexture)
Five fundamentals, intertwined by an atmosphere of trust and sincere exercise of (self) criticism.
N +: What role do you give from ABACOenRed to the Internet and to new information technologies in the dissemination of your methods?
ABACOenRed: Since we work from a virtual space, the Internet is a fundamental tool for our educational work. Not only to spread, but also to:
Establish communication with people, institutions, organizations, entities interested in undertaking 'something' together ... or simply 'getting to know each other'.
Know other experiences, other points of view.
Actively exchange ideas, opinions, points of view, also materials, learning resources, ...
Cooperate with other initiatives, with which we share political-pedagogical and methodological interests.
Project significant own contributions, in the area of education, from Latin America to Latin America and the world.
Create and offer (and here of course also the disclosure is super important, also in the other components, but perhaps even more here) learning opportunities (training), both at the postgraduate level (in conjunction with universities), and at the level of courses and independent free diplomas.
Create and extend a network and reflection groups on
At the moment we use: Website (www.abacoenred.com), virtual educational platform, Facebook staff and institutional page groups, Twitter, LinkedIn, two reflection groups, newsletter n, email, etc.
N +: Now you are going to start a virtual popular education course. How do you understand this concept of popular education?
ABACOenRed: Popular Education is a commitment to life. It constitutes a pedagogical, social, cultural political process, in permanent construction. It is characterized by its collective and participatory sense, integral and genuine, creative and transformative. It is based on a cooperative attitude where everyone contributes from their realities and diverse spaces in which they have and continue to experience. Its essential search is linked to social transformation, social change, the establishment of fair and equitable relations between women, men and (their) environment. Recover the ability to surprise us, to question practices, to transform ideas to live better, find meaning in experiences, projecting it in the construction of a new society.
N +: What differences exist between this concept of your popular education and conventional education, which you identify with unique thinking?
ABACOenRed: The essential differences are located in the methodological and at the same time in the propositive . In PD, the methodological characteristics are defined from the popular : transforming character and collective sense, based on the experiences, the environment, the deep needs arising from the yearnings and fears of each person / community and corresponding to those needs / aspirations expressed and felt; making use of critical reflection, the exchange of experiences, enabling the exercise of creativity as an engine for learning, promoting organized participation, debate and dialogue, negotiation And the commitments, where each opinion, each voice, is important. The permanent confrontation with the reality and practice of each participant. The PD is interactive, dialogical, democratic, intercultural, respectful of all people, promoter of the right to be of each person.
N +: What things will students learn in this popular education course that they can apply later in their teaching activity, or in other fields?
ABACOenRed: Appropriating the foundations of Popular Education as an attitude and political-pedagogical and ethical commitment, placing our educational work within a methodological system of reference for a pedagogy alternatively, taking into account the imposed context of globalization.
1- Interact between participants and socialize relevant personal characteristics.
2- Identify the necessary tools for learning processes (including the evaluation system).
3- Share experiences and conceptions about Popular Education from our contexts (starting from our own)
4- Exchange experiences regarding Popular Education from the global context. (expand with the global)
5- Visualize Popular Education perspectives, from my work location (value the global from the own)
6- Share, reconstruct the historical perspective of Popular Education
7- Deepen the argumentation of popular education as a methodological necessity.
8- Introduce us to the Popular Education Techniques (The pedagogical value of the game and art)
N +: How many courses of this type or another have you already taken, and how many people have participated?
ABACOenRed: Between March 2011 and May 2012, ABACOenRed has accompanied four editions of the Virtual Diploma in Learning Process Facilitation; a Virtual course in Popular Education (a second is about to start next June 15), a course on organization and management of information sources; a course on the formulation of social micro-projects and a course for learning facilitators in virtual environments, in which a total of 172 people from 22 countries participated.
N +: What balance do you make of what has been achieved through your activity as ABACOenRed at this time?
ABACOenRed: Based on the results constructed, together with each of the participants, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, the balance is positive and progressive, since in a very short time we have managed to project ourselves in most of the countries in the field Latin American. The themes of the courses have been diversified, always with the link to endogenous development and community development; The popular and alternative education approach has been projected using the information technologies available to facilitate learning opportunities in virtual environments.
Among the challenges that are placed before us are continuing to study, improve and incorporate learning in technical and technological aspects depending on the educational platform.
Another challenge is to make our learning opportunities even more accessible by managing external financing funds, so that we can offer scholarships to interested people. For this it will be important to establish agreements with institutions that are interested in this type of socio-educational projects with the focus of a 'pedagogy of BEING'. Continuing to establish formal cooperation, collaboration agreements will be a necessity and a permanent opportunity that should strengthen us based on the fulfillment of our mission as ABACOenRed.
Similarly, there is a permanent commitment to combine theory and practice in terms of building learning opportunities based on cooperative attitudes by developing collective and participatory processes, exercising both at the institutional level and of each of the people who collaborate in ABACOenRed the pillars that make up our essence of ABACOenRed; that is, to continue developing our art of listening (openness), our ability to interpret (reading), our willingness to share (tenderness), our willingness to compromise (posture) with a vision of integration (contexture).
CONTACT INFORMATION:
http://www.abacoenred.com
Image: ABACOenRed logo.
