REFLECTION 2- HISTORICAL READING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Man is given the duty and responsibility to transform his world, change it, name it, and recreate it. A trait that is meant for all and not a chosen few, as Paulo Frere puts it in his article, Pedagogy of the oppressed. He recommends that dialogues is the best way to go about this change, however much as that is the ideal situation, the possibility of it in the modern day society remains in question.

World wide, the opinions of the elite, would form centre stage. It is their opinions that matter, and it is no wonder it may be everyone's desire to eventually attain that status of elitism. Whether it is a question of dominating others or to merely have control over their own circumstance it depends on an individual.

Even if the dominant individual did not impose their dominance, in most cases the dominated will still try to emulate the dominant. Many willingly will surrender that power. For example in Kenya, many would refer to themselves as "We the common Mwananchi". This way distancing themselves from the political elite and even being part of creating policies. There is a total disconnect in the groups. Whereby even in some cases a child of a dominant would sometimes cause an equal reaction on the dominated.

One cannot say that colonization always used force, in some cases there was collaboration. Whereby sometimes the dominated surrendered their own rights to become workers through collaborations and partnership. And certainly even after the departure of colonial masters, most African countries, Kenyan's included would continue to emulate almost everything, including the education system that has not worked to solve, the now problems, faced in many African countries. Yet what Africa needs is an education system that focuses on the problems in order to find solutions for them.

However, recently in the news, there was a call to call interested parties who would be interested in helping to revise the curriculum to fit the needs of the Kenyans and Kenyan needs. This will by far have much more impact and social change in the country. Such Dialogues, as Freire put's it, do cause real change. One that lasts

And for universities, perhaps more research needs to be done to revise the curriculum to fit Kenyan concerns. After all, the purpose of education is to actually be able to create a better living environment and conditions for communities and even the whole countries at large.

However, to say that the dominated are completely excluded from conversations that matter to them would not be exclusively true. Voting and Democracy have made this dialogues possible. It is no longer a fraction of few who make decisions, but actually majority wins.

Infarct, during elections, there is use of motivation through media to sensitize the masses on how to participate and encourage them to do so. Which shows that the media now is trying to engage and is being part of the process.

None the less, the media still prioritize politics over development issues, as the popular culture. Observed by Nora C Quebral, it is true that to some extent a lot of content in the media is loosing relevance. The other day, news papers were being said to be best for wrapping meat as they only published roomers. The status held by masses that media was low is slowly fading.

However, all is not lost, the media can now begin to also prioritize it's educative role as well as. And instead of pointing out problems, the media can also begin to research and offer solutions to the underlying issues that affect the country. After all, all the estates are to work together for the common good of the country.




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