Liberatory classrooms

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn (Alvin Toffler) In Europe universities have stood for continuity and conservation; in Africa universities are powerful instruments for social change (Eric Ashby) Learning is a lifelong process.In other words, the whole of life is a learning process.Firstly, learning requires an awareness that it is a lifelong process and, secondly, every human being should be open to learning.And when we are open to learning, then we are also open to unlearn and relearn.The discipline-based format of higher education, however, predominantly educates students for a career, a living, and not for life.Compartmentalised academic disciplines and inflexible institutional cultures preclude unlearning and relearning.The potential for individual, collective and organisational 'learning, unlearning and relearning' is lost within this polarising framework of higher education.In Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks (1994) argues that the classroom is the most radical space of possibility within the academy.Teaching, she asserts, is a performative act.Classrooms, therefore, are capable of change: they can become sites of democracy and reciprocity, where both students and teachers contribute to one another's learning.In her reflections on the possibility of the classroom, hooks draws inspiration from Paulo Freire's (1972) critique of traditional classroom structures underpinned by the banking model of education, whereby teachers deposit information into the minds of students who are seen as empty vessels.This model, Freire argues, fails to develop critical consciousness: the growing awareness of and commitment to challenging oppressive structures around us (Freire, 1972, p. 73).Freire's problem-posing education, an alternative to the banking model, is based on the recognition that people are not empty vessels, but conscious beings actively engaged with the world.In this model, teachers and students become critical co-investigators, exploring the issues of modern society through dialogue (Freire, 1972, p. 81).Problem-posing education also opens the possibility for transforming higher education itself, equipping students with the knowledge necessary to expand or challenge academic disciplines and institutional