Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the student patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the ‘banking’ concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Social Justice Counseling/Therapy

“An active philosophy and approach aimed at producing conditions that allow for equal access and opportunity; reducing or eliminating disparities in education, health care, employment, and other areas that lower the quality of life for affected populations; encouraging mental health professionals to consider micro, meso, and macro levels in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of client and client systems; and broadening the role of the helping professional to include not only counselor/therapist but advocate, consultant, psychoeducator, change agent, community worker, and so on.” — Derald Wing Sue & David Sue

Thesis Submitted

I have just submitted my first full version of my thesis to my thesis advisor. Hopefully he will get to it quickly and there will not be a lot in the way of revisions. I want to get a final version together as early as possible so we can spend the majority of the Summer Term working on journal articles and conference presentation submissions. 

Thesis Update: Data Rolling In!

I am so excited to report that in one week I’ve already surpassed 200 survey responses. I feel like such a research geek, but the support and encouragement I am receiving from folks in various trans* communities is humbling and invigorating. 

My greatest challenge at this point is to have more racially diverse respondents. This research will not be complete without a real sampling of the voices from all trans* and gender nonconforming communities. I continue working on ways to branch out and welcome any suggestions folks might be willing to offer. 

http://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/1069663/WPCTumblr