Popular Education as Community Organizing in El Salvador

Abstract

Popular education played a major role in the 12-year war waged by the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front-FMLN) in El Salvador. One of the most sustained experiences of popular education anywhere occurred in FMLNcontrolled zones. Most combatants and civilians were peasants, and few had had much opportunity for schooling in the communities where they grew up. Using the methods of popular education, the insurgent movement strove to fill the gap and provide them the education they had never had. Educacion popular means education of, by, and for the people-organized by people in their own community, outside of the control of the official education system. Communities organized popular education in FMLNcontrolled and contested zones and also in cities and relatively peaceful rural areas. Popular schools lacked the most basic supplies-books, notebooks, and pencils, not to speak of buildings and desks. The teachers themselves were poorly educated-many had only a year or two of formal schoolingand had to improvise as they went along. The war constantly interrupted their work, not only when combat fell nearby but when organizing and defense demanded priority over holding classes. But the setting of education in poor communities and in a war zone also created an opportunity. The will to teach and learn grew out of the commitment to struggle together for economic justice and dignity. Popular education was always a political and organizational process as much as an educational process. It created a focus for organizing, provided trained personnel to carry out political tasks, and put into practice