Fighting to Learn: Popular Education and Guerilla War in El Salvador
by John L. Hammond
Category: Social Science

Popular education played a vital role in the twelve-year guerrilla war against the Salvadoran government. Fighting to Learn is a study of its pedagogy and politics. Hammond interviewed more than 100 Salvadoran students and teachers. He recounts their experiences in their own words, vividly conveying how they coped with the hardships of war and organized civilian communities politically to support a guerrilla insurgency. Fighting to Learn tells how poorly educated peasants overcame their sense of inferiority to discover that they could teach each other and work together in a common struggle. It offers both a detailed account of the practice of popular education and a broad theoretical discussion of the relationship between education, community organizing, and the political process.