PEDAGOGY of the OPPRESSED: Freire

Pedagogy of the oppressed, 1970

Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a literature excerpt that elaborates on the innate nature and characters of both the colonizer and the colonized and the dynamic relationship between the two. The book reinforces the perception that the oppressor has no authority over the oppressed unless granted permission and power (Freire 44). The author, Paulo Freire has an academic background as a Brazilian educator and philosopher and this book is considered one of his globally acclaimed texts of the 20th century.

Reading Response: Pashew M. Nuri "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world" (Freire, 2000, p.34).

(Not an Abstract) This is one of my early writings on Paulo Freire. It was a requirement for class, as well. I remember I was only starting to write on philosophy here! I would've written some more if it were not for the page limit.

The traditional teacher-student contradiction where instructors communicate from a position of superiority and maintain complete control of knowledge with legitimate and/or coercive power in the classroom tends to disempower students’ motivation to learn. Hierarchical teaching and learning must be resolved with a prosocial progressive shift to a reverent classroom before peer-to-peer interaction and cognitive learning can take place (Freire, 2007). Peer learning in an empowered context is critical pedagogy in which a “problem-posing educator constantly reforms his reflections in the reflections of the students” (Freire, 2007, pp. 80-1), so the teacher creates a learning system with neither true knowledge nor true culture by presenting the material/medium to the students for their consideration in action and reflection. Freire (2007) refers to this description as a practice of “co-intentional education” (p. 69), where both teachers and students evolve into subjects who unveil reality together to critically create new knowledge. Thus, questions of who holds the key to construct knowledge (i.e., epistemological power) fade into oblivion.