The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire has specially been devoted for those who are suppressed and have to continuously fight and suffer within themselves. Freire also includes in this book a through analysis of the Marxist class system while exploring the relation between those who are colonized and the colonizers. The text is completely revolutionary and is even now popular between educators of many countries.
On analyzing the writings of the book, we find that the views expressed by Freire have had a significant inspiration on the people of Brazil although he has not just written the book for the South Americans only. Pedagogy of the Oppressed includes a number of fundamental teachings needed to change our society with respect to education. Here Freire compares and contrasts among the existence of the several uneducated laborers and peasants, especially among the Brazilian people, and argues these uneducated people have to live an ignorant life until and unless they get and alternative option of exploring information and knowledge around them. He further argues that after these people get educated the contributions that can me made by them to their own community is infinite. He believes that the reason an oppressed person accepts oppression is because that is the only kind of living means he or she has been acquainted with.
The best part about the book is when Paulo Freire agues that after these oppresses people become liberated and acquire some knowledge they begin to inquire and question the various aspects of their society. Through his ideology of the oppressor, Freire also argues that since the oppressed have no access to information, they know nothing. Thus, he contradicts the thought that education, which the knowledgeable are imparting to the ignorant ones, is not valuable and has enough reasons to hold on to it. For example it is a commonly accepted fact that when a teacher is teaching, the students are merely required to accept whatever knowledge and concept is being imparted to them without allowing them to question or inquire about a doubt. This, he argues, is not facilitating knowledge rather it is a form of oppression practiced due to improper education.
Paulo Freire through his arguments in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed wants to tell us that education cannot be one-way where the teachers only gorge away things from their books or memory and the students have to listen to them. This makes the educated people non-intellectual since their intelligence is simply instilled into their mindset. This, Freire argues is not actual education. Thus, conventional education tends to be highly mechanical and sometimes even corrupting and does not enlighten the scholars since their thoughts and visions are not taken into account. Freire has the opinion that proper education must be interactive where both the students and teachers take part. Only this can make education proactive since only then will the standards of our living interact with our way of life.
Thus, Freire’s is justified in arguing that the primary objective of education is to teach the masses how to transform themselves as the world changes. His views are acceptable in terms that individuals need to understand the perspective and actual reality of our world so that they can themselves excel. They can only develop their knowledge and intellect when they become inquisitive and ask questions for a reasonable answer. Freire also argues that only through interactive education can people who want to revolutionize the unjust world around them, do the needful.
In the first chapter, Freire says that individuals need to develop themselves from the real events and circumstances of their everyday life. His learning methods requires that the students create their own texts which allow them to analyze and ponder over the world they live in and the words of the texts permit them to be more conscious of reality so that they are able to stand up for their emancipation. A consciousness where people understand the unjust situation around them but do not make any attempts for changing it doest really matter in this world. By acquiring new thoughts an individual’s, view about his social position changes. Thus, Freire proposes to us two distinctive methods having sequential moments where through the first an individual becomes aware of the reality where he or she has to live in oppression under the decisions made by the oppressor and through the second, the oppressed must emancipate and stand up for themselves so that they are not suppressed by the oppressors.
Freire also discusses about the banking concept of education in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed and argues that through this concept the correct information only is deposited in the passive minds of the scholars, which in turn reproduce a dominant social and economic order. This concept also helps the oppressors who do not want the real aspects of the world to be revealed and neither wants it to be transformed. Thus, Freire is justified in having said that the banking concept of education is used as an instrument by the oppressors. Freire says in the second chapter “The banking approach to adult education, for example, will never propose to students that they critically consider reality” (Freire, 74). Freire emphasizes on the fact that an individual cannot educate himself and thus, through their interactions they educate each other. He is justified in saying that the banking concept sees scholars as containers where knowledge is deposited by a teacher. However, this concept tries to alter an individual’s mind so that they are willingly able to adjust themselves to real life situations and as a result, they are easily dominated by them. Thus, Freire argues that education should consciously liberate an individual so that he or she is able to analyze and overcome the duality, which is present between a student and teacher.
Freire also discusses about what he terms as “dialogic” in the third chapter and says that it is “the essence of education as the practice of freedom” (Freire, 8). Freire argues that an individual’s main motive is to properly identify and then transform reality and for doing that the students and teachers need to establish “dialogicity” among them since an individual cannot learn through silence and needs expressions, actions and words to do so. This argument is also justified since dialogues between two individual increases familiarity and kindness between them. In order to integrate someone with the lives of other individuals and to understand their thoughts and practices, one must use dialogues in a familiar language.
Freire also talks about using “problematizing education”, which creates knowledge and he says that through this all the elements of understanding come together. It is true that the oppressor creates a number of unknown limiting situations, which can only be overcome if the oppressed obtain education through the “problematizing education” concept. Freire further emphasizes on the fact that teaching should be a part of the scholar’s reality and not simply just a mechanical act. However, only when an individual can build his or her own thoughts, ideas, and convert them through communication and practice will an individual be liberated and oppression will be overcome.
Freire also talks about “antidialogics” which, unlike dialogics, is an instrument of oppression. He characterizes antidialogics as cultural invasion, manipulation, division and conquest while dialogics is characterized by cultural synthesis, organization, union and collaboration. Freire argues that oppressors can use antidialogics for maintaining their status quo and preventing individuals from connecting through dialogics. The oppressed are additionally weakened by alienation, which further causes internal division. Antidialogical actions can also use ideologies for manipulating people and use them for the advantage of the oppressor.
Thus, through his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire wants people to shape themselves rather than be shaped by others. He is justified in urging us to avoid the various educational pitfalls, which we have been presently encountering by choosing artificial experiences. Finally, Freire describes for us the various methods and ideologies used by oppressors to suppress others and recommend that we take our educational opportunities from our daily experiences. In his own words, “Since oppressors and oppressed are antithetical, what serves the interests of one group disserves the interests of the others.” (Freire, 145)
Works Cited
Freire, P. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum Press: International Publishing Group, London, 2000.