Week 4

Paulo Freire was born in September, 1921 in Recife, Brazil. Freire's personal experiences, as he grew up during the great depression, shaped his concerns for poor people and became the foundation of his educational viewpoint. Feire attacked the traditional "banking" concept of education which simply stated means that a student's head was something that a teacher was meant to fill. Like putting money in the bank... Freire also had a strong dislike for the the traditional teacher-student roles of non-overlapping division. His work has had impact around the world, not only in his native country but in North America, Europe and Africa.


Two of the educational issues that Freire had concerns with were the way or manner of traditional teaching and the definitive split of the non-overlapping student-teacher roles. He advocated that a student-teacher relationship is interactive and should be more democratic. Even though student-teacher roles are not and cannot ever be on an equal footing, the teacher must not be so hubristic or arrogant that they cannot relearn or update their knowledge through student interaction.


Paulo Freire's book titled Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the most widely known of his works. It explores the aspects of education system and challenges what he calls the neutrality of the educational model that is dominant in both our third world and American educational systems. He says that our current "modern" education instills a culture of silence and lifelessness. He asserts that this educational system oppresses people by limiting their knowledge to what the educational system says is OK to teach. Friere's work promotes and inspires liberation, dignity, and the ability to change. Furthermore, he also says that education starts with the needs and views of those to be educated. His critics often accuse him of being biased. Of course he is - because education is not neutral force - it is biased towards ether teaching for the benefit of the oppressors (therefore producing assembly line workers and perpetuating capitalism) or for the benefit of the oppressed (liberating, empowering with individual respect of rights, culture and diversity).

In the book the concepts are explained this way:

"Once again, the two educational concepts and practices under analysis come into conflict.

Banking education (for obvious reasons) attempts, by mythicizing reality, to conceal certain facts which explain the way human beings exist in the world; problem-posing education sets itself the task of demythologizing.

Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality.

Banking education treats students as objects of assistance; problem-posing education makes them critical thinkers.

Banking education inhibits creativity and domesticates (although it cannot completely destroy) the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world, thereby denying people their ontological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human.

Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, thereby responding to the vocation of persons as beings only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation.

In sum, banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people's historicity as their starting point."


I had never heard of Paulo Freire prior to this assignment but have always felt that there is something inherently wrong with the way we teach in our country. I respect the fact that most teachers work very hard to teach us - but they too are also stuck and victimized in our antiquated educational system that seems to be more about following rules than it is about learning. Wouldn't it be amazing if we lived in a world where a teacher would have to go through the process of becoming the type of teacher that kids would LOVE to learn from? And there was a methodology that would teach teachers to teach in a way that was exciting and not boring. To teach in a way that made kids have open minds and to love wanting to learn and to be allowed to be interactive with the teacher. Students would want to go to school and would never miss a class. If this were the case, by the time they got out of school they would be so addicted to learning that when they left school they would say "I'm so happy to be out of school now so I can go and learn at twice the speed I was learning at before! I think we all have so much pain associated with the current learning process that by the time we are finished with school we're saying "I done! I'm finally free!. I'm never gonna learn anything again as long as I live because I hate this stuff."

Paulo Freire flipped the traditional teaching system upside down and proposed a methodology that treated students as an interactive part of the process of education and focused on their needs. And then he showed us how to do it.

I feel the important things to remember about Paulo Freire are;

1. That his early life and surrounding influences had a great impact on what his life work was.

2. He rebelled against the way that oppressed people were educated and actually did something to affect change that worked.

3. His life's work made a global impact in the field of critical education and has inspired organizations and other people to carry on his work.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/subject/education/freire/pedagogy/index.htm

Pedology of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. New York: Continuum Books, 1993.



Part 2: One thing I learned from 10 classmates

1. Kim said "Oprah provides a venue to illustrate issues of importance to the public on all subjects."

2. Theresa said "I believe that this comment ( “we are shaped by every culture”.) in the speech relates to Latin America because there are so many different Latin American cultures and traditions and they tend to overlap in many countries and societies, especially in the US, the melting pot of the world.

3. Candace said "We need to learn to appreciate what each person, culture or community has to offer. Seize that opportunity and grow as a people."

4. Robert said "One of the reasons that this speech is so powerful, in my opinion, it that there is a continuous theme of religion throughout the speech, and President Obama quotes from the Holy Koran, the Talmud, and the Holy Bible."

5. Kathy said "So many are influenced by her that she was aware that someone on the dark side of life may have been prompted to commit a dark act against humanity. How she trusted her gut instinct and stood proud with her decision."

6. Logan said "I believe what is happening in Palestine and Israel is also happening ( In some sense) in other parts of the world as well but may not be as apparent."

7. Stacy said " Her personal approach encourages exploration of different perspectives on every issue I can imagine. While the main vehicle is media, she has discussed and presented aspects of every item on the list. "

8. Beatriz said "Many of the things that Obama addresses can also be put into use with current events that are taking place with Latin Countries. We need to find a common ground with all countries, not just Muslim countries."

9. Julsias said " By sharing her life experiences people feel they can relate to her and not feel down when life get hard."

10. Sara said "Every culture has their own form of arts, literature, philisophy, and religion that they hold improtant to them as a culture and personally."