Overview of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed
This paper reviews Paulo Freire’s ideas expressed in his book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, it presents an argumentative position on the lack of factual reasoning in Freire’s thoughts. The ideology or school of thought that is advanced by Freire is such that education system as it is, is a prison for the student rather than a means to impart knowledge. In this regard Freire contends that the teacher-student relationship is one in which the teacher forces down knowledge to the student. The student on the other hand has no choice but to take in what is taught. He describes this as conditioning in which the student has no choice and also does not contribute to the knowledge that is developed.
According to Freire the teacher subjects the student to some form of slavery in what he terms as the ‘banking relationship’. In this relationship the student is oppressed due to subjections to his or her instructor’s depositions, hence, reducing the student to the status of slavery to his instructor. In his view for any accurate and meaningful learning to take place, there is a need for parties to engage in discussions that can yield understanding between them. Based on this line of thought, instruction from teacher to student is simply a transfer of ideology from the teacher to the student since it does not provide an opportunity for the student to share their thoughts and dispositions. Fundamentally, the passive nature and requirement of students in class is reminiscent of a minority elite who impose oppressive forces on the majority or greater part of society.
Freire offers a solution to the education problem that he explicitly mentions, he proposes that a more apt approach to education would be one in which the teacher-student relationship develops mutual benefits. To this end, Freire is of the idea that in an ideal situation, the teacher should be able to teach the student and enable learning, similarly, in the same spirit, the student should as well be in a position to provide the teacher with knowledge that the teacher can draw lessons from. Hence, Friere notes that a collaborative approach to education can result in both the teacher and student sharing and gaining information that allows for mutual learning. Corrective measures, therefore, requires that a new system to combat the master-slave dichotomy between the teacher and the student, hence, subject the oppressor’s power to subject the student.
Achieving the magnitude of transformation requires effort from all concerned which is impossible in the absence of solidarity. Friere observes that only through a revolution can the system change and ensure that the teacher-student dichotomy changes in support of a system where information can be shared between both teacher and student.
In essence, the propositions by the Freire do not draw from factual reasoning in that they are based on his simplistic reasoning and, hence, cannot be regarded as a means to validate the assumptions that students are slaves to teachers. Essentially, common sense dictates that learning is an instruction provided by qualified to the unqualified. In this regard, the individual who learns is one who is taught by a qualified individual. Hence, the teacher-student relationship is not a slave-master relationship but rather a sort of Samaritan-assisted relationship. In my opinion, the teacher is a Samaritan who aids the student with impeccable knowledge that he or she has gathered over time. Thus, Friere’s ideas fail to relate his ideologies to common reason in that the assumptions have no relation to reality or do not relate to what is real.
Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Aniversary Edition. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. Print.
