Pedagogy of the Oppressed chapter 2: Reflections and Review

Paolo Freire- Pedagogy of the Oppressed Chapter 2

Now, what does it mean to educate? what does it mean to be an educator? what is the purpose of education and who does the teacher-student relationship define this purpose?

These questions form the focus of Chapter 2. It is clear that in contemporary society, education is supportive or at least completely unthreatening to the existing power structure. The aim is for the teacher to fill their students with information which will help them to succeed in the world of qualifications, work and life. The students are passive in this situation, confined to the role of ‘listening’, which is seen a silent, limiting process. This is what is known as the ‘banking concept’ of education, in which information is absorbed without much critical reflection at all. The teacher sets the question, the scope of the ciriculum and learning is about memorising.

This uninspiring vision goes far beyond the formal education process. Freire even extends it to concepts like political campaigning and some forms of revolutionary organising, which fit the same mould. Simply put, a small group prescribing slogans and putting across propaganda, which is intended to be digested or ‘deposited’ but not critically examined is not truly revolutionary. In this way, even leftists can fall into a habit of dehumanising and oppressive communication.

The aim of education to Friere is to increase human freedom and to orientate people toward their development and in that, the development in society. This means having a form of education which helps people to become problem-solvers, and to be able consider the problems that they face in a realistic, recognisable context. This involves people becoming aware of the problem of being oppressed, living submerged in a world which is oppressive, but also that this oppression is the result of human thought and action and can be changed.

In pages 58-59, Friere gives his most powerful criticism of human development, through education within contemporary society;

‘This movement of inquiry must be directed towards humanisation- the people’s historical vocation. The pursuit of full humanity, however, cannot be carried out in isolation or individualism, but only in fellowship and solidarity; therefore it cannot unfold in the antagonistic relations between oppressors and the oppressed. No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so. Attempting to be more human, individualistically, leads to having more, egotistically, a form of dehumanisation. Not that it is not fundamental to have to have in order to be human. Precisely because it is necessary, some men’s having must not be allowed to constitute an obstacle to others’ having, must not consolidate the power of the former to crush the later.’

This is where Friere’s perspective starts to diverge most dramatically with conventional ‘human capital’ perspectives on education. Within contemporary western societies, high quality, and higher education is an elite resource centre which serve to reinforce the class divide, to ensure that some people will be trained (or disciplined) to be business managers and supervisors and to exercise control over the proletariat in their workforces and private rental flats. Education is the rigged sorting hat for the future social class hierarchy, ensuring that the existing social order will be preserved, that young privileged individuals will gain entry into an oppressor class. Education being individualistic within contemporary society has a conservative bias, as success in education establishments has a lot to do with the course content within schools reflecting the culture of upper middle classes (what Pierre Bourdieu would call ‘ cultural capital’) and assets which can be mobilised to ensure that ‘banking/learning’ occurs, such as private tutors.

However, the individualistic idea of 'educational attainment' then serves to justify the status quo as a meritocracy and enhances and erodes the self-esteem of the opposing classes in equal measures. This is even more true of economic schools in which one highly flawed perspective, neo-classical economics dominates and of the right-wing, reactionary view of science, that states that gender and race, even the class divide are biological realities. Freire posses no sharp divide between knowledge and experience, between the context of individuals lives and the process of learning. This every day, lived world can even form a useful scaffold for the processes of personal development, a true humanistic education.

This chapter was a painful one for me to read. I seen many of my flaws as a Sociology teaching assistant. The sloganeering, propaganda notion of education definitely hit close to home with how I taught leftist theory and history. The true radical does not speak louder and repeat their point until the students absorb a bit of Marxist theory or Gramscian Hegemony in their entirety. Now, it is totally understandable to evangelise about Marx and intersectionality to a sociology class, it is one of the few spaces where radical knowledge can traded for social and economic currency. But, it is much more important to use these ideas as a springboard for conversation and acknowledge that you might have something to learn from the students too. Education is not about competition or absorbing unfamiliar ideas in alien contexts, but being able to reflect critically and see if these ideas can contribute to changing reality, the ‘historical vocation of ontological development’ and to know that this can change the world. It is important to build people up, as everyone is an expert in their own cultural context and has something important and powerful to say.