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This Book Will Present Some Aspects Of What The Writer Has Termed The Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, A Pedagogy Which Must Be Forged With, Not For, The Oppressed (whether Individuals Or Peoples) In The Incessant Struggle To Regain Their Humanity.

-Paulo Freire

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This Book Will Present

Paulo Freire

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This Book Will Present Some Aspects Of What The Writer Has Termed The Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, A Pedagogy Which Must Be Forged With, Not For, The Oppressed (whether Individuals Or Peoples) In The Incessant Struggle To Regain Their Humanity.

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Washing One's Hands Of The Conflict Between The Powerful And The Powerless Means To Side With The Powerful, Not To Be Neutral.

... There Is No Valid Teaching From Which There Does Not Emerge Something Learned And Through Which The Learner Does Not Become Capable Of Recreating And Remaking What Has Been Taught.

For Cultural Invasion To Succeed, It Is Essential That Those Invaded Become Convinced Of Their Intrinsic Inferiority.

This Is The Road I Have Tried To Follow As A Teacher: Living My Convictions; Being Open To The Process Of Knowing And Being Sensitive To The Experience Of Teaching As An Art; Being Pushed Forward By The Challenges That Prevent Me From Bureaucratizing My Practice; Accepting My Limitations, Yet Always Conscious Of The Necessary Effort To Overcome Them And Aware That I Cannot Hide Them Because To Do So Would Be A Failure To Respect Both My Students And Myself As A Teacher.

If I Am A Pure Product Of Genetic, Cultural, Or Class Determination, I Have No Responsibility For My Action In The World And, Therefore, It Is Not Possible For Me To Speak Of Ethics. Of Course, This Assumption Of Responsibility Does Not Mean That We Are Not Conditioned Genetically, Culturally, And Socially. It Means That We Know Ourselves To Be Conditioned But Not Determined.

Being Tolerant Does Not Mean Acquiescing To The Intolerable; It Does Not Mean Covering Up Disrespect; It Does Not Mean Coddling The Aggressor Or Disguising Aggression. Tolerance Is The Virtue That Teaches Us To Live With The Different. It Teaches Us To Learn From And Respect The Different.

This Pedagogy Makes Oppression And Its Causes Objects Of Reflection By The Oppressed, And From That Reflection Will Come Their Necessary Engagement In The Struggle For Their Liberation. And In The Struggle This Pedagogy Will Be Made And Remade

[t]he More Radical The Person Is, The More Fully He Or She Enters Into Reality So That, Knowing It Better, He Or She Can Transform It. This Individual Is Not Afraid To Confront, To Listen, To See The World Unveiled. This Person Is Not Afraid To Meet The People Or To Enter Into A Dialogue With Them. This Person Does Not Consider Himself Or Herself The Proprietor Of History Or Of All People, Or The Liberator Of The Oppressed; But He Or She Does Commit Himself Or Herself, Within History, To Fight At Their Side.

Certain Members Of The Oppressor Class Join The Oppressed In Their Struggle For Liberation.

It's Really Not Possible For Someone To Imagine Himself/herself As A Subject In The Process Of Becoming Without Having At The Same Time A Disposition For Change. And Change Of Which She/he Is Not Merely The Victim But The Subject.

The Parent-child Relationship In The Home Usually Reflects The Objective Cultural Conditions Of The Surrounding Social Structure. If The Conditions Which Penetrate The Home Are Authoritarian, Rigid, And Dominating, The Home Will Increase The Climate Of Oppression. As These Authoritarian Relations Between Parents And Children Intensify, Children In Their Infancy Increasingly Internalize The Paternal Authority.

Any Situation In Which Some Men Prevent Others From Engaging In The Process Of Inquiry Is One Of Violence;… To Alienate Humans From Their Own Decision Making Is To Change Them Into Objects.

It Is Impossible To Talk Of Respect For Students For The Dignity That Is In The Process Of Coming To Be, For The Identities That Are In The Process Of Construction, Without Taking Into Consideration The Conditions In Which They Are Living And The Importance Of The Knowledge Derived From Life Experience, Which They Bring With Them To School. I Can In No Way Underestimate Such Knowledge. Or What Is Worse, Ridicule It.

Dialogue Cannot Exist Without Humility.

Education Must Begin With The Solution Of The Teacher-student Contradiction, By Reconciling The Poles Of The Contradiction So That Both Are Simultaneously Teachers And Students.

Sometimes A Simple, Almost Insignificant Gesture On The Part Of A Teacher Can Have A Profound Formative Effect On The Life Of A Student.

No One Can Learn Tolerance In A Climate Of Irresponsibility, Which Does Not Produce Democracy. The Act Of Tolerating Requires A Climate In Which Limits May Be Established, In Which There Are Principles To Be Respected. That Is Why Tolerance Is Not Coexistence With The Intolerable. Under An Authoritarian Regime, In Which Authority Is Abused, Or A Permissive One, In Which Freedom Is Not Limited, One Can Hardly Learn Tolerance. Tolerance Requires Respect, Discipline, And Ethics.

I Cannot Be A Teacher Without Exposing Who I Am.

Submission To Suffering Is A Form Of Annihilation, But Transformation Of Suffering Rekindles A Faith That Gives Life.

Experience Teaches Us Not To Assume That The Obvious Is Clearly Understood

It Doesnt Hurt To Repeat Here The Statement, Still Rejected By Many People In Spite Of Its Obviousness, That Education Is A Political Act.

Knowledge Emerges Only Through Invention And Re-invention, Through The Restless, Impatient, Continuing, Hopeful Inquiry Human Beings Pursue In The World, With The World, And With Each Other.

Education As The Practice Of Freedom--as Opposed To Education As The Practice Of Domination--denies That Man Is Abstract, Isolated, Independent And Unattached To The World; It Also Denies That The World Exists As Reality Apart From People. Authentic Reflection Considers Neither Abstract Man Nor The World Without People, But People In Their Relations With The World. In These Relations Consciousness And World Are Simultaneous: Consciousness Neither Precedes The World Nor Follows It.

Education As The Exercise Of Domination Stimulates The Credulity Of Students, With The Ideological Intent (often Not Perceived By Educators) Of Indoctrinating Them To Adapt To The World Of Oppression.

It Would Be A Contradiction In Terms If The Oppressors Not Only Defended But Actually Implemented A Liberating Education.

It Is Necessary That The Weakness Of The Powerless Is Transformed Into A Force Capable Of Announcing Justice. For This To Happen, A Total Denouncement Of Fatalism Is Necessary. We Are Transformative Beings And Not Beings For Accommodation.

If The Structure Does Not Permit Dialogue The Structure Must Be Changed

Organization Is Not Only Directly Linked To Unity, But A Natural Development Of That Unity. Accordingly, The Leaders' Pursuit Of That Unity Is Also An Attempt To Organize The People, Requiring Witness To The Fact That The Struggle For Liberation Is A Common Task." "leaders Who Do Not Act Dialogically, But Insist On Imposing Their Decisions, Do Not Organize The People--they Manipulate Them. They Do Not Liberate, Nor Are They Liberated: They Oppress.

The Trust Of The People In The Leaders Reflects The Confidence Of The Leaders In The People.

True Generosity Consists Precisely In Fighting To Destroy The Causes Which Nourish False Charity.

Trembling Hands

No One Is Born Fully-formed: It Is Through Self-experience In The World That We Become What We Are.

The Oppressed Find In The Oppressors Their Model Of 'manhood.'

It Is Only The Oppressed Who, By Freeing Themselves, Can Free Their Oppressors.

Whoever Teaches Learns In The Act Of Teaching, And Whoever Learns Teaches In The Act Of Learning.

It Is Not Suprising That The Banking Concept Of Education Regards Men As Adaptable, Manageable Beings.

Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

One Of The Methods Of Manipulation Is To Inoculate Individuals With The Bourgeois Appetite For Personal Success.

Freedom Is Acquired By Conquest, Not By Gift. It Must Be Pursued Constantly And Responsibly. Freedom Is Not An Ideal Located Outside Of Man; Nor Is It An Idea Which Becomes Myth. It Is Rather The Indispensable Condition For The Quest For Human Completion.

It Is Essential For The Oppressed To Realize That When They Accept The Struggle For Humanization They Also Accept, From That Moment, Their Total Responsibility For The Struggle.

Individuals Who Were Submerged In Reality, Merely Feeling Their Needs, Emerge From Reality And Perceive The Causes Of Their Needs.

Indeed, Some "revolutionaries" Brand As "innocents," "dreamers," Or Even "reactionaries"; Those Who Would Challenge This Educational Practice. But One Does Not Liberate People By Alienating Them. Authentic Liberation - The Process Of Humanization - Is Not Another Deposit To Be Made In Men.

It Is Not Systematic Education Which Somehow Molds Society, But, On The Contrary, Society Which, According To Its Particular Structure, Shapes Education In Relation To The Ends And Interests Of Those Who Control The Power In That Society.

Revolution Is Born As A Social Entity Within The Oppressor Society.

The Teacher Is Of Course An Artist, But Being An Artist Does Not Mean That He Or She Can Make The Profile, Can Shape The Students. What The Educator Does In Teaching Is To Make It Possible For The Students To Become Themselves.

There Is No True Word That Is Not At The Same Time A Praxis. Thus, To Speak A True Word Is To Transform The World.

The Object Of A Dialogical-liberterian Action Is Not To 'dislodge' The Oppressed From A Mythological Reality In Order To 'bind' Them To Another Reality. On The Contrary, The Object Of Dialogical Action Is To Make It Possible For The Oppressed, By Perceiving Their Adhesion, To Opt To Transform An Unjust Reality." "in Order For The Oppressed To Unite They Must First Cut The Umbilical Cord Of Magic And Myth Which Binds Them To The World Of Oppression; The Unity Which Links Them To Each Other Must Be Of A Different Nature.

Finally, It Is Important To Make It Clear That Imagination Is Not An Exercise For Those Detached From Reality, Those Who Live In The Air. On The Contrary, When We Imagine Something, We Do It Necessarily Conditioned By A Lack In Our Concrete Reality. When Children Imagine Free And Happy Schools, It Is Because Their Real Schools Deny Them Freedom And Happiness.

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.

In Problem-posing Education, People Develop Their Power To Perceive Critically The Way They Exist In The World With Which And In Which They Find Themselves; They Come To See The World Not As A Static Reality, But As A Reality In Process, In Transformation.

The Oppressed, Having Internalized The Image Of The Oppressor And Adopted His Guidelines, Are Fearful Of Freedom.

Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

Educators Need To Know What Happens In The World Of The Children With Whom They Work. They Need To Know The Universe Of Their Dreams, The Language With Which They Skillfully Defend Themselves From The Aggressiveness Of Their World, What They Know Independently Of The School, And How They Know It.

The Behavior And Reactions Of The Oppressed, Which Lead The Oppressor To Practice Cultural Invasion, Should Evoke From The Revolutionary A Different Theory Of Action. What Distinguishes Revolutionary Leaders From The Dominant Elite Is Not Only Their Objectives, But Their Procedures.

Revolutionary Leaders

When We Live Our Lives With The Authenticity Demanded By The Practice Of Teaching That Is Also Learning And Learning That Is Also Teaching, We Are Participating In A Total Experience.... In This Experience The Beautiful, The Decent, And The Serious Form A Circle With Hands Joined.

For People, 'here' Signifies Not Merely A Physical Space, But Also An Historical Space.

In Order For The Oppressed To Unite They Must First Cut The Umbilical Cord Of Magic And Myth Which Binds Them To The World Of Oppression; The Unity Which Links Them To Each Other Must Be Of A Different Nature.

The Former Oppressors Do Not Feel Liberated. On The Contrary, They Genuinely Consider Themselves To Be Oppressed.

In Order For The Oppressed To Be Able To Wage The Struggle For Their Liberation, They Must Perceive The Reality Of Oppression Not As A Closed World From Which There Is No Exit , But As A Limiting Situation Which They Can Transform.

Love Is An Act Of Courage.

The Oppressors Do Not Perceive Their Monopoly On Having More As A Privilege Which Dehumanizes Others And Themselves. They Cannot See That, In The Egoistic Pursuit Of Having As A Possessing Class, They Suffocate In Their Own Possessions And No Longer Are; They Merely Have.

The Multitude Is Always In The Wrong.

Education Is Suffering From Narration Sickness.

Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

This Is The Sense In Which I Am Obliged To Be A Listener. To Listen To The Student's Doubts, Fears, And Incompetencies That Are Part Of The Learning Process. It Is In Listening To The Student That I Learn To Speak With Him Or Her.

This Book Will Present Some Aspects Of What The Writer Has Termed The Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, A Pedagogy Which Must Be Forged With, Not For, The Oppressed (whether Individuals Or Peoples) In The Incessant Struggle To Regain Their Humanity.

Although The Teachers Or The Students Are Not The Same, The Person In Charge Of Education Is Being Formed Or Re-formed As He/she Teaches, And The Person Who Is Being Taught Forms Him/herself In The Process. ...there Is, In Fact, No Teaching Without Learning.

... Studying Is A Preparation For Knowing; It Is A Patient And Impatient Exercise On The Part Of Someone Whose Intent Is Not To Know It All At Once But To Struggle To Meet The Timing Of Knowledge.

If It Is In Speaking Their Word That People, By Naming The World, Transform It, Dialogue Imposes Itself As The Way By Which They Achieve Significance As Human Beings.

Teacher Preparation Should Go Beyond The Technical Preparation Of Teachers And Be Rooted In The Ethical Formation Both Of Selves And Of History.

I Am Dealing With People And Not With Things. And, Because I Am Dealing With People, I Cannot Refuse My Wholehearted And Loving Attention, Even In Personal Matters, Where I See That A Student Is In Need Of Such Attention.

Because Love Is An Act Of Courage, Not Of Fear, Love Is A Commitment To Others. No Matter Where The Oppressed Are Found, The Act Of Love Is Commitment To Their Cause--the Cause Of Liberation.

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.

The Hope Of Remaking The World Is Indispensable In The Struggle Of Oppressed Men And Women.

To Simply Think About The People, As The Dominators Do, Without Any Self-giving In That Thought, To Fail To Think With The People, Is A Sure Way To Cease Being Revolutionary Leaders.

Revolutionary Leaders

The Oppressed Want At Any Cost To Resemble The Oppressors." "they Call Themselves Ignorant And Say The 'professor' Is The One Who Has Knowledge And To Whom They Should Listen." "almost Never Do They Realize That They, Too, 'know Things' They Have Learned In Their Relations With The World.

With The Establishment Of A Relationship Of Oppression, Violence Has Already Begun. Never In History Has Violence Been Initiated By The Oppressed. How Could They Be The Initiators, If They Themselves Are The Result Of Violence? How Could They Be The Sponsors Of Something Objective Whose Objective Inauguration Called Forth Their Existence As Oppressed? There Would Be No Oppressed Had There Been No Prior Of Violence To Establish Their Subjugation.

Learning Is A Process Where Knowledge Is Presented To Us, Then Shaped Through Understanding, Discussion And Reflection.

Teachers And Students (leadership And People), Co-intent On Reality, Are Both Subjects, Not Only In The Task Of Unveiling That Reality, And Thereby Coming To Know It Critically, But In The Task Of Re-creating That Knowledge. As They Attain This Knowledge Of Reality Through Common Reflection And Action, They Discover Themselves As Its Permanent Re-creators.

It Is Absolutely Essential That The Oppressed Participate In The Revolutionary Process With An Increasingly Critical Awareness Of Their Role As Subjects Of The Transformation.

Reading Is Not Walking On The Words; It's Grasping The Soul Of Them.

Without A Minimum Of Hope, We Cannot So Much As Start The Struggle.

The World Is Split Between Those Who Do Not Sleep Because They Are Hungry And Those Who Do Not Sleep Because They Are Afraid Of Those Who Are Hungry.

Without A Sense Of Identity, There Can Be No Real Struggle.

Coherently Democratic Authority Carries The Conviction That True Discipline Does Not Exist In The Muteness Of Those Who Have Been Silenced But In The Stirrings Of Those Who Have Been Challenged, In The Doubt Of Those Who Have Been Prodded, And In The Hopes Of Those Who Have Been Awakened.

The Teacher Is No Longer Merely The-one-who-teaches, But One Who Is Him/herself Taught In Dialogue With The Students, Who In Turn While Being Taught Also Teach. They Become Jointly Responsible For A Process In Which All Grow.

Transformation Is Only Valid If It Is Carried Out With The People, Not For Them. Liberation Is Like A Childbirth, And A Painful One. The Person Who Emerges Is A New Person: No Longer Either Oppressor Or Oppressed, But A Person In The Process Of Achieving Freedom. It Is Only The Oppressed Who, By Freeing Themselves, Can Free Their Oppressors.

One Cannot Conceive Of Objectivity Without Subjectivity.

Liberation Is A Praxis: The Action And Reflection Of Men And Women Upon Their World In Order To Transform It.

No Matter How Much Someone May Irritate Me, I Have No Right To Puff Myself Up With My Own Self-importance So As To Declare That Person To Be Absolutely Incompetent, Assuming A Posture Of Disdain From My Own Position Of False Superiority.

Attempting To Liberate The Oppressed Without Their Reflective Participation In The Act Of Liberation Is To Treat Them As Objects That Must Be Saved From A Burning Building.

The Oppressors Develop A Series Of Methods Precluding Any Presentation Of The World As A Problem And Showing It Rather As A Fixed Entity, As Something Given--something To Which People, As Mere Spectators, Must Adapt.

The Road To Revolution Involves Openness To The People, Not Imperviousness To Them; It Involves Communion With The People, Not Mistrust.

True Generosity Consists Precisely In Fighting To Destroy The Causes Which Nourish False Charity. False Charity Constrains The Fearful And Subdued, The "rejects Of Life," To Extend Their Trembling Hands. True Generosity Lies In Striving So That These Hands--whether Of Individuals Or Entire Peoples--need Be Extended Less And Less In Supplication, So That More And More They Become Human Hands Which Work And, Working, Transform The World.

Leaders Who Do Not Act Dialogically, But Insist On Imposing Their Decisions, Do Not Organize The People--they Manipulate Them. They Do Not Liberate, Nor Are They Liberated: They Oppress.

Every Society Needs To Examine Itself In Relation To Other Societies.

A Fact Which Is Not Denied But Whose Truths Are Rationalized Loses Its Objective Base. It Ceases To Be Concrete And Becomes A Myth Created In Defense Of The Class Of The Perceiver.

Welfare Programs As Instruments Of Manipulation Ultimately Serve The End Of Conquest. They Act As An Anesthetic, Distracting The Oppressed From The True Causes Of Their Problems And From The Concrete Solutions Of These Problems.

Welfare Programs

Those Truly Committed To Liberation Must Reject The Banking Concept In Its Entirety, Adopting Instead A Concept Of Women And Men As Conscious Beings And Consciousness As Consciousness Intent Upon The World.

In Order For This Struggle To Have Meaning, The Oppressed Must Not, In Seeking To Regain Their Humanity (which Is A Way To Create It), Become In Turn Oppressors Of The Oppressors, But Rather Restorers Of The Humanity Of Both

I Have Never Said, As Is Sometimes Believed, Or Even Suggested That Lower-class Children Should Not Learn The So-called Educated Norm Of The Portuguese Language Of Brazil. What I Have Said Is That The Problems Of Language Always Involve Ideological Questions And, Along With Them, Questions Of Power.

There Is, In Fact, No Teaching Without Learning.

We Must Be Forewarned That Only Rarely Does A Text Easily Lend Itself To The Reader's Curiosity... The Reading Of A Text Is A Transaction Between The Reader And The Text, Which Mediates The Encounter Between The Reader And Writer. It Is A Composition Between The Reader And The Writer In Which The Reader "rewrites" The Text Making A Determined Effort Not To Betray The Author's Spirit.

This Capacity To Go Beyond The Factors Of Conditioning Is One Of The Obvious Advantages Of The Human Person.

Within The Word We Find Two Dimensions-reflection And Action. If One Is Sacrificed Even In Part, The Other Immediately Suffers. To Speak A True Word Is To Transform The World.

The Future Isn't Something Hidden In A Corner.the Future Is Something We Build In The Present.

The Behavior Of The Oppressed Is A Prescribed Behavior, Following As It Does The Guidelines Of The Oppressor.

No Pedagogy Which Is Truly Liberating Can Remain Distant From The Oppressed By Treating Them As Unfortunates And By Presenting For Their Emulation Models From Among The Oppressors. The Oppressed Must Be Their Own Example In The Struggle For Their Redemption (freire, 1970, P. 54).

But Almost Always, During The Initial Stage Of The Struggle, The Oppressed, Instead Of Striving For Liberation, Tend Themselves To Become Oppressors, Or Sub Oppressors. The Very Structure Of Their Thought Has Been Conditioned By The Contradiction Of The Concrete, Existential Situation By Which They Were Shaped. Their Ideal Is To Be Men; But For Them To Be Men Is To Be Oppressors

It Is Not Possible To Remake This Country, To Democratize It, Humanize It, Make It Serious, As Long As We Have Teenagers Killing People For Play And Offending Life, Destroying The Dream, And Making Love Unviable. If Education Alone Cannot Transform Society, Without It Society Cannot Change Either.

The Role Of The Educator Is One Of Tranquil Possession Of Certitude In Regard To The Teaching Of Not Only Contents But Also Of 'correct Thinking.'

Looking At The Past Must Only Be A Means Of Understanding More Clearly What And Who They Are So That They Can More Wisely Build The Future.

Language Is Never Neutral

To Study Is Not To Consume Ideas, But To Create And Re-create Them.

The More People Participate In The Process Of Their Own Education, And The More People Participate In Defining What Kind Of Production To Produce, And For What And Why, The More People Participate In The Development Of Their Selves. The More People Become Themselves, The Better The Democracy.

Faith In People Is An A Priori Requirement For Dialogue.

[humans'] Capacity To Intervene, To Compare, To Judge, To Decide, To Choose, To Desist Makes Them Capable Of Acts Of Greatness, Of Dignity, And, At The Same Time, Of The Unthinkable In Terms Of Indignity.

To Glorify Democracy And To Silence The People Is A Farce; To Discourse On Humanism And To Negate People Is A Lie.

The Earliest Language Was Body Language And, Since This Language Is The Language Of Questions, If We Limit The Questions, And If We Only Pay Attention To Or Place Values On Spoken Or Written Language, Then We Are Ruling Out A Large Area Of Human Language.

Reading The Word And Learning How To Write The Word So One Can Later Read It Are Preceded By Learning How To Write The World, That Is Having The Experience Of Changing The World And Touching The World.

Critical Reflection On Practice Is A Requirement Of The Relationship Between Theory And Practice. Otherwise Theory Becomes Simply "blah, Blah, Blah, " And Practice, Pure Activism.

Teachers Who Do Not Take Their Own Education Seriously, Who Do Not Study, Who Make Little Effort To Keep Abreast Of Events Have No Moral Authority To Coordinate The Activities Of The Classroom.

How Can The Oppressed, As Divided, Unauthentic Beings, Participate In Developing The Pedagogy Of Their Liberation? Only As They Discover Themselves To Be 'hosts' Of The Oppressor Can They Contribute To The Midwifery Of Their Liberating Pedagogy. As Long As They Live In The Duality In Which To Be Is To Be Like And To Be Like Is To Be Like The Oppressor, This Contribution Is Impossible. The Pedagogy Of The Oppressed Is An Instrument For Their Critical Discovery That Both They And Their Oppressors Are Manifestations Of Dehumanization.

Dehumanization, Although A Concrete Historical Fact, Is Not A Given Destiny But The Result Of An Unjust Order That Engenders Violence In The Oppressors, Which In Turn Dehumanizes The Oppressed

Through Dialogue, The Teacher-of-the-students And The Students-of-the-teacher Cease To Exist And A New Term Emerges: Teacher-student With Students-teachers.

The Oppressors Do Not Favor Promoting The Community As A Whole, But Rather Selected Leaders.

Liberating Education Consists In Acts Of Cognition, Not Transferrals Of Information

Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

The Revolutionary's Role Is To Liberate, And To Be Liberated, With The People--not To Win Them Over.

It's No Sin To Make A Critical Study Of Brazil's Reality. A Small Percentage Own Land. Most People Don't.

To Speak A True Word Is To Transform The World.

Problem-posing Education Affirms Men And Women As Beings In The Process Of Becoming.

The Unfinished Character Of Human Beings And The Transformational Character Of Reality Necessitate That Education Be An Ongoing Activity.

Dialogue Cannot Exist, However, In The Absence Of A Profound Love For The World And Its People.

It Would Be Extremely Naive To Expect The Dominant Classes To Develop A Type Of Education That Would Enable Subordinate Classes To Perceive Social Injustices Critically.

Education Is An Act Of Love, And Thus An Act Of Courage

Acts Of Courage

The More We Become Able To Become A Child Again, To Keep Ourselves Childlike, The More We Can Understand That Because We Love The World And We Are Open To Understanding, To Comprehension, That When We Kill The Child In Us, We Are No Longer.

The Role Of The Problem-posing Educator Is To Create, Together With The Students, The Conditions Under Which Knowledge At The Level Of The Doxa Is Superseded By True Knowledge, At The Level Of The Logos.

Libertarian Action Must Recognize This Dependence As A Weak Point And Must Attempt Through Reflection And Action To Transform It Into Independence. However, Not Even The Best-intentioned Leadership Can Bestow Independence As A Gift. The Liberation Of The Oppressed Is A Liberation Of Women And Men, Not Things. Accordingly, While No One Liberates Himself By His Own Efforts Alone, Neither Is He Liberated By Others. Liberation, A Human Phenomenon, Cannot Be Achieved By Semihumans. Any Attempt To Treat People As Semihumans Only Dehumanizes Them.

One Cannot Expect Positive Results From An Educational Or Political Action Program Which Fails To Respect The Particular View Of The World Held By The People. Such A Program Constitutes Cultural Invasion, Good Intentions Notwithstanding.

At Times, I Have Been Criticized By Some Philosophers Of Education, Who Place Me In Postures That They Classify Pejoratively As 'revolutionary.' But I Have Had The Satisfaction Of Being Invited To Work In Societies Making Progressive Efforts Without Wavering. They Were Changing, And So They Called On Me.

In Order To Have The Continued Opportunity To Express Their "generosity" The Oppressors Must Perpetuate Injustice As Well.

The Greatest Humanistic And Historical Task Of The Oppressed: To Liberate Themselves.

The Atmosphere Of The Home Is Prolonged In The School, Where The Students Soon Discover Thatin Order To Achieve Some Satisfaction They Must Adapt To The Precepts Which Have Ben Set From Above. One Of These Precepts Is Not To Think.

Any Attempt To Treat People As Semihumans Only Dehumanizes Them.

Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

I Am An Educator Who Thinks Globally.

It Is In Our Incompleteness, Of Which We Are Aware, That Education As A Permanent Process Is Grounded. Women And Men Are Capable Of Being Educated Only To The Extent That They Are Capable Of Recognizing Themselves As Unfinished.

An Unauthentic Word, One Which Is Unable To Transform Reality, Results When Dichotomy Is Imposed Upon Its Constitutive Elements. When A Word Is Deprived Of Its Dimension Of Action, Reflection Automatically Suffers As Well; And The Word Is Changed Into Idle Chatter, Into Verbalism, Into An Alienated And Alienating “blah.” It Becomes An Empty Word, One Which Cannot Denounce The World, For Denunciation Is Impossible Without A Commitment To Transform, And There Is No Transformation Without Action.

... Teaching Cannot Be A Process Of Transference Of Knowledge From The One Teaching To The Learner. This Is The Mechanical Transference From Which Results Machinelike Memorization, Which I Have Already Criticized. Critical Study Correlates With Teaching That Is Equally Critical, Which Necessarily Demands A Critical Way Of Comprehending And Of Realizing The Reading Of The Word And That Of The World, The Reading Of Text And Of Context.

Indeed, The Interests Of The Oppressors Lie In 'changing The Consciousness Of The Oppressed, Not The Situation Which Oppresses Them.

I Hope At Least That The Following Will Endure: My Trust In The People, And My Faith In Men And Women, And In The Creation Of A World In Which It Will Be Easier To Love

Some May Think That To Affirm Dialogue—the Encounter Of Women And Men In The World In Order To Transform The World—is Naively And Subjectively Idealistic. There Is Nothing, However, More Real Or Concrete Than People In The World And With The World, Than Humans With Other Humans.

Every Relationship Of Domination, Of Exploitation, Of Oppression Is By Definition Violent, Whether Or Not The Violence Is Expressed By Drastic Means. In Such A Relationship, Dominator And Dominated Alike Are Reduced To Things- The Former Dehumanized By An Excess Of Power, The Latter By A Lack Of It. And Things Cannot Love.

People In Communion Liberate Each Other.

Only Through Communication Can Human Life Hold Meaning.

To Teach Is Part Of The Very Fabric Of Learning.

How Can I Be An Educator If I Do Not Develop In Myself A Caring And Loving Attitude Toward The Student, Which Is Indispensable On The Part Of One Who Is Committed To Teaching And To The Education Process Itself.

A Revolutionary Leadership Must Accordingly Practice Co-intentional Education.

Implicit In The Banking Concept Is The Assumption Of A Dichotomy Between Human Beings And The World: A Person Is Merely In The World, Not With The World Or With Others; The Individual Is Spectator, Not Re-creator.

No One Can Be Authentically Human While He Prevents Others From Being So.

The Oppressed, Instead Of Striving For Liberation, Tend Themselves To Become Oppressors.

Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

In The Banking Concept Of Education, Knowledge Is A Gift Bestowed By Those Who Consider Themselves Knowledgeable Upon Those Whom They Consider To Know Nothing... The Teacher Presents Himself To His Students As Their Necessary Opposite; By Considering Their Ignorance Absolute, He Justifies His Own Existence.

What If We Discover That Our Present Way Of Life Is Irreconcilable With Our Vocation To Become Fully Human?

Whether The Teacher Is Authoritarian, Undisciplined, Competent, Incompetent, Serious, Irresponsible, Involved, A Lover Of People And Of Life, Cold, Angry With The World, Bureaucratic, Excessively Rational, Or Whatever Else, He/she Will Not Pass Through The Classroom Without Leaving His Or Her Mark On The Students.

Even Revolution, Which Transforms A Concrete Situation Of Oppression By Establishing The Process Of Liberation, Must Confront This Phenomenon. Many Of The Oppressed Who Directly Or Indirectly Participate In Revolution Intend - Conditioned By The Myths Of The Old Order - To Make It Their Private Revolution. The Shadow Of Their Former Oppressor Is Still Cast Over Them.

Just As It Is Important In Latin America To Discuss Ideas That Come From North America, I Think It Is Interesting For North Americans To Discuss Ideas That Come From Latin America Or Africa And Do Not Insert Themselves Into Capitalist Interests.

To Affirm That Men And Women Are Persons And As Persons Should Be Free, And Yet To Do Nothing Tangible To Make This Affirmation A Reality, Is A Farce.

No Reality Transforms Itself.

A Reader Does Not Suddenly Comprehend What Is Being Read Or Studied, In A Snap, Miraculously. Comprehension Needs To Be Worked Forged, By Those Who Read And Study; As Subjects Of The Action, They Must Seek To Employ Appropriate Instruments In Order To Carry Out The Task. For This Very Reason, Reading And Studying Form A Challenging Task, One Requiring Patience And Perseverance.

Human Existence Cannot Be Silent, Nor Can It Be Nourished By False Words, But Only By True Words, With Which People Transform The World. To Exist, Humanly, Is To Name The World, To Change It. Once Named, The World In Its Turn Reappears To The Namers As A Problem And Requires Of Them A New Naming. People Are Not Built In Silence, But In Word, In Work, In Action-reflection.

Education Is Freedom. Education Will Teach You How To Do It Yourself As Opposed To Asking Someone Else To Do It For You. And Around It Our Own Town... Freemanville!

One Of My Major Preoccupations Is The Approximation Between What I Say And What I Do, Between What I Seem To Be And What I Am Actually Becoming.

How Can The Oppressed, As Divided, Unauthentic Beings, Participate In Developing The Pedagogy Of Their Liberation?

Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

... There Are Moments In Which The Teacher, As The Authority Talks To The Learners, Says What Must Be Done, Establishes Limits Without Which The Very Freedom Of Learners Is Lost In Lawlessness, But These Moments, In Accordance With The Political Options Of The Educator, Are Alternated With Others In Which The Educator Speaks With The Learner.

Whereas Banking Education Anesthetizes And Inhibits Creative Power, Problem-posing Education Involves A Constant Unveiling Of Reality. The Former Attempts To Maintain The Submersion Of Consciousness; The Latter Strives For The Emergence Of Consciousness And Critical Intervention In Reality.

As One Might Expect, Authoritarianism Will At Times Cause Children And Students To Adopt Rebellious Positions, Defiant Of Any Limit, Discipline, Or Authority. But It Will Also Lead To Apathy, Excessive Obedience, Uncritical Conformity, Lack Of Resistance Against Authoritarian Discourse, Self-abnegation, And Fear Of Freedom.

The Intellectual Activity Of Those Without Power Is Always Characterized As Non-intellectual.

Authentic Thinking, Thinking That Is Concerned About Reality, Does Not Take Place In Ivory Tower Isolation, But Only In Communication. If It Is True That Thought Has Meaning Only When Generated By Action Upon The World, The Subordination Of Students To Teachers Becomes Impossible.

The More Students Work At Storing The Deposits Entrusted To Them, The Less They Develop The Critical Consciousness Which Would Result From Their Intervention In The World As Transformers Of That World. The More Completely They Accept The Passive Role Impressed On Them, The More They Tend Simply To Adapt To The World As It Is And To The Fragmented View Of Reality Deposited In Them.

The Educator Has The Duty Of Not Being Neutral.

It Is Truly Difficult To Make A Democracy. Democracy, Like Arty Dream, Is Not Made With Spiritual Words But With Reflection And Practice. It Is Not What I Say That Says I Am A Democrat, That I Am Not Racist Or Machista But What I Do. What I Say Must Not Be Contradicted By What I Do. It Is What I Do That Bespeaks My Faithfulness Or Not To What I Say.

Education As The Exercise Of Domination Stimulates The Credulity Of The Students.

Reflection And Action Must Never Be Undertaken Independently.

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