PAULO
FREIRE
[1921-1997]
Paulo Reglus Nervus
Freire was born on September 19th 1921 in Brazil. He took a vow at
the age of eleven to dedicate his life to the struggle against hunger so that
other children would not have to face the agency he was then experiencing has
made a profound impact not only in the overall struggle for development in the
third world countries but also in the
field of education.
After obtaining Ph.D in 1959 from the
university of Recife, he worked for some time as professor of History and
Philosophy of Education at the same university. Freire worked in close
association with a number of groups
engaged in new experiments in education. He acted as a consultant at Harward
University’s School of Education. His most popular work “Pedagogy of The Oppressed”
is dedicated to the poor and deprived people of this world, and to those who
identify with and fight for the impoverished.
Publications of Paulo Freire
1)
Cultural Action of Freedom.
2)
Education – The Practice of Freedom.
3)
A Pedagogy of Liberation.
4)
Critical Literacy.
5)
Education from Critical Consciousness.
6) Pedagogy of Home.
7)
Pedagogy of the Heart.
8)Pedagogy in Process.
9)
The Letters of Guinea-Bissau.
10)
Learning to Question.
11)
Pedagogy of the City.
12)
Education as the Exercise of Freedom.
13)
Extension or Communication.
14)Theory
and Practice of Liberation.
15)
The Importance of the Reading Act.
16)
Teachers as Cultural Workers.
17)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
18)
Letters of Criticism.
19)
Pedagogy of the Freedom.
20)
A Review of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Goals of Education
According to Freire following are the
main goals of education;
Ø Power
Awareness.
Ø Critical
Literacy.
Ø Desocialisation.
Ø Self-
education.
Meaning of Education Practice
Educational practice is not seen as
‘extension’ but as ‘communication’. Extension is negative in nature and
communication positive in nature. Education is not the transfer or transmission
of knowledge or cultures. Nor is it the act of depositing reports or feels in
the educate. It is not the act of depositing reports or facts in the educate.
It is not an attempt to adopt the educate. It is not the perception of the
values of a given culture.
Dialogical Method
It is based on the dialogue
between persons. In the dialogical relation ns, no one teaches another, nor is
any one self-taught. People teach each other. In the dialogical system ,
students are co-investigators in the dialogue with the teacher. In the
dialogical relations, arguments ,based on authority are no longer valid.
Authority is on the side of freedom, not against it.
Banking Concept of Education.
Freire has introduced the new
terminology of banking concept in education. He explains this by stating that
narration of the teacher turns students into containers, into receptacles to be
filled. Education thus becomes an act of depositing in which the students are
the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating,
the teacher issue communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently
receive, memories and repeat.
According to the banking concept of
education , knowledge becomes a gift bestowed by those who regard themselves
knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Freire here makes
an interesting point, by stating “but unlike the slaves ,they never discover
that they educate the teacher. “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.
Characteristics of Banking Education
The
teacher teaches and the students are taught. The
teacher knows everything and the students know nothing. The
teacher thinks and the students are thought about. The
teacher talks and the students listen meekly. The
teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined. The
teacher chooses and he enforces his choice, and the students comply. The
teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of
the teacher. The
teacher chooses the programme content and the students adopt it. The
teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional authority
which he sits in opposition to the freedom of the students. The
teacher is the subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere
objects.
Liberatory Education
Education, which is liberatory,
encourages learners to challenge and change the world and not merely
uncritically adapt themselves to it. The content and purpose of liberatory
education is the collective responsibility of learners, teachers, and the
community.
Contributions of Freire to Principles
And Practices in Education
Authentic
thinking – thinking that is concerned with reality does not take place in ivory
tower isolation, but only in effective communication. Problem
solving education responding to the essence of consciousness intentionally
rejects communiqués. Problem-solving epitomizes the special characteristics of
consciousness. The
movement of enquiry be directed towards humanization. The pursuit of humanity
cannot unfold in the antagonistic relation between opressers and opressed. Teachers
cannot think without the pupils nor for the pupils but only with the pupils. In
the banking system of education there should be a two way traffic. The roles of
the depositors, the prescribers and the receivers must be exchanged to a great
measures. In
the dialogical system the students are co-investigators in dialogue with the
teacher. Dialogue
cannot exist without humility. Faith
is an apriori requirements for dialogue. The
task of the dialogical teacher in an inter disciplinary team working on the
thematic universe is to represent the universe to the students not as a lecture
but as a problem. Themes
may be printed by means of brief dramatizations, reading and discussion of
magazine articles, newspapers, book chapters(beginning with passages) and
record interviews. Problem
solving in the dialogical system stimulates creativity and true reflection. The
teacher must be imbued with a profound trust in the creative power of his
students.
CONSCIENTIZATION
The English term
‘Conscientization’ is a translation of the Portuguese term ‘Conscientizaco’
means conscious raising or critical consciousness. The term was coined by
Brazilian educator, activist, and theorist Paulo Freire in his work ‘Pedagogy
of the Opressed’. Freire was teaching the poor and literate members of
Brazilian society to read at a time when literacy was a requirement for
suffrage.
Meaning of Critical Consciousness
Critical consciousness proceeds through the identification of generative
themes which Freire identifies as iconic representations that have a powerful
emotional impact in the daily lives of learners. In this way individual
consciousness helps end the culture of silence in which the socially disposed internalize
the negative images of themselves created and propagated by the oppressor in
situations of extreme poverty. Liberating learners from this mimicry of the
powerful , and the fratricidal violence that results there from is a major goal of critical consciousness.
Conscientization is an ongoing process by which a learner moves towards
critical consciousness. This process is the heart of liberatory education. It
differs from Conscious raising in that
later may involve transmission of preselected knowledge. Conscientization means
breaking through prevailing mythologies to reach new levels of awareness in particular , awareness in particular ,
awareness of oppression , being an object of others , will rather than a
self determining subject. The process of
conscientization involves identifying contradictions in experience through
dialogue and becoming part of the process of changing the world.
Conscientization is the process of
getting rid of the influence of exhorted by the dominant consciousness . A
process of discovering your own thoughts and values not accepting the oppressive beliefs of the dominant
consciousness. Freire believed that education is necessary for liberation and
the result is transformation.
Conscientization and Education.
In his books ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’
and ‘Education for the Critical consciousness’ as a socio-political educative
tool that engages learners in questioning the nature of their historical and
social situation, which Freire addressed as ‘reading the world’
The
goal of critical consciousness is to act as subjects in the creation of
democratic society. In
education Freire implies intergenerational equity between students and teachers
in which both learn, both question, both reflect and both participate in
meaning making. Sudbury
model of democratic education schools is an alternative approach in which
children, by enjoying personal freedom thus encouraged personal freedom thus
encouraged to exercise personal responsibility for their action learn at their
own pace rather than following a previously imposed chronologically based
curriculum. In a similar form students learn all the subjects, techniques and
skills in the schools. The
staff are minor actors, the teachers is an advisor and helps just when asked. Sudbury
model of democratic education schools maintain that values, social justice,
critical consciousness, intergenerational equity and political consciousness
included, must be learned through experience.
CONCLUSION
Freire’s ideas are of a rebel and
as such they are too revolutionary to be translated into practice in a
democratic set up. Theoretically they appear to be quite sound but functionally
they are Utopian in nature.
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