Week 10 - Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere - Chapter Three

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere - Chapter Three
Podcast lecture transcript on Chapter Three

I am especially thrilled at finding the book ‘We Make the Road by Walking’ which offer practical conversations by Myles Horton and Paulo Friere on social change and education.  The book does a wonderful job of further fleshing out the ideas as presented in Chapter Three of Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  Myles Horton and Paulo Friere came together in the late 80’s, each beginning to be influenced by the same ideas of how to put educational theory into practice.  Both were influenced by poverty situations:  Miles from Tennessee and Paulo’s experience in Brazil…both also had parents who were slightly more educated than those whom they lived around, so both experienced the dichotomies of the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless.  In chapter three, Paulo begins to discuss the praxis or practice of being a true educator, especially when it comes to using education or the classroom to empower all students.  He discusses how the whole idea of dialoguing, talking, speaking to others should be not in order to show off how many words one can spout out, or how verbose or articulate we can be, but words should be used to transform the world.  Words should be used for specific purposes in the classroom:  to teach students how to self-emancipate, how to become empowered to activate change in their own lives., giving them concrete examples of how to take their learning and use it for their good, the community’s good. What impresses me most about Paulo Friere and Myles Horton are that they were educators themselves.  They were not merely philosophers, espousing deep thought about how people should activate and live,but they actually walked the walk, as they talked the talk.  They were doers, very active until their deaths.  Myles started the Highlander school in Tennessee in the early thirties, while Paulo was very active in educating the poor in Brazil, going on to teach at Universities, developing adult literacy programs.  While they espoused critical thinking, they lived out their ideas.  Critical thinking in chapter Three is also a component of educating using problem-posing or problem-solving as we call it today.  You can’t have one without the other.  To be a critical thinker is to be about coming up with solutions to problems in the world.  This is described as authentic education:  A with B…not A for B or the teacher telling the student or sympathizing with the student, not A about B, with the teacher even empathizing with the student, but A with B…that is getting to the heart of a student’s needs and addressing those specifically. 

You know what it is?  It is allowing students in the classroom to raise questions, with the teacher not being afraid of that type of transaction…many times teachers are afraid of this type of dialoguing because once again they may have the thought that they should be able to respond to every question, know the answer to every question. This is not excusing the incompetence of a teacher not knowing his or her subject; but it is allowing that even though we may have been taught that the teacher is the vessel of knowing it all, even knowing what is best for the child without the input of the child, that this may not be the best way to approach all children.  Especially children who have not had the opportunity to voice, speak, learn, and voice, speak, learn again and again. 

In chapter 3, Paulo points out the major difference between animals and humans:  that we have the ability to reflect and practice, reflect and practice, therefore transforming our situations, doing something about our existence…unlike animals who exist for the here and now, surviving for the here and now…humans who have not been empowered, students who have not learned of their power may operate in the same vein as animals, if they are not trained to ‘think.’  Is not that what the true essence of education is about?  Even with the differences in pedagogical beliefs, ideas about going about educating the young?  Is not that our job as educators, to train students how to use their minds, essentially how to not be reactionary, not to be operating in survival mode only, but to actually have that privilege to critically think, to make that work to their advantage…otherwise, why are we training the young?  It is because we have a duty, an obligation to life itself…the very existence of our lives is about what we have learned from others isn’t it?

This is what Paulo is trying to express in the chapter.  That education should be about teaching others how to take what they have learned and use it to transform their situations, especially those who are ignorant of how this can be done.  He is espousing that the best way to educate the poor is to teach them the hidden rules[i] that are already known to middle/upper class students when they enter the classroom, since that is who was initially trained and taught in the earlier times…first the wealthy boys, then wealthy boys and girls, then the development of common schools for all children, eventually including all children of all ethnicities in this country…

The remainder of chapter 3 goes on to discuss how to do thematic research…how thematic research is most beneficial in reaching the poor, as that is one of the best ways to allow the poor to have a voice, to truly represent their stories in collecting the data.  I imagine I have an attachment to this form of research as it allows both the teacher or researcher and student to contribute, participate in the development of this investigation.  However, to keep this within the realms of the classroom, Paulo is saying I believe that no matter what we are teaching, when we teach it, we should do so with the students’ experiences in mind, in view…an example he gives is on page 119, where with peasants, perhaps their discussion may be about say, asking for more money, increased wages and banding together to form a union, whereas the typical  educator’s approach to this situation would be to try and get these peasants to read traditional texts that have no meaning for their real situations, real needs…instead Paulo is saying the educator should consider his or her students, where they are coming from first, acknowledging them as participants in education, not mere vessels to receive/absorb/regurgitate what the teacher has to say.  Of course, this must be done within the realms of the classroom, within the realms of what a teacher can offer at the school he or she chooses to teach at…which is why this opportunity to flesh out what your philosophical stance will be before you go looking for the school to teach in is important…with this knowledge, you should be better able to decide the best teaching environment for you and the students you will affect.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Paulo in We Make the Road by Walking…page 66:

 In order for one to know, its just necessary to be alive, then people know.  The question is toknow what they know and how they know, to learn how to teach them things which they don’tknow and they want to know.  The question is to know whether my knowledge is necessary, because sometimes it is not necessary. Sometimes it is necessary but the need is not yet perceived by the people.  Then one of the tasks of the educator is also to provoke the discovering of need for knowing and never to impose the knowledge whose need was not yet perceived.  Sometimes the need is just felt—is that right?—but not yet perceived.  There is a difference…I would tell you that a good teacher is the teacher who, in being or becoming permanently competent, is permanently aware of surprise and never, never stops being surprised.  Do you see?  One of the worst things in life is to stop being surprised.  This is why Myles is a child!  Always we have to look.  Today suddenly a flower is the reason for your surprise.  Tomorrow, it may be the same flower, just with a different color, because of the age of the flower. (p 66, We Make the Road by Walking, Horton & Friere).

I do encourage if you have the time, to pick up this book, though it is not a requirement.

This lecture will be posted to the iTunes album on History and Philosophy of Education as Chapter Three.  If you are one of the co-lead in discussants for this section of the textbook, you should now also post your annotation on Chapter Three, along with a website link for an article or reading related to this discussion and your position from the article.  I will post a transcript of this lecture as my contribution to this discussion.  I look forward to interacting with you and the rest of the class in this discussion.  Thank you.

NOTE:

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References for hidden rules:  Poverty:  A framework for understanding and working with students and adults from poverty, Ruby K. Payne (1995).

This I believe is in reference today to Howard Gardner’s learning styles: “Multiple Intelligences”.  See http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm

Let's continue this conversation in next week's posting.
Dr. Herring 
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