Freire argues that education is not the transfer of knowledge, instead it is the social or individual construction of knowledge raised in the real life of a student. Take the few minutes of your time and go through these slides as it will expand your metal capacity on the educational context.

1. EMANCIPATORY
EDUCATION:
PAULO FREIRE
Presented by
Simon Nenji

2.  Introduction
Paulo Freire 19 Sept 1921- 02 May 1997
Background
Philosophy of education
Aims of education
 humanization
 critical conscientization
 establishment of problem-posing education system
Implications to educational practice in RSA

3.  Background
 Was a radical Brazilian educator and philosopher
 Introduced his education methods in the late 1950’s
 Led literacy campaigns among peasants in the poverty-stricken
northeast of Brazil.
 “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”
 Developed theories that have been used in Third World countries, to
bring literacy to the poor and to transform the field of education.

4.  Background philosophies that influenced Freire’s Pedagogy
 Hegel – history, dialectic method
 Marx – class consciousness, change, alienation
 Existentialism – human beings are free to choose or are responsible for their
own actions
 Dewey – democratic choices in education

5.  Observations
 poor peoples of the world are dominated and victims of those who
possess political power.
 the poor need liberation,
 they need an education that develops in them a critical
consciousness,
 an education would not conform and mould people to fit into the roles
expected by society,
 prepare them to realize their own values and reality, reflect and
study their world critically
 they be ready to move into action to transform it

6.  The Oppressed-Oppressors dichotomy
 involves those whose humanity has been stolen( oppressed), but also
those who have stolen it( oppresors),
 oppressive ...prevents people from being more fully human
 engenders violence in the oppressors...dehumanizes the oppressed.
 “human beings” refers only to oppressors; other people are
“things.”
Question :In your view what characterises the oppressed?

7.  The Paradox
 Who are better prepared than the oppressed to understand the terrible
significance of an oppressive society? Who suffer the effects o
oppression more than the oppressed? Who can better understand the
necessity of liberation?(p.45)
 "fear of freedom" =to desire the role of oppressor
 afraid to embrace freedom; the oppressors are afraid of losing the
"freedom" to oppress.
 Freedom replaces oppression with autonomy and responsibility.
 Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift.
 must be pursued constantly and responsibly.
 oppressed 1)without freedom cannot exist authentically

8.  What is oppression?
An Oppressed individual is devalued, exploited and deprived of
privileges
 Systematic abuse, exploitation and injustice directed over a
subordinate group or individual by a dominant group ( The Blackwell
Dictionary of Sociology)
 Process of subjecting individuals to political, economic, social or
cultural degradation (Deutsch 2006: 10)

9.  Dehumanisation
 Violation of human dignity
 Distortion of the vocation of becoming fully human (Freire,
2005:44)
 Occurs within history but is not a historical vocation
 Stolen humanity
 Objectification of the other

10. In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Freire presents education that aims at
 (1) Locating the causes of oppression
 (2) Transforming social realities
Education can be a tool of oppression or a tool of liberation
Thus Education is NOT NEUTRAL

11. The agency of Education
 an instrument for their critical discovery of the symptoms of
dehumanization
 the oppressed find the oppressor out
 galvanizes the oppressed into organized struggle for their liberation
 liberation not purely intellectual ...involves action; not mere
activism, but serious reflection
 critical and liberating dialogue
 not to attempt to liberate the oppressed with the instruments of
domestication

12. The system of education Freire opposed
The Banking Approach
 where the teacher is presented as subject and students as
objects
 narrated content as lifeless
 reality as motionless, static and predictable (Freire, 2005:71)
 topics completely foreign to the experience of learners
 task of teacher – to fill students with the content of narration
 students record, memorise and repeat phrases without
understanding

13. The Banking approach contd
 Education becomes an act of depositing
 Students assumed as ignorant and empty
 Students are unable to transform the world
 Students develop a fragmented view of reality

14.  Educator-Educand Relationship
 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;

15.  the teacher chooses and 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 program content, and the students
(who were not consulted) adapt to it;
 the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or
her own professional authority, which she and he sets in
opposition to the freedom of the students;
 the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the
pupils are mere objects.

16.  The “Problem-posing” approach education = education as a
practice of freedom
 Goal is to transform structural oppression.
 Both educator and student teach and learn from each other.
 Teachers and students are simultaneously both teachers and
learners.
 They learn from each other and help each other learn. (59)
 The students, while being taught, also teach.
 "They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow."
 "No one teaches another, nor is anyone self taught." We teach
each other, mediated by the world. (67)

17.  assumes the world is an unfolding historical process; everything and
everyone is interrelated.
 begins with the educands’ history, present and unwritten future.
 seeks to transform society to rehumanize both the oppressed and their
oppressors.
 problem-posing education affirms us as beings in the process of becoming.
 we are unfinished, and so is our reality, and we affect the world around us
through our conscious transformations of it and of our consciousness of it.
(72)
 problem-posing education presents the banking method of education as
a problem, and our situation as a historical reality that can be
transformed.

18.  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” p.80
 The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is
himself 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.
 In this process, arguments based on "authority" are no longer valid; in
order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not

19.  Emancipatory pedagogy ...a radical change in the power relationships
in the classroom
 education not transfer of knowledge;
 the social or individual construction of knowledge raised in the real
life of students
 Education broadens the student’s view of reality
 Education is transformative
 Education is political.
 the teacher as a guide who respects students’ independence and acts in
accordance with learners’ knowledge

20.  principles of social transformation, emancipatory pedagogy
emphasizes on strengthening teachers’ and students’
knowledge of social and political realities.
 dialogue can provide opportunities for students to practice
critical thinking.
 the teacher as a guide who respects students’ independence
and acts in accordance with learners’ knowledge

21.  REFLECTIONS
 What characterizes education in post-apartheid South Africa?
 what is the place of emancipatory education in the 21st century
society?
 In what way can Freire’s emancipatory pedagogy help to improve
educational practice in South Africa?
 Critique Freire’s philosophy of education in the context of
democratic South Africa.