EDUC 1002 Pioneers and Philosophies of Education Week 2 .docx

EDUC 1002: Pioneers and Philosophies of Education
Week 2
Politics and Education
Politics is and always has been an influencing factor in
education. Today, for
example, most early childhood education programs are
controlled by groups that
typically follow the national agenda. As we examine the lives
and ideas of a few
important educational philosophers, think about what pedagogy
is and how politics
and political views, including your own, affect teaching and
learning.
Objectives
By completing this week, you should be able to:
• Recognize the influence of politics on the philosophy of
education over time
• Identify the major contributions of the targeted philosophers

• Analyze the impact of targeted philosophers on modern
education
You’ll know you have successfully completed this week when:
• You can discuss the influence of politics on the philosophy of
education over
time.
• You can describe the major contributions of the targeted
philosophers
• You can assess the impact of targeted philosophers on modern
education
Copyright © Laureate Education, Inc.
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The Underlying Issues
How has politics influenced education over time? How is
education part of the
political process? What were the major contributions of some
important educational
philosophers and how have they impacted modern education?
This week we will
explore possible answers to these questions as we take a closer
look at the
educational philosophies of John Locke (1632 – 1704), Horace
Mann (1796 – 1859),
Jane Addams (1860 – 1935), and Paulo Freire (1921 – 1997).
As you read this week, keep the following issues in mind:
• Issue #1: How has politics influenced the philosophy of
education over time?
How is education part of the political process?
• Issue #2: What were the major contributions of John Locke,
Horace Mann,
Jane Addams, and Paulo Freire to the philosophy of education?
• Issue #3: What impact has each of the aforementioned
philosophers had on

modern education?
John Locke, NPG 550, National Portrait Gallery, Primary
Collection
John Locke: Architect of Democratic Ideals
“Curiosity in children is but an appetite after knowledge . . .” --
John Locke
1632 – Born
1690 – Published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
and The Second
Treatise of Civil Government
1693 – Published Some Thoughts Concerning Education
1704 – Died
Brief Bio
John Locke was born in 1632 in Somerset, England into a
strictly religious
household. His father, a country lawyer and small landowner,
home-schooled him.
Locke’s life onincided with religious conflicts between
Protestants, Anglicans, and

Catholics and political conflicts between the British Crown and
Parliament, notably
marked by civil war in the 1640s and the Glorious Revolution of
1688.
In 1646 Locke entered Westminster School where he remained,
somewhat
unhappily, until he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford
in 1652. At Oxford he
studied philosophy and medicine and eventually became a
lecturer in Greek, rhetoric,
and philosophy. In 1667 Locke left Oxford and entered into the
political life when he
began to work for Lord Ashley, later (1672) the Earl of
Shaftesbury. After his
employer fell from power in 1675, Locke retreated to France
until the Earl regained
his position in 1679 and recalled his assistant to London.
Shaftesbury’s good fortunes
did not last long, however, and owing to the association with
the Earl and further
political upheaval, Locke fled to Holland in 1683 and did not
return to England for

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five years.
During his exile, Locke honed two of his greatest works, An
Essay Concerning
Human Understanding and The Second Treatise of Civil
Government, both of which
were published in 1690. The latter would greatly influence the
early political leaders
of the United States, particularly Thomas Jefferson. Three years
later, a series of
letters regarding the education of a friend’s son were compiled,
edited, and published
under the title, Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Locke
spent much of the

remaining years of his life in continued political service, as a
member of England’s
reinstituted trade commission, and in the refinement and debate
of his ideas.
Major Contributions to Education
Tabula Rasa and Tailoring Education to the Individual
John Locke is recognized as the founder of empiricism, a
philosophical doctrine
which contends that all knowledge is derived from experience.
Although Locke spent
decades developing his ideas, his main works were published
around the same
general timeframe. In his most important philosophical work,
An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding, Locke rejected Plato’s belief in the
existence of innate ideas
by contending that the human mind begins as a "tabula rasa," a
blank sheet that is
gradually filled in by experience. His belief that all people
possess an equal possibility
of knowing lent support to his belief in the importance of
education, an activity that
could help fill in blanks in the knowledge and morals of

individuals. Locke was,
however, aware of innate differences between individuals and
believed in the
importance of tailoring education to meet the needs and
capacities of the individual.
The Right to Life, Liberty, and Property and the Need for
Education
The same year that Locke’s seminal essay was published, the
Second Treatise of
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Civil Government was also published, though anonymously. In
the treatise Locke
contends that all human beings possess natural rights to life,
liberty, and property
and that citizens of governments that ignore these rights possess
a legitimate basis
for organized revolt against this tyranny. Furthermore, Locke
contended that

government should arise from the consent of the governed who
choose
representatives that serve to protect these natural rights. Like
Aristotle, Locke
believed this system of representative government required
civic education to foster
knowledge of and regard for the system, which, in turn, required
the academic
freedom to teach and learn without government interference or
censorship. All of
these principles can be clearly seen in the architecture laid out
in the Declaration of
Independence and, by extension, the United States Constitution.
Thoughts on Education: A Child-Centered Approach
While Locke never wrote specifically about popular education,
through his work
on England’s trade commission he did write a 1697 proposal,
On Working Schools.
For children of the masses, Locke proposed that education
should teach them to
work so that they would become useful and God-fearing people
who would not be
dependent on charity.

His best-known work on education, Some Thoughts Concerning
Education, was
not intended as a general education manual but its rational
approach to achieving
educational results for the higher classes made it highly popular
and it was
translated into several languages. In the book, Locke contended
that a sound mind
requires a sound body and that good manners and morals are
more important than
knowledge. Knowledge acquired, however, should be selected
on the basis of
usability and practicality rather than educational tradition and
should be learned
through practice. Locke condemned corporal punishment,
supporting instead the use
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of esteem, disgrace, and good parental example. He also
supported teaching that
was more concrete than abstract and that took into account and
made use of an
individual's temperament, interests, capabilities, and
environment. His child-centered
approach is believed to have influenced later educationists such
as Jean Jacque
Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi, John Dewey, and Maria
Montessori.
In His Own Words
In Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Locke suggests how
reading might be
introduced to young children as play. As you read this excerpt,
think about how
children can be taught through play.
Thus children may be cozened into a knowledge [of] letters; be
taught to read
without perceiving it to be anything but a sport, and play
themselves into that
others are whipped for. Children should not have anything like
work, or

serious, laid on them; neither their minds nor bodies will bear
it. It injures
their healths; and their being forced and tied down to their
books, in an age
at enmity with all such restraint, has; I doubt not, been the
reason why a
great many have hated books and learning all their lives after: it
is like a
surfeit, that leaves an aversion behind, not to be removed. I
have therefore
thought, that if playthings were fitted to this purpose, as they
are usually to
none, contrivances might be made to teach children to read,
whilst they
thought they were only playing.1
1 Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John Locke from The
History of Education and Childhood
Copyright 1997-2001 Nijmegen University, Netherlands
http://www.socsci.kun.nl/ped/whp/histed/lock/index.html
Horace Mann from A. E Winship, Great American Educators
Horace Mann: Champion of Public Schools

“Education is our only political safety.” --Horace Mann
1796 – Born
1837 – Nominated first secretary of the Massachusetts State
Board of Education
1939 – Opened first Normal School for teacher training
1853 – Became president of Antioch College
1859 – Died
Brief Bio
Born in 1796 in Franklin, Massachusetts, Horace Mann was one
of five children of
a poor farming family. As was typical for the time and his class,
his worked hard,
attended regular church services, and only attended school for a
few months each
winter. Apart from the basics, most of his learning was achieved
on his own by
reading books from the community library, many of which were
donated by the
town’s namesake, Benjamin Franklin. Thanks to the support of
his mother, Mann was
able to attend Brown University where, owing to his own
industriousness, he
graduated first in his class in 1819.
After brief stints in law and business, Mann embarked on his

political career in
1827 when he was elected to the Massachusetts House of
Representatives. In 1833
he was elected to the state senate, serving as its president from
1836 to 1837. While
in the state legislature Mann devoted himself to reform causes
and his efforts
contributed to an investigation into state prison conditions and
the establishment of
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state mental institutes. He also vigorously supported “An Act
Relating to Common

Schools,” which proposed the use of federal funds, matched by
state and local
monies, to support education. This act also provided for the
establishment of a state
board of education and Mann was nominated to serve as the
board’s first secretary in
1837. He held this position for 11 years and succeeded in
making great educational
reforms in Massachusetts, as well as influencing national
education policies.
In 1848 Mann stepped down from the board of education to
serve in the U.S.
House of Representatives for four years. In 1852 he left politics
altogether and
became the president of Antioch College, a brand new college
in Ohio. Mann
remained there, supervising construction of the buildings as
well the curriculum, until
his death in 1859.
Arguments and Victories for Education
Throughout his political and education career, Mann sought
better schoolhouses

and libraries, better trained teachers, better instructional
materials, and better
instructional methods that focused on children’s interests and
needs.
In 1837 Mann, then a Massachusetts state senator, agreed to
serve as the first
secretary to the newly created Board of Education. During the
11 years he served in
this post, Mann argued convincingly for the right to public
education for all children
and the support of the public education system through taxation.
The reforms he
achieved in Massachusetts included:
• An increase in the length of the school year from a few weeks
or months to
six months
• An increase in state and local funding for schools

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• The establishment of teacher training schools
• The enhancement of the social and economic status of teachers
• The formation of compensated school advisory committees;
and
• The improvement condition of school buildings, instructional
materials, and
instructional methods
• The establishment of free school district libraries
• As the president of Antioch College (1853 – 1859), Mann
supported a number
of “advanced” ideas for higher education, including:
o Gender and racial equality for students and teachers
o An elective system of studies
o The introduction of physical exercise and health studies into
the
curriculum
o The abolition of education sponsored by and focused on the
teachings
of a single religion

Rationale of the Common School
The Common School Movement, spearheaded by Mann in
Massachusetts, sought
to ensure access to education for all Americans, regardless of
class. Mann believed
that political stability and social harmony depended on
education, which would
provide a basic level of literacy as well as teach and reinforce
common public ideals.
In this way, these common, or public, schools would promote
good citizenship,
democratic participation, and societal well-being. Mann often
argued for public
education, which was to be funded by local and state taxes, in
economic terms,
claiming that an educated populace would lead to increases in
the wealth of
individuals, communities, the state, and the nation overall.
The common schools were designed to include diverse social,
economic, ethnic,

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and religious groups and to promote democratic ideals and
traditions rather than
those of the dominant local group. The common school
curriculum, whose roots can
be seen in contemporary curriculums, emphasized practical
subjects such as reading,
writing, spelling, arithmetic, and health and also included
instruction in history,
geography, art, and music.
Teacher Training: the Normal Schools
Before the common school era, elementary school teachers were
often young
men who had little vested interest in the educational success of
their pupils and only
took these positions on a temporary basis while preparing for
careers in law or
ministry. Mann, however, believed that if public schools were
to succeed, they

needed good teachers who had expert knowledge of the subjects
they taught, were
well versed in methods of instruction and classroom
management, and were role
models for proper moral and civic behavior. To train this kind
of teacher, Mann
designed a two-year teacher preparatory institution called a
normal school.
The first normal school was opened in 1839 on the authorization
of the
Massachusetts Board of Education. The core normal school
curriculum omitted the
Latin and Greek classics and focused instead on English
composition, grammar, and
spelling as well as arithmetic, history, geography, and health.
Specialized classes
concentrated on the history and philosophy of education,
teaching principles and
methods, and hands-on teaching experience. The normal school
program became
the forerunner of contemporary teacher education programs and
the avenue through
which many women entered the professional workforce.

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In His Own Words
In Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board, Mann
defines the major
benefits education provides society. As you read this excerpt,
think about additional
benefits modern education grants.
Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is
the great
equalizer of the conditions of men--the balance-wheel of the
social
machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the moral
nature as
to make men disdain and abhor the oppression of their fellow-
men.

This idea pertains to another of its attributes. But I mean that it
gives
each man the independence and the means, by which he can
resist the
selfishness of other men. It does better than to disarm the poor
of
their hostility towards the rich; it prevents being poor.
Agrarianism is
the revenge of poverty against wealth. The wanton destruction
of the
property of others--the burning of hay-ricks and corn-ricks, the
demolition of machinery, because it supersedes hand-labor, the
sprinkling of vitriol on rich dresses--is only agrarianism run
mad.
Education prevents both the revenge and the madness. On the
other
hand, a fellow-feeling for one's class or caste is the common
instinct of
hearts not wholly sunk in selfish regards for person, or for
family. The
spread of education, by enlarging the cultivated class or caste,
will
open a wider area over which the social feelings will expand;

and, if
this education should be universal and complete, it would do
more
than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in
society.2
2 Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board (1848),
Horace Mann
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/16.htm
Basic Readings in U.S. Democracy, U.S. Department of State's
Bureau of International Information
Programs
Jane Addams, Outreach & Cooperative Extension, Pennsylvania
State University
Jane Addams:
Socialized Educator
“America's future will be determined by the home and the
school.” --Jane Addams
1860 – Born
1889 – Founded Hull House
1911 – Elected first vice president of National Woman’s
Suffrage Association
1931 – Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1935 – Died

Brief Bio
Jane Addams was born in 1860 into a large well-to-do family in
northern Illinois.
She was especially devoted to her father, a prominent local
businessman and Illinois
state senator who encouraged his daughter to obtain a higher
education, although
close to home. After graduating first in her class from Rockford
Female Seminary in
1881, she briefly attended Women’s Medical College in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
before health problems caused her to drop out. Afterwards, she
traveled in Europe,
first in 1883 and again in 1888. It was on her second extended
tour of Europe that
Addams became familiar with Toynbee Hall, a settlement house
in the slums of
London that would serve as the prototype for her life’s work.
In 1889 Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, her friend and European
traveling
companion, opened their own settlement house, Hull House, in
order to “provide a

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center for a higher civic and social life; to institute and
maintain educational and
philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and improve the
conditions in the
industrial districts of Chicago.”33 In just two short years, Hull
House was providing
more than 2,000 community members with education and social
services.
As Addams’ reputation grew, so did her engagements: in 1905
she was appointed

to the Chicago Board of Education and was subsequently named
chairman of the
school management committee; in 1911 she became the first
vice-president of the
National American Women Suffrage Association; in 1912 she
campaigned nationwide
for Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party; in 1915 she
organized the
Women's Peace Party and the International Congress of Women,
which made serious
diplomatic attempts to thwart World War I; and in 1919 she was
elected first
president of the Women's International League for Peace and
Freedom. She also was
instrumental in helping to pass Illinois state legislation
favorable to immigrants,
women, and children and was a founding member of the
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American
Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU). In 1931, Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;
although the poor
health that prevented her from attending the ceremony
continued, she worked on for

four more years until she died in 1935 at the age of 75.
Hull House
Hull House was founded in 1889 when Addams and Starr leased
a large home
built by Charles Hull in order to serve the educational and
social needs of an
immigrant community that included Italians, Russian and Polish
Jews, Irish,
3 Twenty Years at Hull-House, Jane Addams (New York, The
Macmillan Company 1912)
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/addams/hullhouse/hullho
use.html
from the Build-A-Book Initiative, A Celebration of Women
Writers
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/addams/hullhouse/hullho
use.html
Page 14 of 22

Germans, Greeks, and Bohemians. Addams was adept at
securing patronage and
within just a few years Hull House was providing classes in
English, vocational skills,
music, art, and drama as wells as offering medical care, child
care, and legal aid.
Facilities that were added later included an art gallery, a public
kitchen, a coffee
house, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, a book bindery, an art
studio, a music
school, a circulating library, an employment bureau, and a labor
museum.
A number of prominent people associated with the progressive
movement were
involved with Hull House, among them the well-known educator
John Dewey, who
based some of his own educational theories on the practical
work of Addams. This
group helped launch projects such as the Immigrants' Protective
League, the
Juvenile Protective Association, the first juvenile court in the
nation, and what would
later become the Institute for Juvenile Research. They also
helped push through

protective state legislation for women and children, including a
strong child labor law
and an accompanying compulsory education law. Hull House
remained in its original
location until the 1960s when the land was bought by the
University of Illinois,
Chicago. The Hull House Association, however, continues its
work today through a
number of centers in Chicago.
Socialized Education
Addams experiences at Hull House were reflected in her
philosophy of education,
which is known as socialized education. Socialized education
sought to instill a sense
of community while providing educational opportunities that
were applicable to the
increasingly industrial and diverse American society but were
not limited by age,
time, or place. Addams believed that education should help to
preserve as well as
develop respect for diverse cultures and skills by providing a
wide array of
experiences that explored and related to the immediate

community as well as made
connections to the broader society.
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Public schools in America, Addams argued, must adapt and
adjust to the current
needs of its youth since they would, one day, be responsible for
the well-being of the
nation and its democratic institutions. She clearly articulated
her views in the
passage below. “We are impatient with the schools which lay all
stress on reading
and writing, suspecting them to rest upon the assumption that
the ordinary
experience of life is worth little, and that all knowledge and
interest must be brought
to the children through the medium of books. Such an
assumption fails to give the

child any clew to the life about him, or any power to usefully or
intelligently connect
himself with it.”4
Innovative Pathways to Education
At Hull House, education was viewed as a life-long process and
Addams instituted
numerous innovative educational opportunities.
• College extension classes, predating most adult education
programs
associated with universities, in which the relation of students
and faculty was
more like “guest and host(ess)” than student and teacher
• A summer institute at Rockford College where classes and a
mock
commencement helped to simulate the college experience many
had missed
• Weekly lectures, discussion groups, and independent
educational clubs
started and sponsored by both the settlement house and its
residents
• Plays and music written, directed, and performed by
community members

• Domestic training in cooking, dressmaking, and millinery
• Trade instruction for work in wood, iron, and brass; for
smithing in copper
and tin; for commercial photography, printing, telegraphy, and
electrical
construction
• Organized sports competitions
4 Jane Addams, "Educational Methods," Democracy and Social
Ethics (New York: The Macmillan Company)
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The Hull House Labor Museum, established in 1900, was
another innovative
approach to education. Addams chose to call this educational
center a museum in
order to attract those for whom school had infantile or negative
connotations. The

museum had six departments (textiles, metals, wood, grains,
pottery, and printing
and binding) and each aimed to put labor processes into a
historic sequence. In
addition to traditional museum-type displays featuring artifacts
and graphic
materials, there were live demonstrations and associated
lectures and programs.
This innovative learning center was extremely popular with both
the local community
and the greater Chicago public.
In Her Own Words
As you read this anecdote related by Jane Addams, think about
the “danger” of
assessing intelligence according to a single measure.
“A Chicago manufacturer tells a story of twin boys, whom he
befriended and
meant to give a start in life. He sent them both to the
Athenaeum for several
winters as a preparatory business training, and then took them
into his office,
where they speedily became known as the bright one and the
stupid one. The

stupid one was finally dismissed after repeated trials, when to
the surprise of
the entire establishment, he quickly betook himself into the
shops, where he
became a wide-awake and valuable workman. His chagrined
benefactor, in
telling the story, admits that he himself had fallen a victim to
his own
business training and his early notion of rising in life. In reality
he had merely
followed the lead of most benevolent people who help poor
boys. They test
the success of their efforts by the number whom they have taken
out of
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factory work into some other and “higher occupation.”5

5 Jane Addams, "Educational Methods," Democracy and Social
Ethics (New York: The Macmillan Company,
1902; Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002),
pp. 80-97 (2002 edition).
http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/urbanexp/main.cgi?file=
new/show_doc.ptt&doc=397&chap=57
Paulo Freire, Instituto Paulo Freire, Brasil
Paulo Freire:
Educator and Liberator
“. . . my role as a teacher is to assert the students’ right to
compare, to choose, to
rupture, to decide.” --Paulo Freire
1921 – Born
1946 – Appointed Director of Education and Culture in state of
Pernambuco
1970 - Published Pedagogy of the Oppressed six years after
exile from Brazil
1988 - Nine years after his return from exile, appointed Sao
Paulo Minister of Education
1997 - Died
Brief Bio
Paulo Freire was born in 1921 in Recife, a Brazilian coastal city

in the
northeastern state of Pernambuco. Although the middle-class
family’s fortunes
declined with the worldwide depression and the family
patriarch’s death in the
1930s, Freire’s mother managed to secure him a scholarship at a
private high school.
In 1943 Freire began law school at the University of Recife.
Soon after passing the
bar, however, he abandoned law in favor of a career in
education.
In 1946, Freire was appointed Director of Education and Culture
of the Industrial
Social Service (SESI), a government agency in Pernambuco
designed to create
programs to better the lives of factory workers. In addition to
his work in adult
education, Freire also began organizing seminars and teaching
at the University of
Recife, which awarded him a doctoral degree in 1959 and
appointed him director of

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Page 19 of 22
the Department of Cultural Extension in 1961. In 1962 he put
his educational
theories into practice, providing some 300 farm workers with
the basics of literacy in
just 45 days. In 1964, however, a military coup overthrew the
government that had
been supportive of Freire and his methods and he was jailed for
more than two
months, then exiled.
Freire spent the next five years working on internationally
heralded adult
education programs in Chile. From there he went to Harvard
University, where he
taught as a visiting professor at the Center for Studies in

Education and
Development. In 1970, he published his most famous work,
Pedagogy of the
Oppressed, and began serving as an educational advisor to the
World Congress of
Churches. For the next decade he traveled the world helping
countries to implement
popular education and literacy reforms. In 1979 Freire was
finally welcomed back to
his native country, Brazil, where he accepted a faculty position
at the University of
Sao Paulo in the nation’s largest city. In 1988 Freire was
appointed Minister of
Education for Sao Paulo, making him responsible for guiding
school reform within
two-thirds of the nation's schools. Freire continued writing
about and working for
educational reform until his death in 1997.
Behind Freire’s Philosophy of Education
To understand Freire’s philosophy of education, it is important
to become familiar

with the political and social context within which this
philosopher formed his ideas.
Brazil is a former South American colony that won its
independence from
Portugal in 1822. This multicultural country (African,
European, Native Indian) was
ruled by a monarchy until 1889 when a coup led to the
installation of a republican, or
Page 20 of 22
representative, government. Although voting rights were
supposedly guaranteed to
all by the constitution of 1934, literacy tests were often used to
prevent people,
particularly the poor, from voting.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, as Brazil’s large cities were
being transformed
into modern industrial centers, reformist groups began to press
for a more equitable

distribution of the country’s economic and educational
resources. Members of these
groups, including Freire, conducted adult literacy campaigns,
established school and
health clinics, and encouraged small-scale development
programs. But the
progressive government that supported these programs was
overthrown in 1964 and
a repressive military dictatorship ruled Brazil for many years.
In 1979, a more liberal regime allowed many exiles, including
Freire, to return to
Brazil. Over the next decade the Workers' Party (PT), which
Freire had helped found,
gained strength. In 1988 the PT won the municipal elections in
Sao Paulo, leading to
Freire’s appointment as Minister of Education.
Liberating the Oppressed Through Education
Freire believed in the power of education, especially adult
literacy education, to
effect change by liberating the marginalized from oppressive
social, economic, and
political conditions. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire
contended that education is

political, used either to maintain the status quo or to initiate
social change. In
traditional education teachers "deposit" knowledge through a
process he called
education "banking" in which learners absorb without
reflection. Because they are
not encouraged to think critically, learners do not challenge
their social and political
positions, thus, their oppression is perpetuated by their inability
to question.
In order for the oppressed to liberate themselves as well as their
oppressors,
Freire promoted a libertarian, or “problem-posing education,”
that is based upon a
democratic partnership between teachers and students in which
both simultaneously
Page 21 of 22

transfer and receive knowledge. The democratization of the
education process incites
inquiry, creativity, and critical thinking, skills necessary to
understand one’s position
in the world and to impulse change.
The Importance of Dialogue and Critical Thought
The democratic partnership between teachers and students
begins with respect
for the learner and his or her knowledge. A dialogue is then
constructed using the
learner's reality as the starting point for the teaching-learning
process. Real learning
takes place as the participants engage in meaningful dialogue,
often using the
Socratic method, to critically examine and reflect on their
everyday experiences. The
resulting “knowledge” enables individuals to act on their ideas
to define and re-
create themselves as well as their futures.
In His Own Words
As you read the excerpt below, in which Freire defines how the
banking system of

education contradicts the belief that teachers should also be
learners and students
should also be educators, think about what liberating attitudes
and practices you
would advocate.
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. This solution is not (nor can it be) found
in the
banking concept. On the contrary, banking education maintains
and even
stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and
practices,
which mirror oppressive society as a whole:
a. the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
b. the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;

of 22
c. the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
d. the teacher talks and the students listen -- meekly;
e. the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
f. the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students
comply;
g. the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting
through the
action of the teacher;
h. the teacher chooses the program content, and the students
(who were not
consulted) adapt to it;
i. 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;
j. the teacher is the subject of the learning process, while the
pupils are
mere objects6

6 From Chapter 2, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire
(New York: Continuum Books, 1993)
http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/f
reire-2.html

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