Paulo Freire (1921-97)
is known to be one of the leading educationalists of all time. Yet, his book
‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ (1970) goes beyond the field of education,
addressing the social issues of the twentieth century—and perhaps of the
twenty-first century as well. The present article is a response to that
particular social concern that Freire denounces intensely, with harsh terms
such as oppression, alienation, dehumanization, necrophilia, love of death, and
the like.
In the first chapter
of ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, Freire places a good deal of emphasis on his desire
for a just society that can restore the humanity that has been destroyed by capitalism.
He argues against an oppressive system whereby the minority (the upper-class
and/or policy-makers) dominates the lower-class by exploiting it on all levels.
But, how can the oppressed be liberated? This is the core of Freire’s work in ‘Pedagogy
of the Oppressed’. In fact, in his preface he states that what he hopes for his
book to achieve is to enable humans to find the path to a world filled with
love. For now, however, that love is shattered by an oppressive system that
dehumanizes both the oppressor and the oppressed—considered ‘less humans’.
At first sight
Freire’s views might seem exaggerated. After all, we live in a world that is
much more human than it was centuries ago—where public execution,
barbaric torture, or slavery were accepted, and even encouraged. Today,
individuals are constantly given opportunities to rise in society, for example
thanks to government bursaries given to students, or worldwide humanitarian
agencies that help disadvantaged people. One can even point to the ‘American
Dream’ that gives everyone the opportunity to prosper and move to achieve
greater social mobility: a well-known example is Christopher Gardner, who went
from sleeping in metro stations to becoming the CEO of his stockbrokerage firm.
For the reasons
mentioned above—and many more—Freire’s belief in the existence of an oppressive
society might not seem valid today. However, I believe that it is very much a
reality. Perhaps it would be easier to see it in openly oppressed nations such
as colonized countries that are still to this day suffering from the remnants
of colonization. My own story can be a testimony to this. I went to a French
catholic primary school in Senegal. Our teachers constantly used the banking
education system that Freire condemns. No communication or dialogue was ever
part of our teaching program. The teacher spoke, we listened. In fact we were
brainwashed to believe that he knew it all but we knew nothing. Though the
lessons we endured had nothing to do with our needs or interest, we had to
memorize them or else be reprimanded. We were not allowed to speak our own dialects in class, but only
French. In fact, for the most part, we were not allowed to speak at all: I
remember vividly my teachers telling me
“Mariam, tais-toi!” when I asked questions or raised my hand to
participate. And if I did not keep quiet after that firm warning, I got
punished. Like Freire stated, as students we were just objects instead of being
subjects. And as we grew older, this brought about identity issues—the feeling
of being below the French. Thirty-five years after colonization had
ended, we were still victims of the French oppression.
 |
This
image is a perfect representation of the banking education system that Freire
talks about.
The teacher is a depositor and the student the depository.
Source:
chattanoogacreek.utk.edu |
For individuals who
have not experienced such obvious oppression, Freire’s work may seem outdated—perhaps
that is why his book is so much more prominent in South America, Asia and
Africa than it is in Europe or North America. This might also be the
reason why I have heard several non-oppressed individuals say that they have a
hard time understanding the language Freire’s uses in his book. However, I do
not believe that language is the issue, rather the fact that the ideology of
being oppressed is unfamiliar to them. Donald Macedo, a critical theorist from
Cape Verde and professor of Liberal Arts and Education at the University of
Massachusetts Boston, gives a perfect example: a 16 year-old oppressed
African-American who perfectly understood Freire and is quoted as saying: “he [Freire] is talking about me” (as cited in Freire, 2000, p. 23), yet several
graduate students in the West found it challenging to comprehend.
Now that I have
illustrated that the oppressive system that Freire talked about in the 1970s is
still valid today, let us look at it in more depth. Freire strongly believes
that it is the role of the oppressed to stand up for their rights and dignity,
and I completely agree with that. The oppressed are the ones who are suffering;
hence they must struggle against the oppressive condition that exploits them. In
order to do that, they first need to be aware that they are oppressed.
Unfortunately, a large number of oppressed peoples do not know this. The
Marxist theory of social class that Freire refers to by the term ‘false consciousness’,
or as I like to call it ‘false reality’, illustrates how and why the oppressed
are unaware (or in denial) of how subjugated they are. Although Marx never used
the term ‘false consciousness’, he argued that individuals in the lower-class
suffer from an obscured image of the reality around them. Thus, they cannot
comprehend how exploited they are (Eyerman, 1981; Little, n.d). A mental
construct is set in their mind that positions themselves in a particular class
in society. They believe that they have to assume the roles of that class, and
nothing more. This reminds me of an anecdote that happened when I was in
Ethiopia this winter. Our housemaid had prepared a traditional meal called alicha wot. As I tasted it, I found that
it was too strong for me, so I told her “There is too much cumin and turmeric
in this”. She replied, “Really? Okay, I will put less next time. I am just a
maid what do I know?” It is only after reading Freire that I realized how
ridiculous my comment was, and how incorrect her response was. She had been
eating and cooking this meal for over 25 years and I hadn’t lived in Ethiopia
for 10 years. Of course she had more experience than I had in the field, yet
her social status made her believe that I, the oppressor, knew more than her.
This is a case in point of false consciousness.
Other than false
consciousness there is another major cause that prevents the oppressed from freeing
themselves: fear of freedom. Today, we live in a more globalized world, where
information exchange is fast and relatively easy, and the oppressed can find
out if and how they are exploited. What is holding them back is the risk that
fighting back will bring. As Freire (1970) clearly puts it “While dominated by
the fear of freedom they refuse to appeal to others or to listen to the appeal
of others […] they prefer the security of conformity with their state of
unfreedom”. Example of these are the several countries in this world that have been dominated by the same oppressive government for years. The people of
these nations are widely aware of the authoritative system that is ignoring
their rights, but they are frightened to seek freedom. That fear comes from the
fact that they might be killed or imprisoned for their actions if they were to
revolt. Hence, they rather remain in the refuge of unfreedom.
Only after false
consciousness and fear of freedom fade can a movement toward liberation take
place. Freire emphasizes that that drive can only originate from the force of
the oppressed because they are the ones situated in the weak position. The oppressors,
on the other hand, are not in the right state of mind to change. For the most
part, they are comfortable in their exploitation of the oppressed; this way
they can achieve and retain their power. Furthermore, they are blinded by
authority and have no wish to see things alter. The few oppressors that want to
break the system will be unsuccessful as their actions are merely example of
what Freire calls ‘false generosity’. Indeed, any oppressor who humbly wishes
to put a stop to the oppressive system does it either because he feels pity for
the oppressed individuals, because he believes that he should ‘give back’ to
the community (religious/spiritual motive), because he wants to be seen as a
philanthropist (a marketing strategy), or worst, to keep oppressed peoples
oppressed by making them dependent on aid (egoistic reasons). These false
generosities will not revolutionize the oppressive system; they will only
conceal the root issue. The multitudes of humanitarian agencies in the world
are direct examples of false generosity. When a wealthy woman opens a school in
a poor neighborhood to supposedly help disadvantaged children have the chance
to attend school, she is acting in false generosity—knowingly or unconsciously.
Those children will most probably learn through the banking approach of
education and be indoctrinated by the ideology of the oppressor anyways. This correlates
with what Randall Collins argues in agreement with Marxist’s social conflict theory.
Collins (1993) states that one of the main issues in society is the fact that
schools are controlled by the dominant class that forces its values to be
accepted by students. This is exactly what false generosity does in the
oppressive system. True generosity, on the other hand, would strive to address
the main problem, which is to directly involve the oppressed in decision-making,
to communicate, to have a problem-posing education system. For that, Freire
argues that the oppressed peoples are the ones who must help themselves by revolutionizing
for their freedom. This is the reality of any major revolution that has taken
place in the world. No successful revolution has ever emerged from the
oppressor, but rather from the oppressed: Rosa Parks, often referred to as the
‘the mother of the freedom movement’, is known to have played a major role in
the Civil Rights Movement for instance. Nelson Mandela is another example of an oppressed man who fought for racial equality despite the fact that he was imprisoned for 20 years. Mahatma Gandhi, who peacefully protested for civil rights and freedom, not only in India but across the world is another example. The common denominator of these revolutionaries (and
many others, such as the 2012 student protesters in Quebec or the 2010 Tunisian
rioters who brought democratization) is that they were oppressed, and through
their movements, other oppressed people followed their paths, and then justice
was born. A proof that liberation can only come from the oppressed, and not
from the oppressor.
Once the oppressed
individuals fight for their liberation and are successful, the next issue to
tackle is to avoid the trap of becoming the oppressor. Unfortunately, far too
often, former oppressed peoples become the oppressors when they are in power. Therefore,
Freire is right to present this warning. A point in case of the oppressed becoming
oppressor is the story of the former Libyan leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi. He was a
revolutionary (an oppressed) who took power over King Idris I, who Gaddafi saw
as his oppressor. Once in power, Gaddafi became a dictator who oppressed anyone
who questioned him. Eventually, the people he was tyrannizing ended up
oppressing him by brutally beating him to death in 2011. This example is not
unique. Almost every nation in the world has had a similar occurrence at some
point in history.
So far, I have
illustrated my agreement with Freire’s work in ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ by
giving concrete examples related to the remarks he made. Nevertheless, there
are a few limitations that I would like to call attention to. The first is that
Freire seems to see the world as black or white; you are either an oppressor or
an oppressed. In my opinion, this is a simplistic view of the situation. I
believe that some people are neither oppressed nor oppressors. Also, one can be
both an oppressed and an oppressor, as the anecdotes I mentioned earlier
illustrated: I was oppressed in a French school, but an oppressor to my
housemaid. How does liberation work in this case? One cannot liberate oneself
from oppression while at the same time dominating someone else. Second, for a
person who criticizes propaganda and banking education, Freire’s text itself seems
like propaganda. He is clearly telling us what to do. His text is a call to
action. Even though, for the most part, I agreed with Freire’s statements, I
could not stop thinking that someone who is in disagreement might feel
oppressed or be defensive after reading his book. Third, the idea that society
can be human (in Freire’s definition) is simply impossible because as humans we
are all different. We come from different cultural backgrounds, have different
financial capacity, have different intellectual competences, and face different
issues in life. There is simply no way that we can all agree on what is
oppressing and what is benefiting. Social class is a representation of how
different we are as humans; getting rid of them would mean being exactly the
same people, which is impossible. Although I agree with Freire on how unjust
our society is, unlike him I do not believe that we can be one big happy
family. Besides, even if we tried, we would be unsuccessful because banking
education starts at home—not at school as Freire states. There is authority in
the family; our parents are our first oppressors: “eat this”, “go to bed”,
“don’t do that”, “be quiet”… In my opinion, Freire failed to look at that
aspect. He blamed schools for oppressing us, when in reality we are oppressed as
well at home, at work, and by the media. This brings me to my last disagreement
with Freire’s work on his remarks about the banking approach of education. Do I
believe that banking education is not a successful technique? Yes, to a certain
extent, it is true that it does not involve or interest students. It makes them
objects instead of active participants of their lives. However, as a teacher
and a student, I also know that focusing solely on problem-posing education
cannot work. Some courses, such as algebra, require the student to follow a
certain rule in order to solve the problem. If she does not know the rule, she
will not find the solution. History is another example of a course that
requires students to be silent and listen. If they were not born in the 1940s,
for instance, how would they know about World War II, if their teacher did not
tell them? A student can only be critical and engage in dialogue after she is
aware of the details of the topic at hand. The only way she can be aware of
those is through reading or quietly listening to what her teachers/parents tell
her. For these reasons, problem-solving education alone cannot work. Besides,
students are not all the same; some are more comfortable with active
participation, while other prefer to sit and listen.
A lot more can be
said about Freire’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’. I chose to focus mainly on the
oppressor/oppressive social issue that he presents. Nevertheless, it is essential
to remember that social issues are directly linked to education because: 1. We
spend about 15 to 25 years of our lives in school (so our social life is formed
there) and 2. Teachers have the power to shape students’ thoughts, and thus
change society.
References
Collins, R. (1993). What does conflict theory predict about America’s
future? Sociological
Perspectives, 36(4), 289-313.
Eyerman, R. (1981).
False consciousness and ideology in Marxist theory. Acta Sociologica,
24(3), 43-56.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Herder and Herder.
Freire, P (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary edition). New York, NY:
Continuum.
Little, D. (n.d.). False
consciousness. University of
Michigan-Dearborn. Retrieved on
February 6, 2013 from http://www-
personal.umd.umich.edu/~delittle/iess%20false%20consciousness%20V2.htm
Very informative! Thank you Mariam
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