Education for Liberation
Paulo Freire
the Brazilian educational
theorist was born in 1921 and died in 1997.
His book Pedagogy of the Oppressed is perhaps one of the most quoted
and influential educational texts of the twentieth century. Freire's theories have
resonated most strongly in areas of the world and in communities where there are
disparate levels of social and economic equity.
Some of Freire's key philosophies include the notion that education
needs to be dialogic. In other words, teaching and learning involves a two way
process between teachers and students
rather than what he terms the "banking approach" to education where an instructor simply
makes deposits in to the student.
The dialogic approach is thus necessarily informal as it is essentially
conversational and where teacher and student are engaged in a relationship of mutuality.
Freire insists that in using this mode, however, both teachers and students
must observe the code of mutual respect. The emphasis on respect in the
pedagogy did not originate with Paolo Freire. Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
the educational pioneer wrote:
"As a rule . . .we do not respect children. We try to force them
to follow us without regard to their special needs. We
are overbearing with them, and above all, rude. . .let
us treat them, therefore, with all the kindness which we
would wish to help to develop in them. . .Kindness consists of
interpreting the wishes of others, in conforming
one's self to them, and sacrificing,if need be, one's own desires."1
For both, learning is seen as a partnership where the adult or teacher's
role is to help the learner develop into an independent, self-regulating
individual. Both educators fundamentally stress the importance
of informed choice as the basis of education. Freire would call this "praxis."
His theoretical orientation connects this to the premise that
people who are able to act on the basis of informed choices are ultimately able
to redefine societies and bring about social justice.
In the education of young children, Montessori
believed that if children are accorded respect as to their needs
as individuals and allowed, consequently,
to become self-regulating and self-reliant, they
will be more likely to develop effective learning skills.
The stress on a child's autonomy is central to Montessori's
theory of education: In essence she believed that individuals have the ability to
educate themselves, an idea that subverted conventional
notions of teaching and learning where teachers teach and students learn.
However, in Montessori's view, this ability to self educate, or become involved in
what Montessori called "autoeducation,"
occurs only as learners are free to exert their own efforts without censure in
an environment which supports learning.
Freire's theories address the politically and economically oppressed.
They dove-tail with Montessori's orientation toward children who
are contextualized against "adultism" or the overbearing domination of
adults. In both the theories of Montessori and Freire, education is seen
as liberatory--for Freire, the freedom from oppression and poverty, and Montessori,
the freedom of children to come into their own unhampered by the agendas of adults.
A key aspect to Freire's program of education involves teaching the historically
oppressed as subjects rather than objects. As subjects with mastery over their own
education, learners become actively engaged in their own education, and ultimately in their own destinies. As subjects, those who live in oppressive circumstances
are encouraged to "find their own voices" and to thus re-name the world
as they know and experience it, rather than in blind conformity with
those who wield authority.
Freire called those who are aspiring to engage in the pedagogy of the historically oppressed
"educators of liberation." This orientation requires a total redefinition of
of what it means to be an educator. In Freire's view, this redefinition
necessitates the surrender of the status distinctions between teacher and learner
along with the authority invested in traditionally in the role of the teacher.
In his words, "the educator for liberation has to die as the
unilateral educator of the educatees.2"
Likewise, Montessori called upon those who wished to follow the educational
profession to surrender the sense of elevated status traditionally identified with the teaching profession.
To her, pride and anger--characteristics frequently associated with teachers--had neither a place in
the teacher's persona, nor in the liberating education of children.
_________________
1 Maria Montessori.Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook.(Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1967).p.133
2 Paul Taylor.The Texts of Paulo Freire.(Open University Press, 1997). p.55.
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