* Important exploration of dialogue and the possibilities for liberatory practice.

* Freire provides a rationale for a pedagogy of the oppressed;

* introduces the highly influential notion of banking education;

* highlights the the contrasts between education forms that treat people as objects rather than subjects;

* explores education as cultural action.

In the early 1970's, Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, visited Harvard and published an English translation of his best known work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. His general critique of education presented an analysis which challenged the neutrality of the technological model dominant in American schools. He argued that any curriculum which ignores racism, sexism, the exploitation of workers, and other forms of oppression at the same time supports the status quo. It inhibits the expansion of consciousness and blocks creative and liberating social action for change.

In Freire's view of education, learning to take control and achieving power are not individual objectives, as in a "boot strap" theory of empowerment. For poor and dispossessed people, strength is in numbers and social change is accomplished in unity. Power is shared, not the power of a few who improve themselves at the expense of others, but the power of the many who find strength and purpose in a common vision. Liberation achieved by individuals at the expense of others is an act of oppression. Personal freedom and the development of individuals can only occur in mutuality with others. In the experience of women's groups, civil rights workers, and many others committed to liberatory action, collective power and collegiality protect the individual far more than authoritarian and hierarchial modes of organization.

While Freire's theoretical framework gave many community-based educators grounds for hope, it was his pedagogy--the practical, how-to-do-it methods--which gave them sought-after tools for the reconstruction of urban adult education. Freire advocated dialogue and critical thought as a substitute for "banking" education in which the riches of knowledge were deposited in the empty vault of a learner's mind. He suggested several pedagogical techniques based on the mass literacy campaigns he organized in Brazil and Chile--campaigns integral to broadly defined programs of revolution and social change. It was these techniques which many literacy and basic education programs immediately incorporated into their practice: reflection on the political content of learner's day-to-day experience, the organization of "culture circles" which promote dialogue and peer interaction, and the use of "people's knowledge" as the basis for curriculum.


Freire obituary   August 4, 1997
64 out of 73 found this review helpful

The most widely known educator in the world died on May 2, 1997. Paulo Freire leaves a legacy of dogged struggle for democracy, equality, and the social consciousness required to envision and retain a more just world. In his most widely read book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire detailed the role of education as a political force---for either liberation or domination. He argued that the process of liberatory education, reflecting the specific intersections of an educator, a student, and a community, must be a process of unveiling, questioning the central issues of life: work, culture and the construction of knowledge. He opposed his pedagogy to "banking " practices, rote memorization of the teacher's facts, which he insisted only reproduce injustice by aculturing the student to passivity. A critical education, in contrast, assists the students in methods to unravel her world--and the words which hide or expose its realities, While Freire was never able to resolve the shipwreck contradiciton of socialism, critical consciousness versus national economic development, his insistence on the need for new styles of education and leadership, coupled with his own lifetime of activism, leave an indominatable testimony of hope. Most educators want to change the world. Freire did


Should Be Required Reading For All Educators   November 5, 1999
Michael Bowen (Pensacola, Florida USA)
37 out of 48 found this review helpful

There continues to be a correlation between Brasilian peasants in the 1960s and Americans at the cusp of the 21st century, regardless of what the conservative nay-sayers may crow. I feel that many who are in authority, especially in the highest echelons of state education choose to ignore the cries of those who are suffering under the crush of economic and social oppression in favor of sweetheart business dealings. Freire is not an easy read; he scares 95 percent of undergraduates and requires a lot of thought and reflection to just get an understanding. Once tuned into his ideology (not that a good dictionary is not necessary), his heart and soul comes through in every word. Freire is gone, but there will stil be men and women who humbly follow in his footsteps, even if they cannot completely follow his precepts.


The education "'bible" of/for the next millennium.   July 14, 1999
16 out of 20 found this review helpful

As Freire makes it clear, the "Oppressed", as far as learning and growth are concerned, are not only the disenfranchised but the elite as well. Anyone who hears and responds to the call of service in the extrication of human consciousness from the oblivion of fear, ignorance and greed to the realization of freedom, self-realization, ordinary imperfect reality (and a few other pleasant experiences, chockful of collective joy and progress) will be very happy to have this book. As a (current) teacher of incarcerated adolescents and adults on Rikers Island, New York City - I know that Paulo Freire speaks the truth - and that his so-called abstract theories (by self-involved, rationalizing, "thinking and writing for that next grant" pandering intellectuals) are rooted in the concrete realities of the human condition. Thus, they are catalysts for concrete results in discovery, surprise, laughter and joyful learning (for both student/teachers and teacher/students) in my jailhouse classroom.


Pedagogy of the Oppressed   November 12, 2001
Marc Lamont Hill (Philadelphia, PA United States)
13 out of 17 found this review helpful

Is there a book more important to understanding how the educational systems facilitate the reproduction of oppresive systems? Probably not. In this classic work, openly critiques current "banking" models of education and explains how they work to reproduce oppresive systems. In true recognition of his Marxist ethos, Freire subsequently lays out a plan of action (praxis) for transforming society and realizing humankind's "historical vocation" of becoming more fully human. This is a must-read book for EVERYONE!