Four Resolutions from Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed has been on my book list for years, and I finally got around to reading it a few weeks ago. It is chock full of lessons for my teaching in 2013, and I thought I’d share four of the most important ones with you all.
ONE: Radical education takes place in communities, with students, not for them.
“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.”
Teachers cannot hold themselves above their students in any way, nor think they have nothing to learn from the kids they spend their days with. We both have lots to learn and lots to teach. Any classroom must begin from that perspective. If we go into the classroom to be teachers, not learners, if we think of ourselves as the end-all-be-all of knowledge, we do nothing but embody paternalism and maintain oppression. We must be a community
“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.”
Teachers cannot hold themselves above their students in any way, nor think they have nothing to learn from the kids they spend their days with. We both have lots to learn and lots to teach. Any classroom must begin from that perspective. If we go into the classroom to be teachers, not learners, if we think of ourselves as the end-all-be-all of knowledge, we do nothing but embody paternalism and maintain oppression. We must be a community
