Pedagogy of the Oppressed
This is a good one to read, even if only certain sections and one paragraph at a time.
My book club discussed The Pedagogy of the Oppressed this past Sunday. The book takes to account the traditional relationship of teacher to student and how teachers see education as 'banking' a body of knowledge with the recipient of information. More importantly, Paolo Friere discusses how this and other dynamics of traditional teaching perpetuate oppression... how paternalistic values from the Western, male-dominated, White-dominated, rich-dominated worlds inform our current pedagogy.
Even when teachers from oppressed communities teach each other - even when oppressed communities turn the tables on the oppressors - we relate to each other in an oppressive way. Until teaching is empowering not just because of the knowledge banked but because of the critical thinking skills acquired, no matter who's ruling or teaching, we are doomed to repeat maintain oppressor-oppressed relationships.
To get out of this relationship, the world has to think of education as cogent processing, problem-solving, and recognizing every human's ability to think for themselves and reject supremacy (of teachers, of Whites, etc). Or so the book claims.
6 comments:
I had an interesting experience with this in my classroom. I showed a variety of symbols on the overhead (cross, Phillies symbol, etc) to show how symbols could be interpreted differently.
I expected "Mt. Rushmore" to provoke a variety of responses. But all my students (about 100% African American) said something about "Founding Fathers" or "Great Men". Not one "old dead white guys".
On the other hand, most classroom critics have never tried to teach in a classroom.
saltzie, i don't know what you mean by your last sentence...
I think what Snausy means is that people who criticize the school systems and the classrooms are rarely the people who have actually taught in them.
For example, a lot of white collared DC-elitists (I would put myself into this category) criticize the DC public school systems for being so horrible. But, when you look at the type of people who teach in the DC public schools, they are not white collared DC-elitists.
Maybe didactically, he is saying that "DC-elitists" or "supremacists" can criticize, but they consider themselves too superior to actually teach in the schools or go be "inferior".
this dude is wicked famous in the teaching circles. pretty much created his own teaching style. got a lot of good works, and i highly recommend to all you teachers out there. can i get a what what?
chris,
you speak very highly of this author and his teaching style.
this excites me, because i have, as of late, been seeking advice in creating my own teaching style. (i'm an aspiring teacher of sorts.)
do you have any specific recommendations of his works related to what he's found to be successful teaching styles?
Interestingly enough, my cousin Brett heads up the PEACE project at the Freire Charter School in Philly. Basically, he was pissed off that the charter school was teaching by the principles of Paulo and designed a program for youngins' to learn by his methods.
http://www.freirecharterschool.org/index_files/peaceproject.htm
I really should get back in touch with him.
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