Pedagogy of the Oppressed Ft. Andrew

This one's not fictional like the past two. UM. So I do hope to like explore some of those in the future because I think some good conversations come on to those. This week, we're gonna be talking about Paulo Frere and the pedagogy of the oppressed. Oh yes, for those who don't know, Paulo Freire is Brazilian educator and one of the leading advocates of well was a Brazilian educator and leading advocates of critical pedagogy. Pedagogy is basically

like the study of education philosophy of education. Um. He was born in nine and his experiences kind of led him to that path because during his childhood and adolescents he was falling behind in school because he was poor. His poverty and his hunger affected his ability to learn. And so as he got older and he got opportunities and he was able to study and so on, and he basically realized he needs to do more to uplift the lives of the poor, improved lives of the poor,

um in order to facilitate better educational outcomes. As he says and went court, I didn't understand anything because of my hunger. I wasn't dumb, it wasn't a lack of interest. My social condition just didn't allow me to have an education. Experience showed me once again the relationship between social class and knowledge. So as he progressed in his studies and his writing and stuff, he eventually contributed to a philosophy of education which blended classical approaches coming from Plato and

modern Marxist and post Marxist and anti clonial thinkers. When I was reading the book, it really sort of struck me. I've got a lot of um and a lot of France found on vibes from his work. He died in um r I p um, but his greatest contribution um to me at least and to most people. It is his book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In the book, he sort of explores a detailed Marxist class analysis UM in the relationship between like the colonize and colonize, the

oppressed and the oppressed. And he talks about the banking model of education that traditional pedagogy has spouses because it treats the students as like this bank, this empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. Instead, he argues for a form of education of pedagogy that treats the lunar as a co creator in knowledge. As far as I'm aware, UM, and I guess it's kind of is illustrated in the book itself. But as far as I know, Fair wasn't

an anarchist or libertarian socialist of any variety. But he still ended up coming to some anarchic conclusions with regard to the education system and learning and stuff. I mean and I guess have been writing about, you know, like youth liberation and the school system and even experimenting with new more roles of schooling for a long time. UM. The Freer movement, for example, experimented with implementing modern schools in UM in the US and in Spain. And a

Goldman was very much involved in that process. And UM, I don't think that the experiments were necessarily free of error, but I think they did a good job of trying something new, trying something with more liberatory in the sphere of education, because I mean, for the past several hundred years now, UM, we've kind of been going with this sort of um Prussian model of education is very strict,

very regimented, very divided model of education. The rules um to sort of ferment nationalism and division, class divisions and stuff within the populace. So I think that any experimentation in the more limitary and direction is a positive. In the preface, um Fair sort of goes into why this

book came about. He's talking about his experience as a teacher in Brazil the time, the observations he made well in political exile, and so what he realized as a teacher when he was teaching his students is that they had a sort of a fair of freedom. It's not like a real fair of freedom, it's more a fair of the risks associated with freedom because of the experiences and stuff that they've had. Um. What he considers the

most vital, however, to the education system. It's sort of just establishing conscientious out or critical consciousness within students, a consciousness that commits to social change and human liberation. According to Fair, the educational model can only really be successful if people are radicalized through it, if people are able to see the issues in their current society, think about them, stew upon them, criticize them, compare them, and look at ways to solve them. And if they don't come up

with that sort of critical consciousness then as well for not. Basically, education system is kind of spinning on top of mud. I find it especially interesting that I ended up reading this when I did, because, as we've seen in the US, a lot of conversations are now attacking anything even approaching critical consciousness with this. You know who'll debate going on about critical race theory and this sort of even though critical race theories are being taught in primary or secondary education.

This attack, this full front of attack and anything that resembles critical thinking and critical study of history and of the present m hm. So in chapter one for It makes the case for why the patagogy Deppress is necessary. He says, a human kind central problem is how we affirmor identity as human beings. Everyone is trying to reach that sort of affirmation, that sort of human identity, that sort of human nous um. But oppression and systems of

oppression interrupt that process. They prevent people from expressing and establishing their full humanity. Where they're talking about racism keeping people from reaching the full potential, or sexism preventing people, or you know, a patriarchy with the whole limitations and such puts upon people's sexuality and gender expression and gender identification. One of these systems of oppression are put in place to restrict, to confine and bound us below you know,

our full potential. And so a lot of that and a lot of the you know, cultivation and forging of one's awareness of you know, the systems around them and how to operate within them takes place in the education system. And so the education system is should be one of the critical junctures in which we which our fight for

oppressed people. There's a sort of dehumanization that it could as a result of oppression, whether it be in the form of comparing people to animals, as racists often do, whether it be in the form of decreating people too it's of childlike status which itself is a is a form of oppression because the fact that you know, childlikeness and youth is considered to be something less than It's just another way they where people are oppressed, and another

way in which people are prevented from asserting their autonomy and their humanity. Oppressors. They tend to treat people as objects to be possessed, to see freedom as threatening, and in turn, oppressed people end are becoming ill neated from each other through oppressure and begin to see their oppressors as something to strive towards for. It talks about how they oppressed. The whole vision and the whole understanding of

what being human is is being like oppressors. And so a lot of people and you see that even today, you know, um, when they strive for freedom, they strive to become entrepreneurs. You know, they strive to become business owners. They strive to become billionaires and CEOs and all these sort of images of what, you know, what being human

looks like. Because people are striving to be free, and if the only way you can get a measure of freedom is by becoming an oppress yourself, and it makes sense a lot of oppressive looking to try to do that. Of course, as Fair himself says, and he oppress says themselves are not fully free either, because by denying the

oppressed people their humanity, they robbed themselves of humanity. The fight for liberation, as Fair argues, must consist of two stages, reflection on the nature of oppression and the concrete action

needed to change it. And that's sort of reading that that that line are paraphrasing, but it reminds me of the process of prefigurative politics, where not only are you bringing about the consciousness of people to recognize these systems of oppression and understand how they operate, but the concrete action to change it is one that is intended to reflect the society that we wish to establish in the future.

Fare does one um that, you know, leaders and stuff must engage in dialogue with oppressed people rather than becoming like oppressors. But as the book goes on, I think he relies a bit too much on this concept of leaders as well. He wants against them existing above the people, but he's still sort of uphold that distinction between the leaders and the people. As the book progresses, um he begins to compare the concept of the banking model to

the concept of the problem posing model of education. As he calls it. In the banking model um quote, he the teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Where Else he expands upon a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to fill the students with the contents of his narration, contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality

that engendered them. I could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbocity any being that sentence is quite proposed. But on the contrary, banking education maintains and even stimulates the contradiction to the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole. The teacher teachers, and the students are taught. The teacher knows everything, and the student knows nothing.

Teacher thinks and the students are thought about. Teacher talks and the students listen meekly. The teacher disciplines, and the students are disciplined. Teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply. The teacher acts, and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher. Teacher chooses the program content and the students, who were

not consulted, adapt to it. The teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which they set in opposition to the freedom of the students. The teachers the subjective learning process while the pupils and their objects. I think um Flaire needed to incorporate some more gender neutral language and that so I had to kind of correct him there. Um. But that quote, that that quote in full, it really reminds me, um of

my schooling experience. UM. As some people they knew I was actually home schooled for the majority of my learning experience. I actually didn't know that. Oh oh now you know, Yeah, so I was. I was home schooled, um for I woulday, the majority of my education experience. And then after I went into college and stuff. But before then, I didn't, um make it through the school system. And even though it was a really long time ago, my memories are

still crystal clear of that process. You know, UM, I remember seeing students being disciplined, Um I myself was kind of a teacher's pet. But that doesn't surprise me, and the best possible way I'm not sure I to take it, I'll take it in a good way because me not me also doesn't surprise teachers or cops. Yeah, this is my pre anarchists. I wasn't you know, I didn't. I wasn't jumping out the booth canal with a black flag,

you know. Unfortunately a cab includes the person who tried to get me to read Catcher in the Rye was a good book. It was a good, perfectly fine book. I'm just being an asshole. But but like Andrew, what are you alluding here? Is that like stoicism is something

that is weaponized in the education system. Stoicism, stoicism being like no emotion delivering like right right, right, because I was thinking the philosophy, but because you're like a vessel for quote unquote facts and knowledge to be like injected into you for you to like hold as as Yeah, it's we're seeing a resurgence in this type of saying all the albeit probably a little bit less eloquently stated

in some of like the anti schooling anarchist literature. That's been coming out in the past few years, or at least has been gaining more traction the past few years. M Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because this and that's kind of that's kind of the funny thing about it, because most people in their school and experience can recall it being in some ways negative, even if they look at

it in a positive light. We can at least, even if they don't go in that fully radical direction, most people can look at some of the elements to their schooling, of the education and see that that wasn't right. You know, it's something messed up about that, even something as simple as having to like ask, you know, the teacher to go on and use the toilet. It's just this is those sorts of little ways of control, like as I was seeing in my school and experience back when I

was in primary school. I was very adorable. I'm sure I could guess, but I remember seeing these students being disciplined. They had the bell had rung for um, you know, the end of break, and he supposed to, you know, fire back into class. But I think there was a school next door that was having some kind of events and they were playing like music, and so a bunch

of students in my class. Not me, but a bunch of students in my class were you know, um, dancing at the side of the school, enjoying the music, having a good time or whatever. Um. They heard the bell and they didn't go because they were, you know, they were having a good time. They were like six seven eight, um. But then afterwards the teacher, after you know, I sit down and stuff, leacher goes and finds them and brings

them in. And this is prior to at least of my knowledge, prior to the corporal punishment being phased out of school. So I just remember seeing them having to you know, like lay out their hand and receive punishment for daring to have joy after hours, you know, daring to enjoy themselves. Um, what it was supposed to be class time and they're supposed to be in class. I'm sure people have similar experiences, at least of a kind

of punishment and controul. I mean, this is not the same kind of punishment, but I think to your point of being controlled, like even just like not even being aware of it, just like being forced to stand up and say the pudge of allegiance. In America, for example, it becomes this like repetitive culty thing every morning that you're expected to do and if you don't do it, um personal experience. If you refuse to do that, you have to go to the principal's office and explain why

it happens over and over again. And I think it's like you're you're questioned and you're punished even for like thinking, not like differently, or questioning not even thinking, just questioning reality. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And in Syria when I was I went to school in Syria when I was really small and me my sister ate really slow and we would get hit with a ruler on our hands because we did we didn't finish lunch fast enough. Um. So yeah, mine

isn't that intense. But the school I went to when I was a little kid in Oklahoma, number one, they paddled us. That was legal as a public school. But my first grade teacher was obsessed with the fact that like it was bad to be left handed, and you know, she couldn't, she couldn't do the ship that they used to do right. They used to like funck kids up

for using their left hands. But she would every single day like chide me and tell me that I should use my right hand to write and stuff that it wasn't like proper that it was like bad that I could if you if you if you're not aware, if you're not left handed, when you're like do stuff with a pencil and you're left handed, you get a bunch of like, yeah, pencil stuff on your on the side of your hand. Right. It's just like because of the way that unless you're using like those weird left handed

notebooks and ship which no one ever has. UM, and she would like she gave me so much ship for being dirty because like I would get stuff on my hand. It was just like when I tell people that, it's like really, this was like the nineties. Yeah, there's there's a few of those folks left. I think she was extremely Catholic, UM, and I know none seems to go on that stuff. I didn't know that Catholic people cared

about the left handed thing. Catholic Catholic schools. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't say that, like it's I don't think there's anything and like the Catechism about not being left handed right right. I mean like in some very strict Muslim culture, a lot of it is like phased out but for example, your left hand isn't meant to be used as the primary hand because it's like a dirty hand, like the one you wipe yourself with. Ye. Yeah, there's a lot,

but like I know you were handed though. Yikes. Oh yes, ye yikes, thank you, thank you. You should be concerned. I have to makes a number of things frustrating, like shearing sheep anyway, whatever. Mm well, everything is designed for right handed people for sure, Like it has everything it is. You try to speak, but we are the master, right Okay? Sorry? Speaking of hands, just out of curiosity, did you all have the hand up hand out experience? Hand out? What's

hand out? Basically? Um, it's just sort of a tool, you suggest, sort of a sort of repetitive kind of follow instructions kind of thing. So like if the class getting too rowdies, like hands up, hands out, hands up, hands out, and the teacher does not stop saying it until everyone is quiet down, and it's just like like a robot, just reason. And I don't think i've experienced that,

I mean, are you? Um? I wasn't an assistant teacher at one point, and for very very young children, I'm talking like four to five year olds and I understand their frustration of like you're just trying to get something done and everyone's gonna while now they just had snacks or whatever, and everyone's kind of wild out. But I think that says more about like the methods we're using

than about the shouldering themselves. You know. It's all about, like you have to you should adjust more to like their cycles and their needs, their stage, rather than trying to force and shove them into this sort of militarbotic Yeah, yeah, totally. It's yeah, they're not allowed to actually develop naturally or like be themselves in a setting like that. Yeah, exactly.

I think what happens like kind of throws me. It's like or people have these experiences traumatic and not as dramatic in the education system, a lot of people, but some people they come out radicalized by it, and other people end up being the like most stringent and most passionate advocates of it. Like even like this Catholic school teacher you're talking about, Robert, Like at some point she was also in the education system, and it really makes me wonder like what she went through to have to

come up with that kind of mindset. Yeah, I mean, I think she'd grown up in Oklahoma too, so it must have been a nightmare, like everything in that state. Yeah, like why does it have a panhandle anyway? Um, I mean the there is a reason for that, and it's not fun, but okay, I'm assuming it's slavery. Any fucked up geographic thing going on in the South, the reason is generally slavery. Yeah, right, right, right right. And so she spends a lot of time talking about this banking model,

and we could go on and on about it. I spent a lot of time just talking about the education system all my problems with it, and at some point I would like to do an episode about differ rare schools and part of how those sort of transpired. But what Fair proposes um as an alternative is the problem posing model, which is, basically, through dialogue, the teacher and the students ceased to exist. The teacher of the students

and the students of the teachers ceased to exist. So instead of there being these two separate categories they are teacher students and student teachers. There's no operation anymore between the one who teaches and the one who has taught. Rather, there's a dialogue between the two as they become part of this process where all of them can grow. You know, you let go of this sort of authoritarian arrangements and allow people to teach and be taught two, learn and

be learned. Two really draw out what it is that we have to gain from each other. Rather than being sort of docile listeners, the students and the teachers, the student teachers teacher students, they become co investigators in dialogue, they become critics. They become radicals who are able to open up and depathologize the way that reality works with human beings exist in the world. Banking education tends to inhibit creativity and try to domesticate our consciousness. Throw back

to when I was talking about human investication the other day. Um. But in contrast, in the problem posing model tries to it really bases itself on creativity and stimulates rather than domestication, a sort of a full flourishing of what someone could be unbound and unshackled. So, in summary, banking theory is immobilizing.

It's it's fixating. It doesn't acknowledge people as people but rather objects, whereas the problem posing model it takes people's historicity, it takes people's humanity the starting point upon which they

can grow and learn from each other. I think that's what frustrated me the most about the education system in the time that I was in it, and even when I got back in it in college, even though it's not as bad in some ways, because you know, in college they tend to emphasize dialogue a bit more on

certain classes. But I find the issue is that there's this assumption in you know, the earlier sections of schooling, in the secondary school and primary school and even preschool that the children, the youth, you know, they're not there to have anything to add. They're just there to recogitate, to to study, and to repeat what they've studied for approval, not just something I definitely did back in the day.

If what's lacking is dialogue, a dialogue that buyers you know, hoop and trust and critical thinking, then liberation you would also be lacking. There can't be dialogue without love for the world and for people, and for knowledge and for bring that knowledge out to people. So as for our says, you know, love is at the same time the foundation

of dialogue and dialogue itself. On the other hand, dialogue kind of exists without humility, the naming of the world through which people constantly recreate that world cannot be an act of arrogance. I remember encountering a lot of arrogance teachers and lecturers and stuff in my time to the education system. Um are being condescended to multiple occasions, and

that's the thing. Nobody likes being condescended to. But condescension is kind of the default way in which we engage with young people, just sort of there's this projected ignorance upon them, is that they have nothing of value to add or to share. Another contrary, you know, we all have something to contribute. If we all closed off, and if we are closed off to the contributions of others,

we can't engage in dialogue with them. If we are fearful, if we are um considering people to be like inferior in some ways, if we cannot embrace people as equals, and how can we engage in dialogue with that? I think there's a beauty in the way that he reflects on dialogue. He goes on and on about it for

quite a while. At one point, he says that dialogue requires an intense faith in humankind, faith in their power to make and rea to create and recreate faith in their vocation to be more fully human, which is not the privilege of an elite, but the birthright of all. And So, finally, when he's talking about action and how um this sort of change is brought about, he divides cultural action into two kinds, dialogical action and anti dieological action.

While oppressors use antideological action to protect their power and to separate people, radicals can use dialogical action to bring people together in the struggle for freedom as a different methods of antideological action. Through conquest, through divide and rule, through manipulation, through cultural invasion, oppressors were able to put the oppressed in the predicament of there in. You know, the oppressed wouldn't be the oppressed if not for the

oppressors oppressing them. That's kind of self explanatory. Um. But in contrast, radicals from among the oppressed, using biological action, using cooperation, unity, organization, and cultural synthesis are able to rise above and push back against this oppression and to allow education to flourish among all. And So I think that's the beauty of the text um, the hope that it abuse in people to really bring about these changes, and I think it was a good reading five outs

of five excellent. And it's not very long, right, it's like under two from what I yes, yes, it's like four short chapters reatively. Sure. I know back when you were talking about how um people are sectors of the right specifically are so set on a acting like anything related to like critical theory or critical race theory. Um. I the the book was was banned like like a decade and like over decade ago from the Arizona Schools for teaching students that they are oppressed. Well, uh yeah,

that's that's how you know, that's to be expected. It's a good book. Yeah, yeah, so that's anyway, just a just a fun fun fact there. Yeah, we can't we can't have kids knowing that, uh, they have shared interests as a group, um, and that adults are mistreating them comprehensively. That's good. Yeah. God just reminded me of so many just moments that mean teachers like really got into it, or like the teachers that were condescending that I hated. I have to really go through the role dex and

try to get this out now after we finished recording. Well, listen, if you're a child. Why are you listening to this rise up in rebellion? Uh destroy the adults. Their joints are terrible. Hit him in the knees. They won't recover. My joints are terrible. Exactly, some fucking nine year old wax you in the knee with like are down. You're out of the game. No, I know. My kids would break embrace the ancient traditions, make les, and go for

the fucking joints. Yeah, children of the world, you have nothing to lose, which at bed times, that's that's it could Happen here production. For more podcasts on pool Zone Media, visit our website pool zone media dot com or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.