Paulo Friere

                      INTRODUCTION of Paulo Friere

The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire‘s is one among the most of the influential educational thinkers of the late 20th century. Born in Recife, Brazil, on September 19, 1921, Freire‘s died of heart failure in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 2, 1997. After a brief career as a lawyer, he taught Portuguese in secondary schools from 1941-1947. He subsequently became active in adult education and workers' training, and became the first Director of the Department of Cultural Extension of the University of Recife (1961-1964). Freire quickly gained international recognition for his experiences in literacy training in Northeastern Brazil. Following the military coup d'etat of 1964, he was jailed by the new government and eventually forced into a political exile that lasted fifteen-years. In 1969 he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University and then moved to Geneva, Switzerland where he assumed the role of special educational adviser to the World Congress of Churches. Hereturned to Brazil in 1979. Finally, in 1988 he became the Minister of Education for Sao Paulo (Rage and Hope: Paulo Freire‘s, n.d.). This position enabled him to institute educational reform throughout most of Brazil. 

PAULO FREIRE‘S CONCEPT OF EDUCATION

 Freire's most well known work is Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970). Throughout this and subsequent books, he argues for system of education that emphasizes learning as an act of culture and freedom. Paulo Freire is neither an idealist, nor a realist or a mechanist. Freire denies the view that man is abstract, isolated, independent and unattached to the world. He also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from men. In his view consciousness and world are simultaneous. Consciousness neither precedes the world as the idealist hold nor it follows the world as the materialist believe, Paulo‘s position is near to the existentialists who give much emphasis on existential man equipped with strong will power who can transform the world with his own efforts . In short, the role of man as a Subject in the world and with the world." Freire‘s work mainly concerned literacy and the desire to help men and women overcome their sense of powerlessness by acting in their own behalf. The oppressed, as he called them, could transform their situation in life by thinking critically about reality and then taking action. Freire believed that the educational system played a central role in maintaining oppression and thus it had to be reformed in order for things to change for the oppressed.

Knowledge is not an isolated phenomenen. It comprehends both action and reflection. In his words the act of knowing involves the dialectical movement which goes from action to reflection and from reflection upon action to a new action.

A SET OF POLITICAL AND PEDAGOGIC PRINCIPLES

A SET OF POLITICAL PRINCIPLES : the principal goal of popular education is to change the power relationships in our society the objective is to create mechanisms of collective power over all the structures of society the means of attaining this goal cannot be in contradiction with the final objective—to construct a really democratic society you cannot use authoritarian methods the projects, strategies and tactics used in the political process have to be produced collectively by the participants themselves

A SET OF PEDAGOGIC PRINCIPLES : the learners are the SUBJECTS, not the objects of the learning process; through this approach they can become the SUBJECTS of society the educator and the learners are equal participants in the learning process; all are the producers of knowledge the learning process is developed by a continuous dialogue between the educator and the learners the objective of the learning process is to liberate the participants from their external and internal oppression; to make them capable of changing their reality, their lives and the society they live in.

Check your Progress: Answer the following questions: 

1. Describe the historical context of Pedagogy of the oppressed.

2. Why is Freire considered an existentialist?
3. Discuss the political and pedagogical principles.


 BANKING EDUCATION

In this form of education, it is the job of the teacher to deposit in the minds of the learners, considered to be empty or ignorant, bits of information or knowledge, much like we deposit money in a [empty] bank account. This is why Freire called this model of education 'banking education'. Freire criticized this model of education because he believed that it makes the students into passive objects to be acted upon by the teacher. He argued that the goal of 'banking education' is to demobilize the people within the existing establishment of power by conditioning them to accept the cultural, social, political status quo of the dominant culture.

In the banking education model knowledge/education is seen as a gift given to the student by the teacher who considers the learner as marginal, ignorant and resource-less. Freire saw this as false generosity from the dominant group (oppressors) and a way of dominating and controlling the people (the oppressed) to improve or maintain their own interests. Freire put forward the notion that authoritarian forms of education such as banking education prevented learners from 'knowing' the world and from seeing it as something which can be changed.
He believed that authoritarian forms of education inhibited the liberation and freedom of the oppressed.
The banking education maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole:

(a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
(b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;
(c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
(d) the teacher talks and the students listen-meekly;
(e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
(f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;
(g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher;
(h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it;
(i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional authority, which he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;
(j) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.

 It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings, The more the students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.

Freire argued that change could come through a process of dialogue and reflection leading on to change through action or intervention and or political change. Freire called this process Praxis.


A PROBLEM-POSING MODEL

To challenge the banking education model, Freire proposed a problem-posing model of education. In this model, the teacher and the learner discuss and analyse their experiences, feelings and knowledge of the world together. Instead of the belief that learners' and teacher's situation in the world is fixed, as the banking model suggests, the problem-posing model explores problems or realities people find themselves in as something which can be transformed.

Paulo Freire's "problem posing concept of education" is based on his "anthropological concept of culture" which is based on Freire's distinction between animals and humans. For Paulo Freire, "man is the only one to treat not only his actions but his very self as the object of his reflection; the capacity distinguished him from the animals, which are unable to reflect upon it."
Animals are "beings in themselves", are "ahistorical", are "merely stimulated", "animals cannot commit themselves". Paulo Freire's "anthropological concept of culture" is It is not the job of the teacher to provide answers to the problems, but to help the learners achieve a form of critical thinking about the situation (Freire called this conscientization).
This makes it possible to understand that the world or society is not fixed and is potentially open to transformation. It becomes possible to imagine a new and different reality. In order for students to be able to confront oppression, they must first become critical thinkers.

 Freire believes that critical thinking is not possible in a banking education framework, but only in a problem-posing educational framework. In the banking system of education, students are primarily asked to memorize and regurgitate often meaningless and disjointed facts; whereas in a problem-posing framework, students are asked to use critical thinking skills to investigate various problems that exist in the world.
Freire made the distinction between these two types of educational frameworks in POTO (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

 Whereas banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, Problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality.

 The former attempts to maintain the submersion of consciousness; The latter strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality.

Students under this framework would pose problems and then critically investigate why those problems exist. (For example, students may ask: Why does poverty exist in the United States? Freire believes that a problem-posing education will not only allow students to become critical thinkers, but reveal that the world is constantly undergoing change.

In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the problem. In order to undertake this process successfully, the people (oppressed) must challenge their own perception of the dominant group (oppressor) Freire argued that the oppressed think of themselves as 'less than' or something lacking. He suggested that they have been conditioned to view the practices and behaviours of the dominant groups as complete, whole and correct. To become whole complete and correct means to simulate the practices of the dominant culture. To counter this perception means engaging the learner in a process of
dis-identification with dominant culture/oppressor and to help the learner to imagine a new being and a new life according to their own rationality.

TEACHING AIDS 

Some of the tools a banking education model might use include a pre-prescribed curriculum, syllabus or course book, which either takes no account or makes assumptions of learners' views or knowledge of the world. Freire called these pre-prescribed plans and course books as primers.

Paulo Freire saw no use for traditional primers. How does a person benefit from repeation ―Eve saw the grape‖, this statement has nothing to do with reality. Freire stated that ―There will be no significant learning if the pupil fails to establish a relationship with the object, if he doesn‘t act towards it.‖

 As a result of this belief, Freire wrote cultural primers in the late 1950‘s with the object of building a revolutionary society. His basic objective with the primers was to present concrete reality to be transformed. Program content should be presented to allow the pupils to take control of it little by little rather than just receiving the content. Teaching materials should be written regionally or even locally. He believed that the universalization of teaching material to reading is an absurdity scientifically and an act of authority politically (Gadotti, 1994).

The Freirean cultural circle made use of slide projectors – imported from Poland at – which were used to display film slides that were the centerpiece of Freire‘s literacy training because of their ability to foster a collective learning environment and amplify reflective distancing (Sayers & Brown, 1993, pp. 32-33). For the slides, Freire enlisted the well-known artist Francisco Brenand to create ‗codified pictures‘ that were designed to help peasants semantically visualize the ‗culture making capacities composed of 10 situations that intended to reveal how peasant life is cultural (and not natural) and thus human (and not animal).

Freire‘s film slides were displayed on the walls of peasants‘ homes, whereupon dialogues were conducted that analyzed the slides‘ various pictorial elements. The pictures themselves depicted a range of premodern and modern technologies, as well as other cultural artifacts. Freire‘s film slides were displayed on the walls of peasants‘ homes, whereupon dialogues adopt technology pedagogically to demonstrate people‘s inherent productive and communicative abilities, as well as the possibility of their utilizing modern technologies critically and as part of a means to rehumanized ends.

 DIALOGUE

A central theme of Paulo Freire is that of dialogue. Dialogue is a part of human nature, we need each other to discover and discovery is a social process and discussion is the cement. He thought that the moment of dialogue was the moment of transformation. Freire saw the dialogue of the elite as vertical. He called it banking pedagogy.

The person who is learning only needs to listen while the educator deposits knowledge. This narrative form of education maintains the division between those who know and those who don‘t. Freire viewed dialogue as a horizontal relationship based on love respect and tolerance. It follows then that Banking education and problemitazation are opposite methods "Finally," comments Freire, "true dialogue cannot exist unless the dialoguers engage in critical thinking…thinking which perceives reality as process, as transformation, rather than as a static activity‖ (Ibid, 92).

 True dialogue is for Freire what civic education must be about. If civic education does not include it, then there is little hope that the future will be anything for the oppressed but a continuation of the present. ―Authentic education is not carried on by ‗A‘ for ‗B‘ or by ‗A‘ about ‗B,‘ but by ‗A‘ with ‗B‘…‖ Essential to such education are the experiences of the students, whatever their ages or situations. "The act of knowing involves a dialectical movement that goes from action to reflection and from reflection upon action to a new action." (Freire 1972).
"If learning to read and write is to constitute an act of knowing, the learners must assume from the beginning the role of creative subjects. It is not a matter of memorising and repeating given syllables, words and
phrases but rather, reflecting critically on the process of reading and writing itself and on the profound significance of language" (Freire 1985) That power is to be used to liberate themselves from oppression. This pedagogy to end oppression, as Freire writes, ―must be forged with, not for, the oppressed‖ (1970, 48; emphases in original), irrespective of whether they are children or adults.

Freire worked primarily with illiterate adult peasants in South America, but his work has applications as well to schools and school-aged children. It is to be a pedagogy for all, and Freire includes oppressors and the oppressed. Freire wanted his students, whether adult peasants or a country's youth, to value their cultures as they simultaneously questioned some of those cultures' practices and ethos.

This Freire referred to as ―reading the word‖—as in ending illiteracy—and ―reading the world‖—the ability to analyze social and political situations that influenced and especially limited people's life chances. For Freire, to question was not enough; people must act as well. Liberation, therefore, is a ―praxis,‖ but it cannot consist of action alone, which Freire calls ―activism.‖ It must be, instead, action combined with ―serious reflection‖ (Ibid, 79, 65). This reflection or ―reflective participation‖ takes place in dialogue with others who are in the same position of realization and action. The oppressed thereby use their own experiences and language to explain and surmount their oppression. They do not rely upon others, even teachers, to explain their oppressed circumstances. ―Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers‖ (Ibid, 80). The reciprocity of roles means that students teach teachers as teachers teach students. Dialogue encourages everyone to teach and everyone to create together.


PAULO FREIRE METHODOLOGY

 ・ TO SEE the situation lived by the participants
 ・ TO ANALYZE this situation, analyzing the root causes (socio-economic, political, cultural, etc.)
 ・ TO ACT to change this situation, following the precepts of Social Justice.

PAULO FREIRE METHODOLOGY INDEPTH ―PROBLEMATIZATION‖

I. FIND THE PROBLEMS (GENERATIVE THEMES)
participants research – get to know participants and their life and work settings
get the background and facts about the issues that affected them
understanding / READING the World in which we live together

II. PRODUCE THE CODES (CODIFICATION)
create a material representation ( a drawing, a video, a photo, a puppet show, an audiotape, etc. ) to capture the GENERATIVE THEMES.
create a play or skit including many or all of the GENERATIVE THEMES
what are your ideas?

III. THREE STEPS INDUCTIVE QUESTIONING PROCESS

A. TO SEE THE SITUATION AS PARTICIPANTS EXPERIENCE IT
 describe the situation shown in the CODE define the problems in the situation make the link between the participants and the problems

B. TO ANALYZE THE SITUATION (The Problem Tree) Why did this happen? How is this perpetuated and/or sustained? What are the immediate effects and the root causes of these problems? (socioeconomic, political, cultural)

C. TO ACT TO CHANGE THE SITUATION short term ACTion (next 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months: affecting one of the Problem Tree‘s leaves) long term ACTion (next 3 months, 3 years: affecting one of the Problem Trees‘ source roots)
The 3 Basic Steps of this Methodology are: to SEE, to ANALYZE, to ACT. These steps are repeated over and over again, following the changes in the situation as experienced by the participants.

CONCLUSION :
Paulo Freire is often described as a humanistic, militant educator who believed that solutions in education are always found in concrete context. Students should be asked what they want to learn. There must be a collaboration, union and cultural synthesis. The educator should not manipulate students but should also not leave them to their own fate. He should direct tasks and study not order students. He believed that the liberating educator invites students to think. This allows the student to make and remake their worlds and become more human. Freire believed that communication should be simple even if the information is complex. Simplifying, allows for deeper accessibility by the students.

Bibliography : Sinha K., 1995, Education Comparitive Study of Gandhi and Freire, Commonwealth Publishers, New Delhi.