I thoroughly enjoyed reading Paulo Freire’s work this week. Pedagogy of the Oppressed gave me a lot of knowledge and a lot of ideas to “chew on” and work with. In fact, I was underlining and annotating my paper as I read because I found myself that invested in the work, eager to understand as much as possible. Freire’s work, in my opinion, strikes a beautiful balance between being rich in theory and being easily understood, and his pedagogical ideas, I can see, are deeply influential even today.

I find a lot of merit in Freire’s idea that humanization is “the people’s vocation.” I can think of no better goal for humankind than to work toward the freedom and justice of all people, and Freire posits that this very thing is the overarching goal of all humankind, right at the beginning of Chapter 1. We can see right at the start that, more than only a theory about education, Freire’s pedagogy is a sort of philosophy on life and humanity as well.

The main idea of Chapter 1 is the fact that, with the overarching goal of humanity being humanization, the only ones who can work towards and achieve this goal are the oppressed and those who are truly in solidarity with them. The work must be led by the oppressed, and those who wish to work alongside them must, rather than being paternalistic and “looking down” on them/patronizing, trust the oppressed and follow their lead. This is an idea that is echoed today, often expressed in the term of majority groups amplifying the voices of minority groups, not speaking over them or attempting to speak for them. Those in power must give the oppressed a “seat at the table” and allow them to speak for themselves and advocate for themselves, not try and do so for them (which, ultimately, as Freire describes, keeps the current oppressive class system intact, harming the oppressed and benefiting the oppressors.)

Freire posits that, during the initial stages of struggle, the oppressed often strive to become like their oppressor, because that is their model of humanity. The example I had in my head for this was as follows: a poor man strives to become like his boss, because he sees his wealth and control over others as success and he, too, wants to become successful. However, in order to become like his boss, this man too becomes an oppressor, treating those under him poorly and hoarding his wealth because that is the example he saw of a “successful” man. We see cases like this a lot today, however, I think we do recognize it as being wrong; think about the movies you’ve seen or stories you’ve read and heard where the above example is the plot, and where the once-poor man realizes the error of his ways and sees that he has to start treating people better and caring less about his wealth. Despite some kind of internal recognition that greed and the mistreatment of others are wrong, though, people keep doing it. There is still the struggle of wanting to “become” the oppressor, of chasing the mainstream idea of a successful human. This moving of roles, though, from oppressed to oppressor, is not an authentic solution to the problem at hand. Instead, both parties must be liberated, by the hand of the oppressed groups seeking humanity.

Something else that really resonated with me is the idea that even once the issue starts to be authentically resolved, with the oppressed fighting for and gaining their humanity, the former oppressors will start to feel oppressed themselves instead of realizing that both groups are now more liberated. Freire states “conditioned by the experience of oppressing others, any situation other than their former seems to them like oppression. Formerly, they could eat, dress, wear shoes, be educated, travel, and hear Beethoven; while millions did not eat, had no clothes or shoes, neither studied nor traveled, much less
listened to Beethoven. Any restriction on this way of life, in the name of the rights of the community, appears to the former oppressors as a profound violation of their individual rights.” This reminds me of how members of majority groups today complain about minority groups fighting for equal rights. Some straight people will complain that the LGBTQ+ community is “taking over everything,” some white people complain about the Black Lives Matter movement, asking “what about white lives?” These people and others like them miss the point that minority groups have not enjoyed the rights, safety, protections, and freedoms that the majority groups always have. They don’t realize that equal rights are not in finite supply; everyone can and should have them, and everyone should keep fighting until those rights are afforded to all.

There was a part of this chapter that confused me a bit, though I think I may have worked through it. The part is as follows:

The pedagogy of the oppressed, animated by authentic, humanist
(not humanitarian) generosity, presents itself as a pedagogy of
humankind. Pedagogy which begins with the egoistic interests of
the oppressors (an egoism cloaked in the false generosity of paternalism) and makes of the oppressed the objects of its humanitarianism,
itself maintains and embodies oppression. It is an instrument of
dehumanization. This is why, as we affirmed earlier, the pedagogy
of the oppressed cannot be developed or practiced by the oppressors. It would be a contradiction in terms if the oppressors not only
defended but actually implemented a liberating education.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, page 54

I was specifically confused about the last two sentences. Of course, I agreed that the pedagogy could not be developed by oppressors; to be truthful, effective, and humanized, it had to be developed by those who were oppressed. However, I was confused by the notion that oppressors could not practice the pedagogy, either, and that they could not defend or implement a liberating education. Isn’t that the ultimate goal, I asked myself? For mainstream education to make use of this pedagogy in order to start breaking down the walls of oppression? Then I realized…those who are still in an oppressor mindset cannot practically teach a liberating education. In order for one to do so, one has to step out of the role of oppressor and come and work alongside the oppressed, amplifying their voices and following their lead. This, I think, is what Freire meant. It is not that educators who are part of the majority group cannot implement this pedagogy, but rather that they first must be transformed out of their role of the oppressor (even if this transformation requires not a physical change but a mental one) before they can be considered no longer oppressors but allies to the oppressed and therefore appropriately implement a liberating education.

So, these have been (some of!) my thoughts on Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Again, I found the reading extremely insightful and will probably aim to read the rest of the book in my free time, because though I don’t intend to become an educator, I think this is important information to know nonetheless if simply to become a better human being.

This was quite the insightful and interesting read of an analysis of the exploration relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. I feel as if though, Paulo Freire does an amazing job in explaining and touching base on the oppressed with his own cultural experience teaching adults in Brazil how to read and write. One insightful contributing thought Paulo Freire mentions is how, pedagogy the “banking model of education.” He elaborates how it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. Much in comparison to a piggy bank. He further mentions/argues that pedagogy should instead treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge. Which in a sense, once he broke it down in his writing, I can agree.

The book is broke down into four chapters. What I found also fascinating and clearly went over my head, was that the book was first written in Portuguese. After much success after publication, it was later translated to English. Once again, completely went over my head that a Brazilian author would first write his book in Portuguese, rather than English. Nonetheless, this was a good read.

I’ll admit that it was a little difficult for me to get into this text at first, possibly due the translation or the repetitive nature of the writing. This was one of the first pieces we’ve read this semester that wasn’t directly tied to writing or teaching, but its message is still incredibly relevant in those fields.

Paulo Freire starts off the first chapter of his book by explaining his main idea, which is that dehumanization of people is humanity’s biggest problem. This begs the question of whether true humanity, a world in which no one is oppressed by anyone else, is even a realistic possibility.

Freire asserts that there is definitely a need for humanity, as seen by the desire of oppressed groups to achieve freedom and justice from the exploitation and violence of oppressors. He assures readers that dehumanization is not humanity’s destiny just because it has happened so frequently in the past, and that is something that can be overcome.

Due to the inhumane practices that oppression results in, Freire claims that the oppressors themselves are also dehumanized, leaving the task of ending dehumanization and oppression to those who are oppressed. When the world has to rely on oppressed people to first recognize their oppression and then band together to solve it, it’s no wonder oppression has persisted for centuries, especially when you take into consideration the risks that oppressed people face when tackling this task. First, they obviously face retaliation from their oppressors, which could lead to even more violence against the oppressed. This could hinder the oppressed from perceiving their oppression as “a limiting situation which they can transform” (Freire 49). They also tend to distrust their own judgement due to their oppression, making recognizing the oppression even more difficult. Then there’s the risk of the oppressed turning into the oppressors because that’s the only model they have for how things work. And then even if the oppressed do manage to enact change, the former oppressors may feel oppressed because their “rights” have been taken away. (Which rights? Only their “right” to treat other people as subhuman.)

Freire acknowledges that sometimes oppressors can be made to recognize their power and become allies to the oppressed, but there are very specific markers of true solidarity that move beyond the “generous” type of oppressors who don’t see their own faults. Essentially this just boils down to the former oppressors seeing the oppressed people as humans rather than objects, as well as recognizing that throughout history, violence has never been initiated by the oppressed.

I think that Freire certainly understands the root causes of oppression and does a decent job explaining them. It all just seems pretty unfair that the responsibility of ending dehumanization and oppression lies solely on the shoulders of the oppressed. And yet, this fact rings true even today. It is constantly the oppressed groups bringing their oppression to the notice of the oppressors and bystanders, rather than the oppressors coming to the realization that they’re oppressing others. Whether oppression is based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other determining factor, it remains the oppressed groups themselves that are trying to enact change. This should bother more people, but centuries of oppression prove it doesn’t.

Chapter 3 of “Teaching to Transgress” by bell hooks was an enlightening read. On one hand, it’s sad to see that, though this was written years ago, our education system still has many of the same problems regarding teaching in a multicultural setting. On the other hand, though, the existence of scholarship such as that of Dr. April Baker-Bell shows that people are carrying on bell hooks’ work and ideals and are continuing to push for changes in the system.

I found the series of seminars that bell hooks and Chandra Mohanty held at Oberlin to be an excellent idea. hooks talks about the intent to raise critical consciousness, to have a space for constructive confrontation and critical interrogation, and to have a setting for people to voice fears and to discuss what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and why they’re doing it, all in order to help these people shift their paradigms around more inclusive teaching. This all feels especially important today; you can see just by looking at news channels or social media how defensive people get over their mistakes today. When a mistake is pointed out, there’s a huge tendency to become defensive and double down on that mistake rather than accepting the criticism, apologizing, and aiming to improve. These spaces that hooks and Mohanty created seem to aim to move past this defensiveness and help people to actually learn and grow.

hooks mentioned how she and Mohanty felt greatly disappointed when the meetings concluded because they saw just how much work would have to be done, how much the faculty would have to unlearn racism to create and appreciate a new sort of education. They were definitely right in their realization that much work would have to be done, however it is a good thing that hooks, her contemporaries, and educators today continue to pursue this goal. Baker-Bell’s “We Been Knowin: Toward an Antiracist Language &
Literacy Education” gives some examples that clarify why this work is so important.

Baker-Bell’s parents did not finish high school because of negative racial experiences, taught by teachers who believed and upheld racist stereotypes of black students. Baker-Bell herself felt the white-centeredness of the education system when school offered her no opportunity to process the racial violence she’d seen in the police murder of Malice Green. Stories and experiences such as these have led her to pursue questions such as how can she produce anti-racist scholarship and what does racial and linguistic justice look like in literary/language education? She goes on to describe some antiracist critical media literacies such as digital activism as well as a discussion of Black English and how student’s should not be forced away from their own language, in this case a language that is often not even recognized as one. I am reminded of Vershawn Ashanti Young’s work “Should Writer’s Use They Own English?” (link) in which he discusses the harm that standard language ideology does to minorities in academia and how it serves to gatekeep many from entering the field. Young’s work is an excellent and insightful piece that I highly recommend to anyone interested in these ideas of multicultural scholarship/anti-racist scholarship/anti-racist language and literacy education.

Two insightful reads that really dived in deeper on a subject that is there but not something that is talked about enough. While I was reading Teaching to Transgress two things that I found interesting in the reading where; how many people needs to unlearn racism to learn about colonization and declaration, and how the fear of teaching race, sex, and class is rooted in the sear that the class will be uncontrollable. It’s not that I didn’t know these things, or I couldn’t guess; I just don’t think about it enough I guess. In my mind I’m confused as to how many people need to unlearn racism or the fear of teaching. But a big part of that may have to do where I live and my upbringing. Living and growing up in Newark we never faced these issues (not that I am saying people are not racist in Newark) but in school my teachers never had fear on teaching us anything, most of the time we dived deep into class discussions on important issues. But this may center around the fact that Newark is a minority area and many of the teachers are also minorities themselves? I do think that area and where you live plays a role into this and that fear of teaching or having to unlearn racism. Because from my own personal experience from high school to college, nothing was ever off limits when it came to teaching and talking about things that mattered or where important.

In the essay, We Been Knowin’, I definitely agreed with April Baker- Bell when she said that black people play an active role in highlighting, deconstructing, and addressing patterns of media injustice, and engage in Black digital activism to raise awareness of the crisis of racial injustice. One thing that stood out the most to me was the talking of the Trayvon Martin murder. When the incident happen, I was in high school. Close as well to the age of seventeen. During that time, my school devoted time to talking about it and the importance of why America needs to do better and be better. I will say I was shocked when Bell said there were articles that flipped the script and made it seem that George Zimmerman was a good person. Because I never read those articles or even heard of them. From my memory, we knew George Zimmerman was an awful person and during that time period we were all shaken up from the incident. But the fact that there were articles that tried to change that narrative you can see that Black people definitely need to do their role in helping media injustice. But it’s not only them, everyone needs to help this issue. The fact that would even happen after someone dies, is not only disrespectful but morally insane. My mom always said never to speak on someone who has passed away, especially to say wrong or hurtful things about them. But before I keep going on a rant, I do agree with this essay and there needs to be talks and there needs to be a continuation of work being done in efforts to support and raise awareness.

Hi all! Can’t wait to read your blogs & hear your thoughts on the pieces by bell hooks and April Baker-Bell.

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