11 Workshop Eight: Introduction, Ch. 1, and Ch. 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Created by Katia Martha, Sofia Devin, & Kristina Linder (March 2021)
(120min of small group discussion) + (25min — 5 min buffers per section) + (25 min total for breaks) + (10min+ for entire class discussion) = 180min total = 3hrs (with lots of buffer)
PART I: (60min total)
-
Check in
- (10min) How was your week? How is your day going? What’s up?
-
Education of Conformity vs Education for Liberation (20min)
- In the foreword, Richard Schall summarizes Friere’s argument with the claim “”Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes “the practice of freedom,” the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world”
- (5 min) Do you think your experience in education aligns with education for conformity or education for liberation? Was there a mix and/or did it change over time?
- (10 min) Do you agree with Friere/Schall that education must be one or the other, do you think there is a third option? Can education ever be “neutral”?
- In the foreword, Richard Schall summarizes Friere’s argument with the claim “”Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes “the practice of freedom,” the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world”
-
Precision of Language is a Lie (30 min)
- In the introduction, Donaldo Macedo defends the “Marxist jargon” in Friere’s writing, arguing that Friere used the necessary terminology to discuss oppression, and that often the standard academic language “distorts reality” in favor of the oppressors by using passive phrases. Traditional jargon creates “mono-discourses” that form a barrier in academia, facilitating social reproduction by implicitly indicating who is welcome in academia and who is not.
- “It is as if [academics] have assumed that there is a mono-discourse available that is characterized by its clarity and is also equally available to all” (22)
- “This blind and facile call for writing clarity represents a pernicious mechanism used by academic liberals who suffocate discourses different from their own. Such a call often ignores how language is being used to make social inequality invisible” (20)
- (5 min) How have mono-discourses and academic jargon influenced how you understand content? Think about concrete class experiences.
- (5 min) Other than the examples in the text, can you think of common terms where “language is being used to make social inequality invisible”?
- (15 min) How does academic mono-discourse limit who feels welcome in academia? How does academic language perpetuate oppression? How might you combat this as a future educator/member of academia?
-
Banking System vs Posing Theory (20 min)
- In chapter 2, Friere introduces two types of education, the Banking System and Posing Theory, as defined in the quotes below.
- “In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.” (72)
- “Liberating education [Posing Theory] consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information. It is a learning situation in which the cognizable object (far from being the end of the cognitive act) intermediates the cognitive actors — teacher on the one hand and students on the other” (79)
- “The role of the problem-posing educator is to create; together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the doxa is superseded by true knowledge, at the level of the logos.” (81)
- (5 min) Reflecting on your time at the 5C’s how have you experienced banking methods and the problem posing theory? Have you noticed a difference in the way you understand the class’ topics?
- (10 min) Compare Dewey’s “education from within” vs “education from without” with the Banking System vs the Posing Theory. How do these two educational ideologies interact? What about Dewey’s “third possibility”?
TAKE A BREAK (15 min)
PART II: (65min total)
-
Friere and Capitalism (25min)
- The United States is a capitalist country. Friere defines the oppressors as a materialistic class whose primary goal is simply “to-have.” The following questions explore how these two concepts exist simultaneously in the United States and how they might interact.
- “The oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surrounding it into an object of its domination. The earth, the property, production, the creations of people, people themselves, time — everything is reduced to the status of objects at its disposal. In their unrestrained eagerness to possess, the oppressors develop the conviction that it is possible for them to transform everything into objects of their purchasing power; hence their strictly materialistic concept of existence. Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal.” (58)
- (10 min) Using the definition of oppressors as the ones “who have,” how does capitalism influence the cycle of oppression?
- (10 min) How does capitalism influence the discourse on oppression in education?
-
Capitalism and Sub-Oppressors (40 min)
- In chapter 2, Friere extends his ditochomic social classes of the oppressed and the oppressors to include a third group, the sub-oppressors. The following questions explore how sub-oppressors exist in a capitalist society, as well as education.
- “But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or ‘sub-oppressors.’ … Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors.” (45)
- (10 min) Who are the sub-oppressors in a capitalist society? How might capitalism disguise who are oppressors and sub-oppressors?
- (10 min) How can a liberal arts education both fight the oppressive system and also create more sub-oppressors?
- (5 min) Positionality Diagrams. You will need a piece of paper and pen/pencil for this activity. Draw a circle in the center of the paper labeled ‘power’ then write aspects of your identity around this circle (ie white, Christian, etc), where the distance you place the identity word from the center indicates how close of a relationship there is to dominant powers (‘white’ would be placed very close to the ‘power’ center) and thus how much power/advantage/privilege you gain from this aspect of your identity. (You will not have to share this later). This is an activity to encourage personal reflection on your relationship to dominant powers/your privileges- it is not shameful to have privilege, but it is important to be aware of it.
- (10 min) How does socioeconomic class and personal identity create contradictions that influence a person’s identity as either an oppressor or oppressed or both? How might this influence how someone engages with education for liberation vs education for conformity?
Reconvene with entire class and take break (10min)
-
(10 min at minimum) Entire class discussion
-
Class ends! 3:45pm