Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in its first chapter, outlines oppression as a system in which both oppressors and oppressed are held captive by the forces of oppression. Freire emphasizes the significance of the fact that oppressed peoples cannot simply reverse the roles of oppression in order to achieve full humanity; Freire calls it “human completion”. Freire suggests that there is a natural phenomenon for the oppressed, after revolution, to take on the role of oppressor, because their entire framework of being exists within the frameworks of oppression. This is perhaps the most frightening moment in any revolution, thus, because in the moment in which the oppressed are no longer the oppressed, the moment that the power shifts into their hands, they must either simply reverse the balances of power and maintain the same system of oppression that enslaved them (and will continue to do so even if they take on the role of oppressor) or they must disacknowledge the entire system of oppression entirely and join with their oppressors. Freire writes, “If the goal of the oppressed is to become fully human, they will not achieve their goal by merely reversing the terms of the contradiction, by simply changing poles (56).

Freire also emphasizes the oppressors cannot simply engage in “false charity” in which they use the economic influence to further oppress. Freire suggests instead that “true charity” involves “fighting the causes which nourish false charity” (45). In order for the oppressors to break free from their own bonds, they must fight alongside the oppressed; Freire states that “solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary” (49). Breaking free from the chains of oppression is in many ways as difficult a struggle for the oppressors as for the oppressed; in both, people must throw off ingrained ideologies of seeing people as things and not fully human entities. Solidarity requires the oppressed and the oppressors to merge into one force: “no pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates…” (54).

An important part of critical literacy is applying our readings to the world around us and considering current world events, the most striking example in the world today of this type of transition of power is happening in Iraq. In Iraq today, we see a system in which the oppressed have become the oppressors. Those Shiite Muslims once politically oppressed by Saddam Hussein and the Sunni Muslims have no reversed the power structure in that country so that they now have become the oppressors. The cell phone video recording of Hussein’s execution sadly has the same feel of oppression and tyrannous hatred that Hussein himself was tried for just months ago. It frightens me, makes me wonder what is to come next. Has the point already passed in which it was possible for Iraq to overthrow its own system of oppression. How many times must the cycles of revenge and hatred repeat themselves before humankind can see its own futility?

Another important issue that comes up for me in this early stage of my re-reading of Freire involves how this work is to be used by future teachers. How is this book a work about teaching at this point. I make the connection myself because of my other reading, but I am not sure that it would be entirely clear to a student coming to this book for the first time. I think, though, there are a couple of points in the chapter that begin to allude to the importance of this book for teachers – the most important one being its closing paragraph:

A revolutionary leadership must accordingly practice co-intentional education. Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent recreators. In this way, the presence of the oppressed in the struggle for their liberation will be what it should be: not pseudo-participation, but committed involvement.

Sitting back, in the comfort of my office, in the leisure time of my early morning reading session, I could not help but feel more an oppressor as I read this book than a member of the oppressed. Certainly, in many ways, I fit into the category of the oppressed, but in many more ways, I tend to feel as though it is me who must continue to change, to constantly renew my own involvement in the struggle for liberation. Thinking about the role I play in society with my profession, I have the amazing opportunity to get involved through teaching, through reaching out not only to the many students I have, but also indirectly through my contact with other teachers and future teachers. I have the opportunity, thus, as do all teachers, to make a huge and committed change in the world, first by being that type of a force in my own world, by being involved, but even moreso by bring to the attention of my students their own need to become this changing force in the world. Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a book about teaching, a book for teachers, and even though it may not always feel that way while reading this book, I feel reassured in knowing that it directed towards teachers, from Freire, a teacher himself, because teachers, above all others, have the opportunity to get involved and make a huge difference in the world all around them for affecting social change.