Pedagogy of the Oppressed

In Chapter 3, Freire elaborates his concept of problem-posing education. He outlines its theoretical framework and describes how it should be implemented among impoverished people. Freire’s guiding belief is that the oppressed must help create the content of problem-posing education with their teachers; they “must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption” (54).

To create a pedagogy with—not simply for—the oppressed, dialogue between the teacher/student and student/teachers is absolutely crucial. Freire contends that it is through dialogue that humans name the world, and in that naming, transform the world: “To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it . . . Dialogue is the encounter between men, mediated by the world, in order to name the world . . . [and] is thus an existential necessity” (88). Dialogue, Freire believes, is essential to fulfill our vocation of becoming more fully human.

Freire identifies six conditions, or elements, of authentic dialogue. Love “for the world and for people” is necessary. Love generates commitment to the oppressed in the cause of their liberation and is a pre-requisite for establishing a dialogical relationship with them. Humility is also essential; dialogue is incompatible with an elitist attitude and defensiveness on the part of the teacher.

Faith in people is also ana prioiri requirement for dialogue, and mutual trust between teacher and student the logical consequence of dialogue rooted in love, humility and faith. Furthermore, an attitude of hope nurtures dialogue—the hope, shared with others, of attaining the fuller completion of our humanity. Finally, dialogue requires critical thinking— “thinking which discerns an indivisible solidarity between the world and the people . . . thinking which perceives reality as process, as transformation, rather than as a static entity” (92). Critical thinking enables the recognition of the world and our existential condition within it as a totality; it rejects the division of reflection from action or of people from the world.

Having established the value of dialogue, Freire turns to the content of dialogical education. Unlike the banking approach, problem-posing education doesn’t consist of disconnected fragments of information dispensed by the teacher to the student via monologue. Rather, it is “the organized, systematized, and developed ‘re-presentation’ to individuals of the things about which they want to know more” (93).

Freire quotes Mao Zedong in support of this idea: “we must teach the masses clearly what we have received from them confusedly” (93). The teacher-student cannot impose his own knowledge or liberating program upon the oppressed in an effort to “save” them. He must dialogue with them to discover “both their objective situation and their awareness of that situation” (95). These, in turn, form the initial content of both education and political action:

The starting point for organizing the program content of education or political action must be the present, existential, concrete situation, reflecting the aspirations of the people. Utilizing certain basic contradictions, we must pose this . . . situation to the people as a problem which challenges them and requires a response—not just at the intellectual level, but at the level of action (96).

The views of the oppressed, whether expressed consciously or through their actions, reflect their situation in the world, which is rife with contradictions. These contradictions, such as that between the desire for economic security and being impoverished, impose limitations upon men and women. These limitations, or “limit-situations” as Freire terms them, hinder the self-affirmation of oppressed individuals. They imply (and call for) “limit-acts”—conscious, liberating actions to overcome the limiting situation.

For example, “underdevelopment, which cannot be understood apart from the relationship of dependency, represents a limit-situation characteristic of societies in the Third World” (103). The limit-act, or task, needed to address this socioeconomic problem is increased development. This will overcome the inequality that exists between developed, metropolitan societies in the first world and the dependent societies of the third world.

When perceived correctly, limit-situations oblige us to act in the interest of freedom. However, the concrete situation of oppression instills a fatalistic attitude and resignation in the oppressed, and distorts their perception of reality.

Freire emphasizes, therefore, that the object of the humanist educator and revolutionary is to understand and transform the oppressive reality, not simply indoctrinate the oppressed with a gospel of salvation. Focusing on understanding the “thought-language with which men and women refer to reality [and] the levels at which they perceive that reality,” teacher and student work together to investigate the people’s “thematic universe” (97). This collaborative investigation identifies, and raises awareness of, the (often latent) “themes” that collectively embody the people’s “ideas, values, concepts, and hopes, as well as the obstacles which impede the people’s full humanization” (101).

Certain themes characterize historical epochs and contain the contradictions within society that are in conflict. For example, the themes of domination and liberation form the fundamental contradiction of our time. These universal themes relate to other relevant themes that may be found in smaller-scale social groups, such as alcoholism among the working urban poor in Chile.

The task of the problem-posing educator is to unearth the network of a people’s “generative themes,” presenting them as interrelated aspects of the group’s total reality. If these themes are too hidden for people to perceive easily, Freire suggests they may be presented in a “concrete existential, ‘coded’ situation” (105). This can be done by means of a photograph or sketch depicting a meaningful situation that the student-teachers “decode,” enabling them to recognize their existential situation and the theme(s) it contains. Having identified their generative themes in collaboration with the students, the educator re-presents those themes to them, not as a lecture, but as a group of problems requiring action.

Analyzing these themes in relation to each other enables men and women to develop a “critical form of thinking about their world [and] . . . a new, critical attitude towards the limit-situations” (104). With a true knowledge of reality, the oppressed “come to feel like masters of their thinking” and realize the genuine possibility of overcoming their limit-situations through action (124). From this emergence, men and women discover their ability to transform their historical situation. This, in sum, is the practice of conscientização.

The chapter concludes with a discussion of how educators might use the problem-posing method in designing an adult education program for a group of peasants with a high percentage of illiteracy. Freire stresses the importance of including a representative group of students to collaborate with the educators, carry out sociological observations of the peasant population, identify and codify their themes, and decode these representations in study circles.

Introducing students to the anthropological concept of culture is particularly important to facilitate their analysis and discussion of their themes. As students identify new topics they wish to discuss, the teacher/student will re-pose those themes as problems. This problematizing of themes frequently suggests additional themes to students. In this manner, the program of problem-posing education is discovered through dialogue with the students, rather than given to them by their teachers.