Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”

          Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” establishes a grand connection between dehumanization and the relationship between oppressors and the oppressed and the teaching methods and philosophies used today.  Future educators such as myself have some experience with either being oppressed or being an oppressor.  I myself identify as a mixed racial, gay male and therefore have fitted into the category of the oppressed for a majority of my life.  Through my own experience and the logic of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” I have found an understanding about how the identity of the oppressor is dependent on the existence of the oppressed. 

            The oppressor, if we are to understand is the majority of the populace, is often in control of the systematic ideas that govern the society in which they are inscribed to.  Those who fall outside of the majority – that is to say those without power – and yet are still inscribed into the same society are the oppressed.  In Freire’s understanding, the oppressor “dehumanizes” the existence in the oppressed in order to subjugate them into a structure that they appear as a subspecies and therefore give all power to the oppressor.  The idea of freedom comes from the oppressor and is manifested as fear; a fear of the oppressed realizing the contradictions that exist within their system and taking the form of a revolution.  The fear of freedom gives birth to changes in society that may force the oppressor to recognize injustices that have existed since the establishment of their society.  Freire’s institution makes intuitions about the realities that exist in every society that anchor all members within that society to identify as either the oppressor or the oppressed.

            Each society implements discourses that ensure anyone inscribed to said discourses are bound to follow the social constructs and maintain the social order.  In chapter two, Freire tackles the ideas of his previous chapter discussing the ideas of the oppressed and the oppressor and integrates it to the classroom experience.  Freire identifies that the teacher is the oppressor and the students are the oppressed.  If we are to follow the model that Freire sets up for us, what we are to understand is that teachers “deposit” information into the students’ minds; this model is akin to a bank accounting system of learning.  Students – the “receptacles” of knowledge – are told by the society to obey their oppressors and collect information and retain it as a test to become “humanized.”  What this leads me to believe from Freire’s point of view is that students do not question what they are learning but rather are taught to obey.  If this is true, then the oppressors are not “humanizing” them but keep them “dehumanized” and never reaching their full potential as both students and as human beings.  If we are to fully recognize the students as successful members of society, teachers should really be teaching them to question all things in their classroom: reality. 

            Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” has illuminated new ideas about teaching that I had not had before.  Being able to define the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed as well as how viewing students as “receptacles” dehumanizes them and keeps them in a perpetual state of oppressed are just a few of the ideas that Freire has identified to me in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”  Freire’s institution also helped me redefine my own teaching methodology and even refined my teaching philosophy.  If I were to add anything, it would be to pose the question “How do we reinvent the way in which all teachers teach their students?”  How do we help all students in every class reach a new level of meaningful existence?  Perhaps by teaching students to question everything in order to understand the relationship between themselves and our society, future learners can disassemble the established notions imposed by societies that we don’t need to dehumanize or oppress anyone.