Human Nature Has No Heirarchy: 
Reflections on Paulo Freire's Theory Of Conscientization
Julie Bolt, 1999.
In Freirian fashion, I must confront my own political reality as I prepare to discuss Pedagogy of the Oppressed . I will confront my own economic and educational privileges. I am a woman from the urban Northeast of the United States who grew up in a two room apartment with struggling actors for parents. While my parents had little money, they had the political luxury of big dreams, and although we had to count change we had enough economic security that we never went hungry. As an adult I have the advantage of being able to pursue higher education and work that I love. I now read Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a woman who is a teacher and who is aware that the classroom is, by its nature, a political arena. By teaching I am engaging in a political act.
I waited too long to read Paulo Freire's seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, However, I remember reading the following questions from Paulo Freire's A Pedagogy for Liberation in the beginning of my career. They have been formative because I know that everyday I work with students I must answer contend with these questions:
What kind of politics am I doing in the classroom?
That is, in favor of whom am I being a teacher?
Questions about political identity and agency are of central concern in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It is important to point out that at the heart of Freire's pedagogy, these questions are not only for the teacher and the teacher's self-critique, but for and with the students. For Freire, liberation occurs as one thinks critically about identity and agency in relations to one's political circumstance. In this essay I hope to connect three strands: the political perspective offered in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the current relevancy of Freire's perspective in classrooms in the Americas, and the specific implications for teachers like myself.
Central to Freire's political perspective is the notion that inequity causes the oppressed to project the oppressors value system inside of them. This double consciousness is oppressive in the psychological sense, augmenting economic oppression. I believe that the practical intent of the book is to liberate the oppressed. The tricky part for educators is to remember is that the liberation must come from within the oppressed individual, a process that is stimulated from dialog and mutually questioning. Pedagogy of the Oppressed suggests that institutional knowlege is compartmentalized, that critical understanding is fragmented, and since power is not truly shared, revolution is in order. Unlike some of Freire's contemporary revolutionaries from Latin America, his revolution occurs through problem-posing, organization, love of others, resistance of the institutions that perpetuate the status quo, and through the steadfast belief that human nature does not have a hierarchy. His political perspectives are inexorably concerned with practice: "the objective of any true revolution -- requires that people act, as well as reflect, upon the reality to be transformed" (111). Action for transformation is an imperative for Freire since he holds that if there is an oppressed group in society, all of society is dehumanized -- including the oppressors. It is dehumanization which most concerns Freire and compels him to create a pedagogy that focuses on conscientization or the process of engaging in critical thought about one's reality.
Freire views his pedagogy as a perspective or way of being in the world, and in Pedagogy of the Oppressed does not bind it to physical examples like classroom teaching. Instead his pedagogy elucidates the psychological dynamics of power and the dialogical process of the burgeoning critical consciousness that moves people away from an oppressed or dehumanized state.
Freire's frames his discussion in a psychological-political context of social stratification, economic alienation, and "fear of freedom." For the oppressed, fear of freedom results from years of tolerating imposed and indoctrinating social roles; these dehumanizing roles have shaped their physical and mental landscapes. In Freire's view, fear of freedom can be addressed by illuminating "education as the practice of freedom -- as opposed to education as the practice of domination" (62). Of course by limiting the landscapes of the oppressed, the oppressors secure their own social roles. Perpetuation of the fear of freedom is "indispensable for the preservation of the status quo" (120). "Banking education," the depositing of information from one human from another, serves as a means of institutionalizing oppression. "Banking education" not only occurs in the classroom, but through the media, politics and any other social institution that is not actively involved in conscientization or self-critique. Freire maintains that banking education is "essential to the subjugation of the oppressed, (and is) presented to them by well-organized propaganda and slogans, via the mass 'communications' media -- as if such alienation constituted real communication" (121).
Freire's political response to banking system is to generate a "problem posing education." This is a method of political commitment: the oppressed and former oppressors dialog facilitates the cognitive act of "conscientization," or the conscious process of being and taking action in the world. "The important thing, from the point of view of liberation education," writes Freire, "is for the people to come to feel like masters of their thinking by discussing their thinking and views of the world explicitly or implicitly manifest in their own suggestions and those of their comrades. Because this view of education starts with the conviction that it cannot present its own program but must search for this program dialogically with the people, it serves to introduce the pedagogy of the oppressed, in the elaboration of which the oppressed must participate" (105).
Supported by this dialogical framework, Freire presents a version of social change that can not be offered from"top-down" but from "bottom-up," from and with the people. Freire is clear that any other configuration is oppressive and dehumanizing. While unsparingly pointing out the psychology of the oppressor, Freire's precise analysis insists we evaluate our own culpability.Pedagogy of the Oppressed is continually challenging the position of the reader, implicating the reader within its argument, refusing the reader room to justify her or his perspectives outside of the parameters of Freire's dichotomies. The dichotomies which Freire engages include: the oppressed and oppressors; objects of the historical processes and "active Subjects"; "liberation education" and "banking" education.
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire is not interested in gray matter. In his configuration of power struggles, one must choose sides. He steadfastly maintains that only through active choice, and resulting participation, can social change occur. Otherwise those of us who are literate are, through apathy, aligned with the oppressors. Freire maintains, "To simply think about people, as dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders" (113). Anticipating naysayers, Freire's arguments are precise, as he walks us through the nuances of his analysis. However by introducing conscientization, Freire challenges us to question him, as well as ourselves. (His own process of conscientization is supported by the self-critique he engages in over the course of his career.) Given the knowledge that Pedagogy was influenced by Freire's work with the poor in the countryside of Brazil, one must question his relevancy today in classrooms across the Americas. I would like to suggest that Freire's analysis continues to have social-political implications beyond Brazil. While considering the book's relevancy, it must be re-emphasizes that Freire does sees critical consciousness as a step towards revolution. It ills serves educators who apply Freire to water this reality down. However, we should consider the kind of revolution that Freire is interested in; this will illuminate our discussion of his relevancy.
Freire is concerned with the psycho-social processes that make revolution possible, as discussed above. His is a revolution of thought, organization and consciousness. It is a revolution against passivity and alienation, and there is no indication that the result of this liberation is violence. Freire reminds us that "liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it. Those truly committed to the cause of liberation" Freire tells us, "can accept neither the mechanistic view of consciousness as an empty vessel to be filled, not use of the banking methods of domination (propaganda, slogans --deposits) in the name of liberation" (60). This kind of liberation -- and revolution -- is only just; it is a basic human right.Although Freire does not usher us through a literal classroom door in the pages of Pedagogy, the implications for classroom teachers, and for anyone concerned with education or social justice, remain profound.
Let me invoke two classroom configurations we are all familiar with. The first is the traditional classroom, its rows of desks are lined up facing one person only: the all-knowing teacher. In this context students are passive receptacles of information, without agency and political voice. The teacher is not reinforcing the validity of the student's mind, instead the teachers is affirming his or her power over the other people in the room. In contrast is the other configuration, the informal circle, where every person can see all the others, suggesting that the students' will also have worthwhile contributions to bring the table. It is the latter student-based configuration that is associated with the liberatory teaching of Paulo Freire. However, it is striking that in the work Freire is most known for, he doesn't directly depict the literal classrooms at all.I believe Freire is interested in universality and, therefore, resists bounding the context. Since I see hegemony struggles continuing today across the Americas, learning conscientization is a valuable tool not only for larger social change but for individual freedom and agency. Freire would argue that like the oppressed in Brazil, people of the Americas need to question the status quo, and see ourselves in connection to the struggles of others, for perceiving ourselves as outside of the struggle is the best way to preserve hegemony.
Is the book relevant for educators and scholars in The United States at the brink of the twenty-first century? I maintain that today there are still degrees of illiteracy and considerable educational and economic inequity in The United States. I am not convinced that impoverished urban areas such as the South Bronx in New York; Camden, New Jersey; downtown Detroit; and no doubt rural areas as well, have comparable poverty, violence and injustice as Freire's Brazil or other distressed areas in Latin America. Furthermore, the society as a whole suffers from a severe superiority complex, a belief in U.S. cultural hegemony. I believe that we need to be more conscious of moving from our role as oppressor, not only in terms of foreign policy, but in terms of identity and human interaction.Therefore, Pedagogy of the Oppressed remains relevant. Implementation of Freire's pedagogy in our society means we will have tools to become critical consumers, learning to question banking institutions, and to evaluate the praxis through which we receive information.
The book remains a call to action. It is not just about dynamics in Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s, but it speaks to our world, our history, our culture(s). Pedagogy of the Oppressed has a lot to say which is useful for classroom teachers like myself. It says that we are -- and I am -- in political positions where, if we believe in revolution, we must stand alongside our students and rigorously challenge the structures we take for granted, including our social identities. I consider this an honor and agree with Freire when he says, "People are fulfilled only to the extent that they create their world (which is a human world), and create it with their transforming labor" (126).
I know for me the best part of privileges I have had is that I can put them to use while working with others for revolution.
Again, I hear the question: What revolution? The revolution that is the process of conscientization. It is a revolution that amounts to more than sitting in a circle. It is more than a method. For Freire, who died this past year, revolution was a way of life, a way of seeing oneself in relation to ones world, a way of gaining hope and meaning through agency. Perhaps that is why Freire doesn't bother us with the classroom, but focuses on the real spaces, the real mental and emotional landscapes where liberation happens.
Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. NY, NY: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1970
