Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Paulo Freire

Authentic reflection considers neither abstract man nor the world without people, but peo-ple in their relations with the world.

In these relations consciousness and world are simultaneous: consciousness neither precedes the world nor follows it.

La conscience et le monde sont donnés d’un même coup: exté-rieur par essence à la conscience, le monde es...

“There would be no one to say: ‘This is a world’.”

there would be lack-ing the consciousness of the world which necessarily implies the world of consciousness.

The world which brings consciousness into existence becomes the world of that consciousness.

“La conscience et le monde sont donnés d’un même coup.”

Every perception of a thing has such a zone of background intuitions or background awareness, if “intuiting” already includes the state of being turned towards, and this also is a “conscious experience”, or more briefly a “consciousness of” all indeed that in point of fact lies in the co-perceived objective background.

Thus, men and women begin to single out elements from their “background awareness” and to reflect upon them. These elements are now objects of their consideration, and, as such, objects oftheir action and cognition.

people develop their power to per-ceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.

In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people’s historicity as their starting point.

Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming—as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality.

Education is thus constantly remade in the praxis. In order to be, it must become.

The banking method emphasizes permanence and becomes reactionary; problem-posing education—which accepts neither a “well-behaved” present nor a predetermined future—roots itself in the dynamic present and becomes revolutionary.

Problem-posing education is revolutionary futurity.

The point of departure of the movement lies in the people themselves. But since people do not exist apart from the world, apart from reality, the movement must begin with the human-world relationship.

they must perceive their state not as fated and unalterable, but merely as limiting—and therefore challenging.

As the situation becomes the object of their cognition, the naïve or magical perception which produced their fatalism gives way to perception which is able to perceive itself even as it perceives reality, and can thus be critically objective about that reality.

Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.

No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so. Attempting to be more human, individualistically, leads to having more, egotistically, a form of dehumanization.

some men’s having must not be allowed to constitute an obstacle to others’ having, must not consolidate the power of the former to crush the latter.

Problem-posing education,

enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality.

Problem-posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor.

the revolutionary leaders need not take full power before they can employ the method.

the leaders cannot utilize the banking method as an interim measure, justified on grounds of expediency, with the intention of later behaving in a genuinely revolutionary fashion. They must be revolutionary—that is to say, dialogical—from the outset.

CHAPTER 3

the word.

Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed—even in part—the other immediately suffers.

There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis.

Thus, to speak a true word is to transf...

An unauthentic word, one which is unable to transform reality, results when dichotomy is imposed upon its constitutive elements.

verbalism,

an alienated and alienating “blah.”

there is no transformation without action.

On the other hand, if action is emphasized exclusively, to the detriment of reflection, the word is converted into activism.

Human existence cannot be silent, nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which men and women transform the world.

Human beings are not built in silence,3 but in word, in work, in action-reflection.

But while to say the true word

is to transform the world, saying that word is not the privilege of some few persons, ...

no one can say a true word alone—nor can she say it for another, in a prescriptive act which ...

Dialogue is the encounter between men, mediat...

name the ...

dialogue cannot occur between those who want to name the world and those who do not wish this naming—between those who deny others the right to speak their word and th...

And since dialogue is the encounter in which the united reflection and action of the dialoguers are addressed to the world which is to be transformed and humanized, this dialogue cannot be re-duced to the act of one person’s “depositing” ideas in another, nor canit become a simple exchange of ideas to be “consumed” by the discussants.

Because dialogue is an encounter among women and men who name the world, it must not be a situation where some name on behalf of others.

The naming of the world, which is an act of creation and re-creation, is not possible if it is not infused with love.

Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself.

Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is commitment to others.

As an act of bravery, love cannot be sentimental; as an act of freedom, it must not serve as a pretext for manipulation.