Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition

This is a truely radical book. It hits at the very root of a major problem in the human situation. It is pretty heady, but worth the thought. The main message of getting people to realize that they have a voice and that they can take responsbility for their own destiny is a lesson that we all have to learn both in poverty stricken devoloping nations and the U.S. I am a changed person since reading it, and that was 4 years ago!

As Freire makes it clear, the "Oppressed", as far as learning and growth are concerned, are not only the disenfranchised but the elite as well. Anyone who hears and responds to the call of service in the extrication of human consciousness from the oblivion of fear, ignorance and greed to the realization of freedom, self-realization, ordinary imperfect reality (and a few other pleasant experiences, chockful of collective joy and progress) will be very happy to have this book. As a (current) teacher of incarcerated adolescents and adults on Rikers Island, New York City - I know that Paulo Freire speaks the truth - and that his so-called abstract theories (by self-involved, rationalizing, "thinking and writing for that next grant" pandering intellectuals) are rooted in the concrete realities of the human condition. Thus, they are catalysts for concrete results in discovery, surprise, laughter and joyful learning (for both student/teachers and teacher/students) in my jailhouse classroom.

The most widely known educator in the world died on May 2, 1997. Paulo Freire leaves a legacy of dogged struggle for democracy, equality, and the social consciousness required to envision and retain a more just world. In his most widely read book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire detailed the role of education as a political force---for either liberation or domination. He argued that the process of liberatory education, reflecting the specific intersections of an educator, a student, and a community, must be a process of unveiling, questioning the central issues of life: work, culture and the construction of knowledge. He opposed his pedagogy to "banking " practices, rote memorization of the teacher's facts, which he insisted only reproduce injustice by aculturing the student to passivity. A critical education, in contrast, assists the students in methods to unravel her world--and the words which hide or expose its realities, While Freire was never able to resolve the shipwreck contradiciton of socialism, critical consciousness versus national economic development, his insistence on the need for new styles of education and leadership, coupled with his own lifetime of activism, leave an indominatable testimony of hope. Most educators want to change the world. Freire did