Pedagogy Of Oppression

This paper is a critical analysis of chapters one and two from the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed written by Paulo Freire. This paper will be, in part, a conversation and provide us with a framework of what oppression is and how complex the relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor is. The author of the book, as mentioned before, is Paulo Freire. Freire is a Social Philosopher who is best known for his work in educational theory. His philosophy is all about bottom-up activism and action versus top-down action. Freire was born in 1921 in Recife, Brazil in what was described as “the center of the most extreme situation of poverty and underdevelopment in the Third World” (Freire, 2005, p. 30). With that, he saw the condition of oppression

the radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a ‘circle of certainty’ within which reality is also imprisoned” (Freire, 2005, p. 37-39). Radicalization is about challenging the oppressor and oppressive system and the oppressors themselves. According to Freire, there is a complex relationship between the oppressed and oppressors. The oppressed are trying to liberate themselves from the oppressors and the oppressive system itself. The oppressed are challenging the oppressive system that does not see them as human or equal to that of the oppressors. The goal of the oppressed, according to Freire, is to become humanized because “dehumanization is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order.” So no one is by destiny born oppressed but it may seem this way because a person is born into a society that oppresses an individual based on the colour of their skin, what category of class they fall into, what gender they are, what their sexuality is, among many other factors. Therefore, the oppressors believe that for example someone who is born as black is different from someone who is white because whiteness becomes normalized in society and based on racist

While he does not fully expand on this notion, I believe that Freire was warning the oppressed that many of the oppressors will try and make it seem like they are helping the oppressed by giving them back some rights and freedoms but ultimately they are doing this as a way to make it seem like they are making the oppressed more humanized when they (the oppressor) are actually maintaining their privilege as the the oppressor. That is why the pedagogy of the oppressed “must be forged with, not for the oppressed” (Freire, 2005, p. 48). The author is reinstating here that pedagogy is a process that is supposed to have full representation of the oppressed not something a pedagogy that contradicts itself; a pedagogy written by the oppressor, for the oppressed. It is important to understand, especially for someone who is white and writing a paper on pedagogy of the oppressed, that for example everyone who is white is part of the oppressive system and is in turn an oppressor because they benefit from white privilege whether they choose too or not. Now this does not mean that people who are a part of the oppressive system cannot change that system but they must also be willing to take action and challenge