Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Chapter 2
This episode is episode two of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 2, which discusses the “banking” approach to education that assumes students are repositories of information, and then proposes a liberatory approach to education that focuses on posing problems that students and teachers collaboratively solve. If you haven’t listened to the discussion on the first chapter, click here.
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welcome back to another episode of the
cska podcast my name is jared o'leary
in this week's episode i am unpacking
some scholarship
in particular i'm reading chapter two
from the book pedagogy of the oppressed
by paulo freire if you haven't listened
to the unpacking scholarship episode
from two weeks ago
which talks about chapter one i highly
recommend starting there first
and the reason why is because chapter
two builds off of
the discussions on oppressors and the
oppressed
that were introduced in chapter one in
chapter two however which i'm going to
chat about today
we're going to talk more about well what
does oppression look like in education
and what can teachers actually do about
it
so in particular this chapter is going
to introduce one of the
more famous concepts that came out of
this book which is the banking concept
of education
so to give you a taste of what this
chapter is all about here is a quote
from page
the opening paragraphs
of this particular chapter quote a
careful analysis of the teacher-student
relationship
at any level inside or outside the
school reveals its fundamentally
narrative character
this relationship involves a narrating
subject the teacher
and patient listening objects the
students the contents whether values or
empirical dimensions of reality
tend in the process of being narrated to
become lifeless and petrified
education is suffering from narration
sickness
the teacher talks about reality as if it
were motionless static
compartmentalized and predictable or
else he expounds on a topic completely
alien to the existential
experience of the students his task is
to
fill the students with the contents of
his narration
contents which are detached from reality
disconnected from the totality that
engendered them
and could give them significance words
are emptied of their concreteness and
become a hollow
alienated and alienating verbosity end
quote
all right so this kind of outlines the
main point of this particular chapter
so freya is basically arguing what many
of the guests and myself have argued on
this podcast
in that education can be
decontextualized
from what kids actually want to learn
and things that are relevant to them
and in their lives and this can give it
this lifeless feel
and makes it so that it comes across as
the teacher is
filling the students with irrelevant
information so let's explore this a
little bit more in the chapter
so freddy argues this turns students
into containers or
receptacles that are passively being
filled with decontextualized information
by the narrator or teacher this approach
quote
attempts to control thinking in action
leads to women and men to adjust to the
world
and inhibits their creative power end
quote from page 71
this idea of narrating two students and
students being the passive listeners
is an approach that freyri refers to as
a banking system of education
where teachers are basically depositing
information to students
who are the passive recipients of
knowledge so here's a quote from page 66
that
kind of unpacks that a little bit more
quote in the banking concept of
education
knowledge is a gift bestowed by those
who consider themselves knowledgeable
upon those whom they consider to know
nothing projecting an absolute ignorance
onto others
a characteristic of the ideology of
oppression negates education
and knowledge as processes of inquiry
the teacher presents himself to his
students
as their necessary opposite by
considering their ignorance absolute he
justifies his own existence
the students alienated like the slave
and the hegelian dialectic
accept their ignorance as justifying the
teacher's existence
but unlike the slave they never discover
that they educate the teacher
end quote so in other words building off
of the stuff that was discussed two
weeks ago from chapter one
the teacher is essentially acting as a
an oppressor
and the student is the person who's
being oppressed because there's an
assumption that the students know
nothing
and that is the teacher's job to teach
them everything
so freyry suggests a liberatory approach
to education
actually involves acknowledging that the
juxtaposition of student and teacher is
false
as students can be teachers and teachers
can be students
as myself and many of the guests on the
show have iterated
you learn a lot from working with kids
they can teach you some really awesome
things that you may have never even
considered or known about
and obviously the inverse is also true
kids can learn a lot from you
so we we need to acknowledge that that
relationship
exists and that both parties can learn
from each other
this is one of the reasons why i
mentioned in previous episodes that i
prefer to call myself a facilitator
or somebody who facilitates so i design
and facilitate educational experiences
and i help kids learn in those processes
however i am also learning alongside
them
and we are constructing the learning
environment together we'll talk about
that a little bit more
in this episode in the episode two weeks
from now okay so you might be wondering
how is banking a form of oppression so
freyri
suggests that quote the more completely
students accept the passive role imposed
on them
the more they tend simply to adapt to
the world as it is
and to the fragmented view of reality
deposited in them
end quote from page 67 and i modified
the word
they to students if we tie it back to
what was discussed two weeks ago
in the in chapter one if oppressors
actually encourage
critical thinking and transformation by
the people they are oppressing
this would likely result in a shift in
power or a shift in a socially
constructed way of being
that is designed to serve the oppressors
in other words by not teaching
kids how to do critical thinking and how
to transform
their current situations teachers can
perpetuate a form of oppression
where students are unquestioning
their position as the unknowing and the
teacher as the person who knows
now again tying back to the episode two
weeks ago on chapter one
the oppressors use language such as
welfare recipient or incompetent and
lazy to describe people who are
participating in a program that is
designed to make people
want to integrate or be incorporated
into what is considered a quote healthy
society
however this healthy society is actually
one that continues to maintain this
power imbalance
so in other words oppressors view those
who are oppressed
as lesser than unless they are striving
towards becoming
a fellow oppressor or simply somebody
who follows the
rules that were set in place by the
oppressor
and only work toward the advantage of
those who are oppressing others
tying this back into the classroom we
can say that certain ways
of being a student are considered to be
the appropriate ways of being a student
while others are not
as i mentioned two weeks ago some
examples might include
not questioning the teacher not being
able to propose your own assessment or
your own
demonstration of understanding through a
project that you choose
or even as a teacher who is oppressed by
administrators or standards or state
policies or whatever
not being able to teach units or lessons
on subjects that are
interesting to you and the kids that you
work with within
a given broader topic such as computer
science these are all forms of
oppression
and the language that is used to oppress
people often positions
people who are not behaving as designed
in a negative light and the people who
are following the rules essentially
are positioned positively this makes it
so that
students try and integrate into what is
considered to be
the appropriate ways of behaving as well
as teachers to
integrate into what are considered to be
the appropriate ways of being an
educator
okay so if we go with the notion that
teaching can be a form of oppression
especially in this banking form of
teaching that
freyri is mentioning what can educators
do about this to prevent this
so freddie suggests liberatory educators
can actually focus on
trusting students and their creative
powers through a partnership between
students and teachers rather than a
domestication of students
and this is where freire introduces an
idea of
a teacher student with a hyphen in
between and a student teacher with a
hyphen in between
that phrasing of a teacher hyphen
student is basically what i
refer to as a facilitator so somebody
who takes on the role
of trusting students and encouraging
creativity
and learning alongside and from students
rather than trying to domesticate them
into
some way of thinking or knowing a
particular topic or subject like
computer science
another way that we could describe this
is epistemological colonization
in other words we are taking over the
ways of thinking
and knowing that students value and
supplanting our own
again all of this likely occurring
unconsciously by
educators now interestingly freyri
suggests that
people who are educated through a
banking approach
are actually well suited to perpetuate
the systems of oppression
that were likely unknowingly oppressing
the person being educated
so here's a quote from page 70. quote
the educated individual
is the adapted person because she or he
is better fit for the world
translated into practice this concept is
well suited to the purposes
of the oppressors whose tranquility
rests on how well
people fit the world the oppressors have
created
and how little they question it end
quote so in other words if
you like myself have advanced degrees in
education
you likely have gone through many years
of
a banking approach that rewards certain
ways of
being a student and punishes others same
thing for being a teacher
community member etc although subtle
these are all technically signs of
oppression
that influence the way that you teach
and what you think of as quality
education
and when i say you i also include me
within that the ways that i
facilitate and the things that i talk
about on this podcast are certainly
influenced by
other individuals such as freddy and
other authors that i've already talked
about
and other theoretical frameworks in
education that i may have not even been
aware of that were influencing me
and the things that i was reading or
experiencing etc
however that being said educators who
are actually interested in helping
liberate students
from some of these forms of control need
to do so in a way that is not another
form of banking
of liberatory practices in other words
we need to make sure that we don't just
say hey
here's a problem i'm going to teach you
what the problem is and how you're going
to fix it
which would assume that students can't
come up with a solution on their own
so here's a quote from page 72 authentic
liberation
the process of humanization is not
another deposit to be made in men
liberation is a praxis the action and
reflection of men and women upon the
world
in order to transform it those truly
committed to the cause of liberation can
accept neither
the mechanistic concept of consciousness
as an empty vessel to be filled
nor the use of banking methods of
domination propaganda slogans
deposits in the name of liberation
quote and to add on that here's a quote
from page 72 to 73
and modify the first word quote
educators must abandon the educational
goal
of deposit making and replace it with
the posing of the
problems of human beings in their
relationship with the world
end quote in other words rather than
taking an approach of i'm going to teach
you
all the information skills concepts
practices etc because you don't know
anything
instead going with a problem-based
approach where you pose a problem and
students will work through that problem
with some guidance or on their own or in
small groups whatever
so by adopting this kind of an approach
or these kinds of practices
quote a new term emerges teacher student
with student teachers the teacher is no
longer merely the one who teaches
but one who is himself taught in
dialogue with students
who in turn while being taught also
teach
they become jointly responsible for a
process in which all grow
in quote from page 73 so by taking this
approach you get that hyphenated
set of words the teacher student and the
student teacher
everybody is basically learning from
each other and again i prefer
the word facilitator rather than teacher
student
so some suggestions that freddy provides
in terms of
how to pose problems as a teacher
student
are quote the problem posing educator
constantly reforms is reflections in the
reflection
of the students the students no longer
docile listeners
are now critical co-investigators in
dialogue with the teacher
the teacher presents the material to the
students for their consideration
and reconsiders or earlier
considerations
as the students express their own the
role of the problem-solving educator is
to create
together with the students the
conditions under which knowledge at the
level of the doxa is superseded by true
knowledge
at the level of logos end quote from
page 74.
so in other words this is different than
problem-based learning where
there's one right answer and you know
the answer in advance
instead it's about posing a problem like
a wicked problem as it's been described
elsewhere
or a real world problem with many
solutions and having students critically
reflect on it and work through
some kind of a solution that will result
in an action
or transformation by the students
there's a quote from page 76
quote in problem-posing education people
develop their power to perceive
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 so this approach
drastically differs
from what freddy refers to as the
banking approach
so here's a comparison of the two and
this is a quote from pages 76-77
quote banking education for obvious
reasons
attempts by mythicizing reality to
conceal certain facts which explain the
way human beings exist in the world
problem-posing education sets itself the
task of de-mythologizing
banking education resists dialogue
problem-posing education regards
dialogue as indispensable to the act of
cognition
which unveils reality banking education
treats students as objects of assistance
problem-posing education makes them
critical thinkers
banking education inhibits creativity
and domesticates
although it cannot completely destroy
the intentionality of consciousness
by isolating consciousness from the
world
thereby denying people their ontological
and historical vocation
becoming more fully human problem-posing
education bases itself on creativity and
stimulates true reflection
and action upon reality thereby
responding to the vocation of
persons as beings who are authentic only
when engaged in
inquiry and creative transformation in
sum
banking theory and practice as
immobilized and fixated forces
fail to acknowledge men and women as
historical beings
problem-posing theory and practice make
the people's historia city
as their starting point problem-posing
education affirms men and women as being
in the process of becoming
as unfinished uncompleted beings in
and with a likewise unfinished reality
end quote so here's a quick summary that
compares the two approaches
so banking education is creating a false
reality
whereas problem posing education is
looking at
trying to deconstruct that false reality
banking education does not engage in
dialogue while problem-based education
really is all about dialogue which we'll
learn more about in the episode two
weeks from now
on chapter three banking education
treats students as passive
whereas problem-posing education focuses
on critical thinking
banking education prevents creativity
while problem-posing education focuses
on creativity
and baking education does not take into
account some of the
contexts and like hegemonic influences
or social pressures that are
influencing kids and adults whereas
problem posing education
really focuses on the humanization that
can occur
through education which by the way
freddy
reminds us the readers that the goal of
education should be humanization
therefore we should not strive to flip
the roles of oppressor and oppressed
but should instead focus on humanizing
everyone through fellowship
and solidarity so in other words if
you're in a cs education
class the goal is to not make it so that
suddenly the
students are in charge and the teacher
now has to
listen to and report to the students
but instead trying to make it more
horizontal in terms of
the hierarchical structure the students
and teachers working collaboration with
each other and learning from each other
which again many of the previous
interviews and
unpacking scholarship episodes talk
about that
okay so as always i like to
talk about some lingering thoughts or
questions that i have whenever i unpack
any form of scholarship for this podcast
so the first thing that i want to point
out is that i actually disagree with
freddy's assertion that all teaching is
positioning students as
passive recipients so for example
statements such as this quote from page
the teacher knows everything and the
students know nothing
end quote here's another one from the
same page quote the teacher thinks and
the students are thought about
end quote so those quotes are very broad
statements
without any evidence to support those
claims
so while i understand what the author's
intent is i disagree
i don't think i'm aware of any teaching
where it is 100
in that category and although it makes a
point i think this creates a false
binary about
teachers and students that i just really
don't think exists
at least to this extent so a question
that i have is in what ways do cs
educators unintentionally fluctuate
between a banking approach
and a liberatory approach to cs
education so as i've mentioned in other
episodes
freddy has heavily influenced my own
facilitating and education practices as
well as many of the people that i've
read and studied with
however i still unintentionally fall
into forms of banking approaches at
times
and so just kind of thinking out loud on
that i wonder where
we as a field or as individuals within a
field
also kind of unintentionally fluctuate
between
the banking approach and liberatory
approach to cs education
so the question that i have then for the
the field is
how can we as a profession focus more on
liberatory practices
how can we become more aware of when we
are unintentionally fluctuating back
towards a banking approach so for
example in conferences
how can we better identify which
sessions are promoting more of a banking
approach
which sessions are promoting more of a
liberatory approach
and how can we facilitate a dialogue
between these different approaches
now another more meta question that i
have is when is freddy's book
and my podcast episodes on each chapter
a form of banking
and when is it a form of liberation
through critical thinking i'd like to
think that by
voicing out loud my critical questions
and thoughts at the end of each one of
the
unpacking scholarship episodes that i do
i like to think of this as a way of me
thinking publicly
and engaging in critical reflection
practices and kind of modeling
some of the practices that freddy
discussed in this particular chapter
however i can also see how some people
might argue that this is yet another
form of banking
and if you feel that way let me know
there's a contact me button on my
website
you can also come on the podcast and i'm
happy to chat about this i sincerely
want to know
in what ways can we as a profession try
and move away from
the banking approach to education that
freddy describes and moved
more towards the facilitation and
liberatory practices that
has been discussed on this podcast which
is why i tend to discuss it
a lot with guests and in the unpacking
scholarship episodes
all right so that kind of concludes the
summary of chapter
two now again as usual next week is
going to be an interview
and two weeks from now i'm going to
unpack chapter three of pedagogy of the
oppressed
and then two weeks after that i will
conclude this little mini series
with a discussion on chapter four which
is the final chapter in the book
i hope you are enjoying the first half
of this unpacking scholarship
mini-series and i hope you stay tuned
next week for another awesome interview
hope you all have a wonderful week and
are staying safe thanks for listening
Chapter
Freire, P. (2000). Chapter 2. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition (Kindle, pp. 65–80). New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Short Summary of the Book
"This book will present some aspects of what the writer has termed the pedagogy of the oppressed, a pedagogy which must be forged with, not for, the oppressed (whether individuals or peoples) in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity. This pedagogy makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed, and from that reflection will come their necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. And in the struggle this pedagogy will be made and remade." (pp. 43-44).
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
I disagree with Freire's assertions that all teaching is positioning students as passive recipients.
For example, statements such as "the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing" and "the teacher thinks and the students are thought about" (p. 67) are broad statements without evidence to support the claims.
In what ways do CS educators unintentionally fluctuate between a banking approach and a liberatory approach to CS education?
So how can we as a profession focus more on liberatory practices?
When is Freire's book and my podcast episodes on each chapter a form of banking and when is it a form of liberation through critical thinking?
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
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Decolonizing Education through SEL and PBL with Matinga Ragatz
In this interview with Matinga Ragatz, we discuss Matinga’s journey into education, creating environments where kids can learn through struggle, the importance of social and emotional learning (SEL), how schools promote individualism and exceptionalism, the intersections of project-based learning and SEL, decolonizing education, the importance of shared values in education, and so much more.
How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
Intersections of Cultural Capital with Kimberly Scott
In this interview with Kimberly Scott, we discuss some of the problems with discourse around grit, students as techno-social change agents, teaching with culturally responsive approaches in communities that are hostile toward culturally responsive pedagogies, unpacking discourse and Discourse, considering both present and future identities when teaching, potential disconnects between theory and practice with intersectional work, comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comforted, and so much more.
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Pedagogy of the Oppressed
This episode is the start of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 1, which discusses how oppressors maintain control over the oppressed. Following unpacking scholarship episodes discuss what this looks like in education and how educators can adopt a “pedagogy of the oppressed” to break cycles of oppression.
This episode is episode two of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 2, which discusses the “banking” approach to education that assumes students are repositories of information, and then proposes a liberatory approach to education that focuses on posing problems that students and teachers collaboratively solve. If you haven’t listened to the discussion on the first chapter, click here.
This episode is episode three of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 3, which discusses the importance of dialogue when engaging in liberatory practices. This episode builds off the previous unpacking scholarship episodes on chapter one and chapter two, so make sure you listen to those episodes before jumping in here.
This episode is the final episode of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 4, which synthesizes the concepts introduced in the previous chapters and discusses the difference between anti-dialogical and dialogical practices in education (and at large). This episode builds off the previous unpacking scholarship episodes on chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three so make sure you listen to those episodes before jumping in here.
Racial Justice Amidst the Dangers of Computing Creep: A Dialogue
In this episode I unpack Shah and Yadav’s (2023) publication titled “Racial justice amidst the dangers of computer creep: A dialogue,” which presents a dialogue that problematizes issues around racial justice in computing education.
In this episode I unpack Kallia and Cutts’ (2021) publication titled “Re-examining inequalities in computer science participation from a Bourdieusian sociological perspective,” which uses Bourdieu’s discussions of capital, habitus, and field to analyze 147 publications on CS interventions.
The Shire as Metaphor for Systemic Racism with Joyce McCall
In this interview with Joyce McCall, we unpack and problematize some of the issues around race and racism in relation to education. In particular, we discuss the importance of allies not only showing up to support marginalized or oppressed groups, but staying when conversations get uncomfortable; the Shire from the Lord of the Rings as a metaphor for hegemony and systemic racism; as well as a variety of theories such as critical race theory, double consciousness, cultural capital; and much more.
In this episode I unpack Coppola’s (2021) publication titled “What if Freire had Facebook? A critical interrogation of social media woke culture among privileged voices in music education discourse,” which summarizes Paulo Freire’s works and hypothesizes how Freire may have responded to some forms of woke culture.
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