Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Chapter 3
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.
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welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
in this week's episode i am continuing a
little mini-series on paulo freires book
pedagogy of the oppressed
this particular episode will unpack
chapter three so if you haven't listened
to the
podcasts that unpack chapters 1 and
chapter 2 i highly recommend starting
there
this particular episode is going to
focus on the concept of dialogue
that freya mentions in all of the
chapters
and the episode two weeks from now on
chapter four which is the final chapter
will kind of summarize and synthesize
all these understandings into
a theory that talks about
anti-dialogical practices
and dialogical practices that leaders
can engage in
in other words that educators can engage
in when working with students
or leaders in communities okay so this
chapter kind of talks about an
abstract concept of naming so here's a
quote that kind of summarizes it a
little bit
hope to exist humanly is to name the
world
to change it once named the world in its
turn reappears to the namers
as a problem and requires of them a new
naming end quote
that's from pages 81 to 82 so my
understanding of this opening section
is that naming the world is the act of
declaring what is true
and what is not true in the world in
other words this naming
shapes the ways of being that go with
the so-called truth while also defining
what and who goes against that truth so
naming as a form of dominance in
education might be equivalent to saying
what counts as learning or demonstration
of an understanding
or pedagogy which standards are
important
which standards are not standards what
concepts and practices
are not standards etc each one of these
is a form of naming
as it sheds a light on what is
considered to be true within
like the field of education so if some
people are doing the naming and other
people
are not this can create a problem in
terms of
the people who define what is true in
the world and what is considered to be
good or bad in the world
while not allowing the perspectives of
others is then a form of oppression
so to counter this form of oppression
freyri recommends
engaging in dialogue so here's a quote
from page 82 quote
dialogue is the encounter between men
mediated by the world
in order to name the world hence
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 those whose right to speak has been
denied them those who have been denied
their primordial
right to speak their word must first
reclaim this rite and prevent the
continuation of this dehumanizing
aggression
end quote so in other words dialogue
must not exist
for the purpose of naming on behalf of
others in other words like through a
form of depositing one's view on the
world
if we were to take a banking approach
that i mentioned in the episode two
weeks ago
but instead it needs to be an act of
creation in collaboration
with many different people so foreign
also mentions that
this dialogue needs to come from a place
of love if you do not love others
you want to engage in the kind of
dialogue that freyri suggests is
necessary to name and transform the
world
so here are some questions that we can
consider when engaging in dialogue this
is from page 83.
quote how can i dialogue if i always
project
ignorance onto others and never perceive
my own
how can i dialogue if i regard myself as
a case apart from others
mere it's to whom i cannot recognize
other eyes
how can i dialogue if i consider myself
a member of the in-group
of pure men the owners of truth and
knowledge
for whom all non-members are these
people or
the great unwashed how can i dialogue if
i start from the premise that naming the
world
is the task of an elite and that the
presence of the people in history
is a sign of deterioration thus to be
avoided
how can i dialogue if i am close to and
even offended by the contribution of
others
how can i dialogue if i am afraid of
being displaced
the mere possibility causing me torment
and weakness
end quote so those are some excellent
questions to reflect on
when considering engaging in dialogue
and i know those questions were very
broad
but we can reframe them as
education-related questions
in terms of how are you engaging in
dialogue with
students administrators etc and by
dialogue i mean like big d
dialogue not necessarily every single
conversation but like the overall way of
communicating with different people so
let's make a connection between
this chapter and chapter two so the
banking method of education that i
talked about two weeks ago does not have
dialogue between
student and teacher as it lacks trust
between the oppressor
and the oppressed and the trust is in
relation to
both parties actually being able to
learn from each other so to obtain this
trust teachers need to display love
humility hope and faith in students when
engaging in dialogue in their actions
here's a quote on trust from page 84.
quote
trust is contingent on the evidence
which one party provides the others of
his true
concrete intentions it cannot exist if
the party's words do not coincide with
their actions
to say one thing and do another to take
one's own word lightly
cannot inspire trust to glorify
democracy and to silence the people is a
farce
to discourse on humanism and to negate
people is a lie
end quote so tying this into the
classroom if we say that we
encourage and engage in democratic
practices in the classroom
then we need to trust students and we
need to actually engage in those
practices and not just talk about them
so as a way to reflect on that we can
ask in what ways
do the things that i'm talking about or
the things that i'm trying to
model what's going on in the world and
in society
actually reflect the practices going on
in our classroom
as a more specific example related to
this particular quote
if we are saying that democratic
practices are something that we value
then not giving students the opportunity
to have a voice in things
will not assist with developing trust
between teachers
students etc in addition to trusting
students
dialoguers also need to engage in
critical thinking
which is thinking that quote discerns an
individual
solidarity between the world and the
people and emits of no
dichotomy between them thinking which
perceives reality as process
as transformation rather than as a
static entity
thinking which does not separate itself
from action but constantly immerses
itself in temporality
without fear of the risks involved end
quote
from page 85. and by the way this type
of critical thinking is not just
something that
educators or teachers engage in it's
something that students engage in as
well
so oppressor and oppressed are need to
constantly engage in this kind of
critical reflection
that results in some kind of an action
which is something that freddy
mentions in like every one of these
chapters you can't just think about this
you can't just talk about this you
actually have to do something about
these problems that are posed
so again tying it back to chapter two so
freddie suggests
banking educators are anti-dialogical as
they are focusing on
imposing their own knowledge and
understanding on students
whereas a problem posing teacher
students with ivan
are engaging in dialogue around what
students want to know more about
and freddie argues that this dialogue
and these kinds of practices
are necessary as quote authentic
education is not carried on by
a for b or by a about b
but rather by a with b mediated by the
world
a world which impresses and challenges
both parties
giving rise to views or opinions without
it
end quote from page 86 so in other words
if you are
going to engage in critical pedagogy as
freddy outlines it
as an educator you cannot do some kind
of an educational act
for students or about students but you
actually need to engage in it with
students so if you don't engage in that
here's a quote from pages
what can happen if you don't engage in
those practices quote
many political and educational plans
have failed because their authors
designed them according to their own
personal views of reality
never once taking into account except as
mere objects of their actions
the men in a situation to whom their
program was ostensibly directed
end quote so this quote is very relevant
to curriculum and experience design
if you are designing a lesson a unit
curriculum etc
and it does not take into account the
people you are designing it for
then this can lead to failure and going
back to what i mentioned previously if
you're not designing it with
students and their input then it can
also lead to failure
so interestingly freddy points out that
many revolutionaries
and humanistic educators or liberatory
educators
forget about his role of dialogue and
end up taking a banking approach with
their followers to get them to buy into
their view of the world
so in other words rather than engaging
in critical dialogue
it is taking a form of depositing and
saying you're not engaging in critical
pedagogical practices
let me show you how to do it right as
opposed to taking on a form of
leadership
where you work with and alongside the
people that you are trying to help
liberate
which by the way chapter four two weeks
from now we'll talk more about
what does this leadership look like and
how do we actually do it in the
classroom
which by the way this relates to one of
the reasons why i'm a fan of
multi-perspectival approaches in
education
and starting with students as interests
and heading in directions that they want
to go
either with or without guidance which i
talk about in many other podcast
episodes
so given what was just described what
couldn't we actually do
to not create epistemological
colonization in other words
what can we as educators do to prevent
ourselves
from becoming oppressors of ways of
knowing and being
that are evident within schools or the
communities that we work with
so again in relation to this question
freddy emphasizes it's not enough to
think
critically about the situation we need
to do something about it
here's a quote from page 88 quote
utilizing certain basic contradictions
we must pose this existential concrete
present situation to the people as a
problem which challenges them
and requires a response not just at the
intellectual level
but at the level of action in quote so
again this builds off of the
problem-posing
stuff that was talked about two weeks
ago and i'll talk about it a little bit
more at the end of this particular
episode so in order to engage in this
kind of dialogue
freddy suggests that people need to
communicate effectively
by aligning their discourse with the
reality of people they are addressing
now in other words educators can't just
talk at students
from their own positionality or
understanding of the world and reality
but we need to be able to understand the
thought
and utilize the language of the people
that we are engaging in dialogue with
so the episode that released a week ago
the interview with brian brown
talks a little bit about this kind of
approach so make sure you listen to that
one
on situated language and learning to
learn a little bit more about what does
this look like in terms of talking
with rather than talking at people
although we don't mention
freddy in that particular episode at
least i don't remember it when we did
the interview
this this definitely relates to the
conversations that we have
around that particular topic also
building off that idea
ferry points out that we need to
understand the historical
milieu or context that correspond to the
present reality and how that reality is
perceived in particular we need to look
not just at the individual level but at
the group
community state national et cetera in
order to understand the different social
influences
or hegemonic structures or forms of
power
reinforce the dominant narrative so as
an example if you are like myself
thinking of your educational practices
critically
then you might be thinking about how you
are impacting the students that you're
working with
however one of the things that we need
to then do is also think about how our
administrators
also impacting what you are doing which
then impacts your students
going broader than that we can think of
how our community members
how are state standards or policies also
impacting that
how our national standards or policies
or narratives impacting that
so there are many different layers that
all influence the things that we do in
our classroom
that encourage us to engage in some
educational practices and not in others
as a very easy example of that think of
national standards related computer
science education what is on that list
is considered important for computer
science education
if there's something that is not on that
list that is considered to be
unimportant for computer science
education or at least implied by not
having it be
one of these standards that is
potentially experienced and assessed in
a classroom
so why am i encouraging cs educators to
actually go through these practices and
think about
all the forms of social influences on
your
classroom practices here's a quote from
page 95
that kind of summarizes the importance
of this quote
when people lack a critical
understanding of the reality
apprehending it in fragments which they
do not perceive as
interacting constituent elements of the
whole
they cannot truly know that reality to
truly know it
they would have to reverse this standing
point they would need to have a total
vision of the context
in order subsequently to separate and
isolate its constituent
elements and by means of their analysis
achieve a clear perception of the whole
in quote so it's important for us to
engage in these critical practices
as individual educators as leaders
within educational space
because we need to understand how our
individual acts fit within the hole
and how the whole impacts our individual
acts this can help us figure out the why
behind what we're doing which might
better inform how and what you actually
do in the classroom
and by the way the episode two weeks
from now we'll talk about this
more in terms of well what can we do as
educators
so stay tuned for that one however the
end of this chapter actually does
provide some
examples of things that we can do so
freddy suggests that we need to begin
with the individual move to
understanding how that individual fits
within the larger social
constructs or context and then move back
to understanding the individual
in relation to others also working
within larger
hegemonic influences hegemonic
influences as a
quick reminder is basically like the
structure of power
that influences what you do and is often
unseen and unknown
and if you want to hear more about this
listen to the episode with joyce mccall
which i will link to in the show notes
okay so if we're going to go through
this practice federi points out an
important note that people who
facilitate
such a journey through social influences
on a person or a group of people need to
not have a predetermined itinerary
but instead need to engage in dialogue
with reality
as it is becoming so in other words we
can't create a lesson plan
around becoming more woke and expected
to resonate
in all socially constructed realities
instead this process of investigating
how people
think and what influences thought is a
process of learning through
investigation without predetermined
destination
so educators interested in starting this
process can do so by
presenting aspirations of the students
to them
and discussing contradictions in their
present situation
opposing them as problems to solve so as
an example related to cs if students
want to
build and program robots and compete
with them
then we can pose that as a problem in
terms of well what do we need to do
to actually be able to do that what is
preventing us right now from being able
to
engage in building and programming
robots
is it funding is it time is it a lack of
interest from other students
et cetera so this approach of posing
these problems
may help uncover some of the factors
that are negatively impacting
their life and lead to action to change
those circumstances
however it may also bring up differences
in perceived reality as students might
not perceive something as a problem
in the same way that a teacher might so
as an example of that going back to
the robotics program maybe the teacher
perceives that a lack of a robotics
program is a problem
but the students disagree maybe they
would rather have a program that focuses
on game development we won't actually
know until we actually go into
the community and speak with students
and find out what it is that they want
to learn
now freddie notes that when these
contradictions
do come up through dialogue it is
actually encouraged to be
discussed by everybody as it allows the
student teachers
to educate their teacher students again
hyphens in between those
in addition after conversing around
themes uncovered by
teacher students federi suggests
educators can open up the discussion for
students to propose their own topics
and then the educator can pose the new
topics as a problem for the group to
discuss
however i'd actually argue that a
top-down approach can still maintain a
position of oppression
because it doesn't put the faith or
trust in students to initially come up
with their own themes or topics to
problematize
so again going back to the robotics
example if we make an assumption that oh
well
students don't have a robotics class so
therefore they must really want
something like that
and then you start posing problems
related to robotics
that is initially framing the discussion
around problems that you perceive
rather than problems that students may
perceive which again maybe they'd rather
have a class
on game design okay so that is a
summary of chapter three now as always i
want to
close this podcast with a discussion on
some of the lingering questions or
thoughts that i have
this is me just thinking out loud and
sharing some things that i was pondering
while i actually read through this
chapter
so the first question that i have is
what's the role of dialogue with
artifacts and processes
or dialogue with oneself in a critical
pedagogy
so as an example of artifacts and
processes
using constructionist practices so
creating a program
or engaging in coding what's the role of
dialogue when you're doing that
when it's dialogue with oneself thinking
through ipsitive practices
which are reflections on your own
understanding
in relationship to your prior
understanding in what ways is that a
form of dialogue
so this is not dialogue with others but
is a dialogue through
a program coding or oneself
and this might be a question that is
getting at one of the problems that i
see with
constructivist approaches is
the dialogue is often framed as
discussion
one-on-one between people
whereas constructionist practices talk
about learning
through creating and i think it's a
marriage of the two
so it can learning can happen in
dialogue with others
people can also learn by creating
something on their own they can also
learn by reflecting on their own
or even just reading the works of others
so one-way
form of dialogue at somebody these are
all forms of learning
that could also include critical
pedagogical practices so another
question that i have is
when might liberatory practices become a
form of
epistemological colonization so for
example
what if you engage with critical
dialogue with students who you think
are oppressed by an educational system
but through dialogue you come to
understand
they like and prefer an approach that
you feel is a form of oppression
as an example of this i really enjoyed
being led down a guided path on topics i
was interested in
within grad school however the approach
that some of the professors
took didn't really take into account the
interests of the students taking the
class but i really enjoyed it because i
really
enjoyed the particular topic now to
argue with myself
because i like to do that i do however
think that the classes
could have been even better if i was
able to engage in dialogue with the
professors
about what i wanted to learn within the
topic or theme of the class
as it would have made the classes even
more relevant to me and customized
this is something i've talked about in
many of the guest interviews where we
talk about
what are different approaches that you
would take for classes where kids are
mandated to engage in computer science
and coding
versus classes where they elect to be in
computer science or coding classes
so another question that i have is if
freddy is arguing against approaches to
education
that have predetermined destinations or
itineraries
what does that say for standards and
backwards design models or experience
design
when are and aren't these forms of
oppression or liberation
so if you're unfamiliar with it
backwards designed approaches
you start with the end goal in mind
here's the thing that i want students to
learn whether it's a practice a concept
a standard whatever
and you design your way backwards from
that so you think of what are the
culminating experiences that will
demonstrate understanding what are the
experiences that can lead to that
culminating experience and how do i
introduce this particular concept
practice
standard etc so you start with that end
goal and you work your way towards it
but if we are determining those end
goals is that a form of dialogue
or is that going back to the banking
approach that i mentioned
two weeks ago in chapter two and again
it's not just backwards design that has
this approach
standards themselves can be a form of
banking which
two weeks from now i'll talk about that
a little bit more alright so those are
some of my lingering thoughts and
questions related to this particular
chapter
stay tuned next week for another
interview and stay tuned two weeks from
now when i will
talk about chapter four which is the
final chapter of this book
in that particular discussion i'm going
to talk about tying all these things
together into a theory that discusses
anti-dialogical and dialogical practices
and what we as
educators or leaders can do to engage in
such dialogical practices
in the classroom and with the
communities that we live in and work in
i hope you're enjoying this particular
little mini series and i hope you are
staying safe and having a wonderful week
i will talk to you all next week
Chapter
Freire, P. (2000). Chapter 3. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition (Kindle, pp. 81–117). 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
What's the role of dialogue with artifacts and processes (e.g., through constructionist practices), or dialogue with one's self (e.g., through ipsative practices) in a critical pedagogy?
When might liberatory practices become a form of epistemological colonization?
For example, what if you engage with critical dialogue with students who you think are oppressed by an educational system, but through dialogue you come to understand they like and prefer an approach that you feel is a form of oppression?
If Freire is arguing against approaches to education that have predetermined destinations or itineraries, what does that say for standards and backwards design models or experience design?
When are/n't these forms of oppression or liberation?
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
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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.
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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.
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