3.3 Paulo Freire’s educational theory
3.3.1 Key concepts in Freire’s educational theory
Freire’s education theory, as it is broadly known (Choules, 2007), can be summarized as an educational message that challenged the long held beliefs about the role of education, the relationship between student and teacher and the separation between literacy and politics. His education theory joined and strengthened other dissenting voices against the whole notion of formal education such as Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, John Dewey, Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky and Henry Giroux, among other progressive and radical educators (Wink, 2000).
Freire considered the educational system, which followed prescribed methods and syllabi, as domesticating and only serving the interests of the oppressor.
Freire discusses a broad range of issues, including conscientization and praxis, problem-posing education, dialogue, democratic education and others, as tenets of humanizing or liberating education. The central message in all of this is that Freire advocates for an education where the learner has a voice in determining what and how he or she should learn. As a result, his theory of education has been referred to as: critical pedagogy, revolutionary pedagogy, the Paulo Freire System or popular education, by various scholars (Blackburn, 2000; Choules, 2007; Gerhardt,
1993). The concepts adopted as lenses for understanding adult education and community development in EDF are discussed below.
3.3.1.1
Conscientization
Conscientization comes from a Portuguese word conscientização, meaning being conscious of self (Gerhardt, 1993). According to Freire, conscientization refers to the process where the powerless come into self critique of their condition with a view of changing it (Blackburn, 2000;
Freire, 1972; Wink, 2000). It can also be considered the first step in the quest of the oppressed human search for greater humanization (Blackburn, 2000). The concept of conscientization can be seen from two levels, that is, the schools, or any learning environment, including community.
Wink (2000) notes that:
Conscientization moves us from the passivity of “yeah-but-we-can’t-do-that” to the power of “we-gotta-do-the-best-we-can-where-we-can-where-we-are-with-what-we’ve- got”… In schools and communities, conscientization is knowing we know, and it is more (Wink, 2000, p. 37).
As far as a learning environment is concerned, conscientization refers to where learners try to make sense of the what, how and whys of the process of learning in which they are involved. The resultant effect would be what Freire calls humanizing or liberating education. At the level of the community, conscientization relates to a process where poor members of the community come to the realization of the conditions in which they live and even make sense that these conditions are not necessarily permanent.
Freire applied conscientization to his literacy method, where the illiterate poor did not stop at reading the word but read the world as well, meaning that literacy lessons cannot be separated from the social and political issues (Fritze, 2010). Nyirenda (1996, pp. 4-5) explains this as:
The basis of Freire's method is that education is seen as a part of the process of the revolutionary transformation of society. The method is linked to a total change in society
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… It involves teaching adults how to read and write in relation to the awakening of their consciousness about their social reality.
It is noteworthy that Freire did not intend to use conscientization as an alternative education methodology. He had sought to use it as a process for individuals and groups to craft their own systems, which would suit their condition, to avoid it being another irrelevant and rigid system mechanically recited. Hence, as Gerhardt (1993, p. 9) notes, ‘Freire was not happy about gradually becoming the ‘guru’ of an international community of followers who saw in his work the new evangelism of liberation and who did not try to reinvent his ideas in their own context’.
Freire considered common educational practices to be dehumanizing (Cohn, 1988).
3.3.1.2
Praxis
According to Freire (1972), praxis is a higher state of conscientization. Praxis takes place when one takes a step towards changing one’s condition. Whereas conscientization is the process by which individuals become more aware of the sources of their oppression, praxis is the process of taking action and reflecting on it (Blackburn, 2000). Therefore, praxis is a process of putting theory, or what one believes, into action as well as reflecting on it.
Praxis, as a process, is also a liberating state, in such a way that the powerless move a step higher to seeking solutions to their current state. As Gerhardt (1993, p. 11) notes: ‘Freire proposes a praxis approach to education in the sense of critically reflective action and critical reflection based on practice’. Blackburn (2000) considers praxis as the heart of Freirean pedagogy, because not only does it result from conscientization, it also feeds into it. Therefore, neither conscientization nor praxis can be bestowed by others, but by the powerless themselves in a process of self-discovery.
3.3.1.3
Banking education
It can be argued that Freire’s education theory was evoked by what he calls ‘banking education’, or the ‘banking’ concept of education. According to Freire, banking education is where
‘Education ... becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor’ (Freire, 1972, p. 46). This concept, which dominated education circles then and perhaps today, places the teacher in a privileged position in relation to the learner (Freire, 1972). The privileged position is built on the superiority of knowledge and power. The dangers of banking education is that it promotes rote learning and never challenges learners into critiquing reality (Freire, 1972).
Furthermore, banking education dis-empowers the learners and reduces education to a process of depositing ‘alien information’. Such information becomes less helpful because it does not appeal to the world of learners. Banking education, as Nyirenda (1996, p. 13) notes, ‘… kills curiosity, creativity and any investigative spirit in the learners and encourages the passive behaviour of the learners’. Freire castigates such types of education and advocates for a participatory process based on dialogue and problem posing techniques (Cohn, 1988).
3.3.1.4
Problem posing education
Problem posing education is what Freire advocates for instead of banking education. Freire (1972, p. 52) notes that, ‘Problem posing education, responding to the essence of consciousness- intentionality-rejects communiqués and embodies communication’. Ledwith (2001, p. 177) further adds that, ‘Problematizing or problem-posing helps the community worker to understand most clearly how to work with people in an equal and reciprocal way’. According to Freire (1972), problem-posing education enables people under domination to fight for their emancipation.
Problem-posing education, as advocated for by Freire, serves to challenge the learners into critical thinking, that is, it helps students to begin to see the world from their own perspective guided by the teacher. Freire (1972, p. 54) argues that, ‘Students, as they are increasingly faced with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge’. Problem posing education is also democratic learning in a way that learning becomes a dialogue rather than a monologue. Problem
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posing further takes interest in the hidden curriculum, as learners are able to ask questions related to their lived experience (Wink, 2000).
3.3.1.5
Liberating education/pedagogy
Liberating education or pedagogy is that type of education that espouses Freire’s education theory or critical pedagogy (Blackburn, 2000; Freire, 1972, 1973, 1998; Giloux, 2010; Nyirenda, 1996). The purpose of a liberating pedagogy is to allow learners to pursue their own ideas and dreams, free from what Freire calls ‘expert’ teachers bent on decreeing one particular world view. According to Freire, education is not about knowledge per se, but about dialogue that generates thought, explanations and understanding (Tobbell, 2000). A liberating pedagogy should be devoid of pre-set curricula, which according to Freire, is an oppressive element of the powerful and dominant societal values (Freire, 1972; Wink, 2000). According to Freire (1972, p.
52), ‘Authentic liberation – the process of humanization - is not another ‘deposit’ to be made in men [women]. Liberation is praxis: the action and reflection of men [women] upon their world in order to reform it’.
Freire castigates banking education methods, as they dehumanize the oppressed and powerless by treating them as objects and things. According to Freire, ‘The power of the dominant ideology is always domesticating, and when we are touched by and deformed by it we become ambiguous and indecisive’ (Freire, 1998, p. 6). Therefore liberatory education should adopt a humanizing pedagogy, one in which a revolutionary leader establishes permanent dialogue with the oppressed or poor communities (Freire, 1972). Such a dialogue is free of manipulation and prescription of where people ought to be or go.
Central to liberating pedagogy is that it can’t be reduced to a universal tool with a ‘one size fits all’ principle. It is contextually located in people’s culture, age, situation and experience (Fritze, 2010; Nyirenda, 1996). Therefore, liberating education cannot be duplicated for different situations. Freire himself emphasized that his method never sought to prescribe to different societies how this education should be or what it should look like.
3.3.1.6
Democratic learning
According to Freire (1972), democratic learning is at the heart of critical pedagogy and is intertwined with dialogue and the concept of problem posing. Democratic learning, according to Freire, is about taking into account the subjectivity of the learner. Freire states, ‘It is necessary and even urgent that the school become a space to gather and engender certain democratic dispositions, such as the disposition to listen to others - not as a favour but as a duty - and to respect them’ (Freire, 1998, p. 66).
3.3.1.7
Dialogue
Freire (1972) considers dialogue as a channel through which a liberating education takes place.
The teacher, instead of depositing information in the learners, uses a two-way communication through a problem-posing approach, to provoke them into critical thinking (Freire, 1972, 1973;
Fritze, 2010; Rule, 2004; von-Kotze, 2005). As Blackburn (2000, p. 9) notes, ‘Dialogue’, or what Freire alternatively called mutual conscientization, is thus not limited to the single axis educator- participant. Dialogue also takes place between participants and ‘with the world’. It is premised on participatory, mutual and open forms of relating within a powerfully dynamic atmosphere (Ledwith, 2001). According to Freire, dialogue is a liberating tool that cannot be bequeathed but rather must involve the oppressed.