THE EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF PAULO FREIRE [IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION]

           

1. Introduction

Education has always played a vital role in the shaping of any nation. It has been the torch-bearer of human progress and thereby remained a natural component of all societies. Many men and women, both in the East and the West, have dedicated their lives for the betterment of their societies through education. One among them is Paulo Freire.

He is one of the luminous intellectuals of the 20^th century whose words and deeds are closely intermingled with his experience of poverty, hard work, oppositions and exile. He was born in 1921, in Recife, the Northeast of Brazil. Freire’s family suffered greatly during the great depression of 1929. Even as a boy he vowed to fight against hunger and injustice. Qualified as a lawyer he went on to complete his doctoral studies on education. Soon after the military coup in 1964 Freire was jailed for seventy five days for his subversive educational activities. It was in exile that he came to be known as a radical progressive thinker on education. He authored and co-authored more than thirty books. He was a consultant for UNESCO’s Institute of Research and Training in Agrarian Reform, professor at Harvard University, USA, consultant in the Department of Education at the World Council of Churches besides his involvement in the adult literacy programmes in a number of African countries. Upon returning to Brazil in 1979 he served as the Director of Education in Sao Paulo and served as professor of education at the Catholic University of   Sao Paulo until his death in 1997.

Freire’s philosophy is a combination, rather a synthesis of strains of thought. He leans on Sartre, Emmanuel Mounier, Eric Fromm, Louis Althusser, Mao, Martin Luther King (Jr.) and Che Guevara and a few others in developing an authentic educational philosophy for the Third World, especially for Latin America. Among the many streams of thought that exercised a considerable influence in shaping the educational philosophy of Freire, four currents of thought – in our assessment – are worth mentioning here.

i. Marxist Humanism: It is a branch of Marxism that concentrates on Marx’s earlier writings. Freire acknowledges that Marxism had a considerable influence in fostering a critical attitude in him towards society. He interprets Marxism as an ideology of possibility and hope for humanization.

ii. Liberation Theology: Freire is deeply Christian. Christian faith calls for social commitment. Religion is an impetus to work for humanization. The Church should witness to God’s kingdom by practicing what it preaches.

iii. Personalism of Emanuel Mounier: It is neither a political system nor a philosophical school of thought. Freire claims that it was a perspective, an optimistic way of looking at the world. His stress on the human person’s ontological vocation (to be more fully human and to be subjects of history) and historical commitment are adequate indications to perceive the influence of Mounier on Freire.

iv. Existentialism: He echoes the concern of the existentialists by affirming that education must foster biophiliac (love for life) tendencies. His critique of the conventional method of education was inspired by existential philosophers, especially by Sartre. Sartre stated that knowing is not to be considered as something akin to eating. He opposes the nutritionist conception of knowledge.

2. The Basic Assumption of Freire

Freire is convinced that people are not things but subjects who can create and re-create their world. According to him, humanization has been man’s “inescapable concern” from an ethical point of view. Ontologically man is capable of being humanized and dehumanized. While the former is proper to him, the latter is the very distortion of his being. Humanization, that is, being subjects who can make and re-make the world with their free-will and dignity is our ultimate concern. This basic conviction led him to imbibe the spirit of a radical by delving deep into the different systems of thought that endorsed social transformation and man’s ontological vocation. He found in education the power to alter the course of our situatedness. However, education in itself is not oriented towards humanization. Much of our education is dehumanizing. It is designed to serve the interests of the elites aiming to keep the status quo of the society intact.

3. Banking Method of Education

Freire is best known for his attack on what he called the banking method of education. The banking method views the student as an empty container to be filled by the teacher. In such a method knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable to those whom they consider to know nothing. Teaching is narrating. The teacher narrates the content and all that a good student needs to do is to listen and memorize the content. The educatee is a kind of container in need of filling and the teacher has the knowledge to fill it. This concept is characterized by Freire as:

1. The teacher teaches and the students are taught.

2. The teacher knows everything and the student knows nothing.

3. The teacher thinks and the students are thought about.

4. The teacher talks and the students listen meekly.

5. The teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined.

6. The teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply.

7. The teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the acting of the teacher.

8. The teacher chooses the programme content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it.

9. The teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional authority, which he set in opposition to the freedom of the students.

10. The teacher is the subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.

Freire’s Critique:

1. When knowledge is understood as a deposit/reproduction the students do not become creative or critical.

2. The teacher is a kind of despot who is the very manifestation of the oppressive society.

3. The content of learning may be irrelevant.

3. Knowledge understood as a deposit/having presupposes that knowing is possessing power to control the world.

4. The Problem-Posing Method

Against the banking method of education that is widely practiced, Freire envisages a new kind of education that is critical in its approach. He fondly terms this sort of education as the problem-posing method of education. Problem-posing method takes into account the world and the students’ situatedness/facticity in the process of education. It is transformative rather than informative. There is no teacher-student contradiction. Dialogue guides the learning process, as a result of which a new term emerges: ‘teacher-student’ with the ‘student-teacher.’ No one holds knowledge in its fullness nor is somebody self-taught. We learn from one another. The educator is a facilitator, initiator of dialogue, radical progressive and competent person.  The educatee participates in the process of education. He is creative and curious. Freire says: “The best philosophy student is not one who discourses, ipsis verbis,’ on the philosophy of Plato, Marx, or Kant but one who thinks about their ideas and takes the risk of thinking too.

The problem-posing method is an ethically oriented pedagogy where there is no dichotomy between the word and the deed. Educatees are closely equal to their teachers with regard to the problems under investigation. They exercise freedom. The educator and the educatee are subjects; together they construct knowledge through dialoguing. Through their active involvement they realize that the world is not static. This realization leads them to transform their world.

5. Non-Neutrality of Education

Freire breaks away from the traditional positivist view that education is something neutral. Richard Shaull in his foreword to Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed notes:

There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes ‘the practice freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.

Education, both by the radicals and the bourgeois or elites, is upheld as a tool of social up-building; then how can it be viewed as a neutral process? He says the traditional method of education – which he terms as a ‘banking method’ – is not neutral either. It serves the interests of the elites by depositing knowledge without cultivating a critical consciousness. It fills the students with information transforming neither their lives nor their surroundings. The banking method of education keeps the students chained, without the critical awareness of existence in and with the world.

6. Transformative Aspect of Education

Education cannot be divorced from life. It gives us power to responsibly create and re-create the world. Hence, it is neither an abstract process nor a cold passion without any regard for life. As we are critically aware we begin to act. Knowledge becomes complete when and only when it leads men to act upon their reality. In other words, knowledge is perfected when the integrity gap is lessened gradually; what one says corresponds to what one does. While the banking method of education in its hidden motive to keep the status quo of the society regards knowledge as something bequeathed from the teacher to the student, the problem-posing method encourages dialogue and gives due attention to the views of the students. Dialogue breaks away from the monotonous narrative nature of education to that of critical intervention in one’s life.

Knowledge is not pre-given but evolves in and through dialogue. It is becoming. We go on dialoguing even after the initial definition of a reality.  The process of knowledge development alters our perceptions and impels us towards making necessary changes in and around us. Education is a key to change, to direct the course of society and politics.

7. The Role of Conscientization and Praxis

Freire popularized the concepts of praxis and conscientization through his writings. However both the terms were not coined by him. According to Freire, praxis is the continuous process of reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it. It is the means by which one can be free from oppression and act towards change. It is an authentic union of reflection and action. Lack of balance in either one would result in verbalism (empty chatter) or activism (action devoid of reflection).

Conscientization is a movement towards humanization. It enables us to find alternative values to those factors that dehumanize us. Freire suggests dialogue as a means of conscientization. Dialogue requires: a profound love for the world and people; humility and faith in the educatee’s power to make and re-make his world.

8. Knowledge, Social Responsibility and Politics

Freire opines that knowledge should not be understood as something that is pre-packaged, existing in the note books. On the contrary, knowledge evolves in the encounter between subjects (knowledge is social construct). The educator and the educatee are not necessarily opposites rather they horizontally exist. They share the concerns of their times. Freire places a sense of responsibility both on the educators and educatees. Education is a non-neutral act. It either humanizes or dehumanizes.

Humanization is our ontological vocation and we need to strive to be more fully human by becoming subjects who can intervene and change the oppressive structures. Education should enable one to be responsible to oneself and to the society. Freire argues that problem-posing education is ipso facto political. Educators and educatees are not spectators in the society rather they in some way practice democracy in the class room by dialoguing and respecting one another’s opinion.

9. Freire’s Philosophy in Indian Context

Given the well-established image of Freire as a progressive, radical or even revolutionary educator, it is fitting to discuss his educational pedagogy in the Indian context and the possible implications his educational philosophy has in store for us, Indians. His educational theory is not only a roadmap for social emancipation but also one of personal and social healing pedagogy. It has got several implications for a post-colonial and collectivistic culture such as India.

He opines that his methodology is not the ideal replica to be emulated everywhere without changes. He calls on the radical educationists and educators to re-invent the problem-posing method in their particular contexts. He argues that the fundamental socio-cultural conditions of Brazil and India are on par. Experiences of colonization, semi-feudalism, collectivistic and fatalistic tendencies are part of the two respective societies. Hence, he suggests that his method of education can be re-invented in India.

Freire deserves a closer examination as economic disparity, corruption, violence and social unrest are on the rise in the Indian subcontinent. His philosophy of education will be of great help in creating a better social order. His insights on political education, education for peace and justice, the aspect of intersubjectivity in schooling, social emancipation by way of privileging the subalterns, the role of parents and students in the educational process, the training of teachers and the method of evaluation in educational institutions can be considered in our present Indian context.

10. Marxist Analysis

Freire’s adherence to the Marxist analysis of society and everything related to it needs to be critically looked at. His view of reality is black and white; either you are an oppressor or the oppressed. But, reality is not too simple to comprehend. He seems to be skeptical about everything related to the past (the conventional method of education) and the present (globalization and its impacts). It is open to discussion whether his outright condemnation of what he calls ‘the banking method of education’ holds water. His adherence to Socialism tends to give too much of a political slant to education.

As I conclude, I would like to note that Freire remains as one of the seminal thinkers on education whose thoughts call for a close examination and attention especially for those who live in the Third World countries. His passion for human liberation is well reflected in his philosophy of education. He was sensitive to the suffering Third World. As an educator he passionately worked hard to bring about a change through education. Perhaps, what we need to learn from Freire is his critical method rather than trying to adapt his theory word for word. He needs to be re-invented in places where human liberation and critical consciousness are at stake. His uncompromising spirit can inspire us to be critical and creative in our times. His life and thought evoke a sense of urgency to work for humanization. He is a gadfly in the best of Socratic tradition who questions our long-held certainties. Freire’s method does not provide ready-made answers, but encourages questions and facilitates learners in creating their own solutions.

I place on record my sincere sentiments of gratitude to my guide Fr. Felix Fernandes, the reader Fr. Edison Fernandes, the moderator Fr. Mathew Coutinho and the community of Divyadaan, my friends for all the support and encouragement that I have received in the past four years of my studies here.