12 Workshop Nine: Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapters 3 & 4
12 Workshop Nine: Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapters 3 & 4
Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed Chapters 3 and 4 Workshop – Group 2 (Tommy, Chloe, Louie, Meghna)
Part I: General Instructions & Introductions [10 min.]
For this workshop, you will be organized in a Zoom Breakout Room with a group of three to four students, plus a workshop facilitator. Appoint a timekeeper and a scribe.
Please begin today by checking in with one another and looking over the workshop. How is your week going?
Part II: Education with students [25 min.]
Consider this passage where Friere speaks of the necessity of teaching with students:
“It is not our role to speak to the people about our own view of the world, nor to attempt to impose that view on them, but rather to dialogue with the people about their view and ours. We must realize that their view of the world, manifested variously in their action, reflects their situation in the world. Educational and political action which is not critically aware of this situation runs the risk either of “banking” or of preaching in the desert” (p.96)
1. How might beginning a discussion with the student’s view of the world enable true dialogue? [5 min.]
2. Why is the student’s view of the world so important in education for Friere? How is this tied into the situation of the students? [5 min.]
3. Do you have examples from your own educational experience where teachers have made clear they value your perspective? Do you have any examples of when they haven’t? [5 min.]
4. Pretend you’re a teacher. What are some ways you might be able to make students feel like their perspective is important? [10 min.]
Part III: Limit Situation [20 min.]
In chapter 3, Friere speaks about the ways that material conditions and internalized ideologies constrain student growth:
“[A]s they locate the seat of their decisions in themselves and in their relations with the world and others, people overcome the situations which limit them: the ‘limit-situations.’ Once perceived by individuals as fetters, as obstacles to their liberation, these situations stand out in relief from the background, revealing their true nature as concrete historical dimensions of a given reality. Men and women respond to the challenge with actions which Vieira Pinto calls ‘limit-acts’: those directed at negating and overcoming, rather than passively accepting, the “given,” (p.99)
1. What is your understanding of a limit-situation? What about a limit-act? Do you have an example of a mindset or ideology that you felt has or does limit your growth or learning? [5 min.]
3. How do you imagine the liberating “limit-acts” that Freire describes in the context of your own life?
In this passage Friere goes into detail about the ways that collaborative investigation leads to true education:
“Every thematic investigation which deepens historical awareness is thus really educational, while all authentic education investigates thinking. The more educators and the people investigate the people’s t