Group Exercise (Friere)

Friere had a lot of experience with education because three of his children became educators. He was prisoned in Brazil for 70 days as a traitor which inspired him to write Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This gave him lots of time to reflect of education and be able to criticize the education system. Friere addresses the teacher as a “narrating subject” and the students as “listening objects”. For example he states in his Pedagogy, “This relationship involves a narrating subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students).”  He claims that “the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing” which shows how highly he thinks of himself and how little he thinks of the students, as if they are helpless individuals. He worked for 10 years as a special education advisor to the world congress of churches, during which he traveled worldwide to help countries implement popular education and literacy reforms. The website clarifies the student-teacher relationship by showing us Friere’s desire for a radical democracy.  Other than these points the website did not really clarify the ultimate purpose of his Pedagogy. The Banking Concept of Education talks about his critical view on education and the website mostly talks about his life and the challenges that he faced.