[MUSIC] Welcome to week five, on theories and theorists, and today's final lecture for the week will focus on Paulo Freire. >> I'm very glad that we've got an opportunity to talk about Paulo Freire. it's in my own history, it's very strange because when I was a student there was a discussion group set up and somebody contacted me, and said "Would you be interested in joining this discussion group? It's on Paulo Freire". And I said "Who?" And I didn't realise at that time what an influential educator he was and how much his theories have been adopted in numerous countries, particularly in Latin America, and Africa, and Asia. And I think perhaps one of the key texts that I would always want students to read on an education course is "Pedagogy of the Oppressed". Paulo Freire died in 1997, but had traveled around the world, and I think had been certainly a very key influence on not only theory, but actually on very practical ideas of how teachers can engage more effectively with students - particulary, those who are most disadvantaged. >> Can you please tell us a little bit more about Freire's philosophy of education? >> Well, at the heart of that philosophy is something that some people I think would find a little difficult to grapple with. That he is talking about the political nature of education. That, he says all education is political. There is no such thing as a neutral education process. And he says essentially his pedogogy of the oppressed is about the practice of freedom. The whole idea is, how do you liberate children? How do you liberate young people? How do you liberate men and women in a way that they are able to participate in the world in an active way which actually transforms their world? So, they're not passive receivers of knowledge, but they're actually transformers, not just of knowledge, but transformers of the social world in which they live. Now, that's a really radical idea, because it's applying to everything as a, in a sense, you might say a political activist, but with a small p. But an activist in challenging received wisdom, thinking critically, and so he is described as a critical theorist. >> Freire is actually very popular with this idea of the pedagogy of the oppressed. And personally, when I read the book, I was really impressed with the idea, and I kind of, tried to practice certain things that he had suggested. It would be, I think, helpful if you can tell us more about the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, as Freire has stated. >> Yes. You were impressed but not oppressed. >> No, I was not oppressed. I was very impressed. >> You were liberated, in a way. >> Liberated, yes. >> And the notion, it's quite a challenging title, isn't it? To speak about the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and so immediately you're thinking wow, this is a bit heavy. But his basic position is that there are basically two sides to the equation always. There are the oppressors and there are the oppressed. So, which category do you fall into, and if you're a teacher, which category do you fall into? I would hate to think that as a teacher I'm an oppressor. But could that be true? Are there times in my own teaching when I taught in schools for four or five years, was I actually in that role of being an oppressor, in a very mild, and a very benign and friendly way, with the young people I was teaching? But Freire would have said if I wasn't actually helping them to be liberated and to think really radically for themselves and often to challenge me as the teacher, then perhaps I was in that position of being the oppressor. >> Okay. As teachers, I'm wondering, to what extent that we act as oppressors in our teaching process? And do you want to highlight something, what Freire has said about this? >> Would you think of yourself as an oppressor? >> It's a good question. At times, it happens to be that way, and at times, it's not. So, it depends on the situation, I guess. >> Yeah, I think he says that you liberate yourself from that oppression once you engage with what he calls critical theory, once you really begin to recognise, the way in which you relate to young people in the institutional context of school or wherever you relate as an adult to a child, that you have to liberate yourself. You become aware of that position that you're in, and then you're able to liberate yourself to have a more dialogic relationship. When you recognise actually that you were working within a political system, and unconsciously you are often acting as a political agent. I think he maybe perhaps talks about the first political person that a child meets in their life is a teacher, because they are a representative of the state and they are the first person that's going to tell you to sit down and be quiet and do what I tell you. >> Yeah, it happens a lot in this. I think, as you said earlier, it depends very much on the context in which we're working. If you're a centralised system, I think you can't escape from that oppressor's role that you play, and at the same time, it is up to the teachers to liberate themselves and look at it differently in how they could change what they have, so that it is not so oppressive as it can be. So, under that famous concept put forth by Freire, it's the banking concept, I think it would be really helpful if you can tell us something about that. >> I think in some ways it's almost self-explanatory, isn't it? But I think it's a lovely and very powerful idea that the teacher banks knowledge in the student. >> Mm-hmm. >> But it doesn't just stay there, the teacher comes back and says "Now, remember all that stuff? Remember all that stuff I told you? I want it back, I want it back in the form of answers. And I want it back in the form of tests and examinations." And you never get it back with interest, in both senses of the word. That, well, you have not really, you've got 60%, 70%, so you've lost 30% of what I've told you and what I've banked in you. And the whole assessment system, it really rests on that whole notion of banking, and I think it's a very simple but fairly powerful concept, what Bruiner would have called economic and very, very powerful. He talks about transforming students into receiving objects, leads men and women to adjust to the world and inhibits their creative power. >> So, what would you actually tell teachers if they wanted to think differently about this banking concept? >> Well, I think one of the things we're going to go on and talk about is conscientization, by which he means simply having the awareness of what you're doing, thinking about that, and if you think about that, yes, is that what I'm doing? I'm banking things in students and then retrieving it, perhaps that would change the nature of your pedagogy so that if you're more creative, or asking students to be more creative in their thinking, then they're adding value, if you like. You're not just retrieving knowledge, but you're creating knowledge over and above what the teacher is teaching. So, it casts the teacher actually as more of a learner. >> Mm-hm. >> So, the teacher is actually going to learn from the students, and maybe the students are banking something into their teachers as well. >> Among the many ideas that put forth by Freire, I think there are a couple of notions that he also emphasised, such as dialogue and praxis. And maybe some ideas that you wanted to share with us, on this aspect, would be helpful for teachers. >> We talk about two key ideas of dialogue and praxis. Praxis is a word that he uses, to distinguish from practice because it has a theoretical component to it. So, often in common discourse, people talk about practice and theory, and people say well that maybe works in theory but it doesn't work in practice. But he's saying no these two things should never be distinct and separate. They are part of the whole thing. The praxis is a theoretical informed practice. And it relies on very clearly held human and political values. And then dialogue, again with a theme that we've revisited a number of times in various courses, which is about meaning - how do we get meaning, dia logos, meaning flowing through it? And when he talks about dialogue, it's not just a question of understanding but it's a question of how we deepen constantly, deepen understanding, through the kind of engagement that we have together, so you're not delivering a lecture but we're talking together and creating new ideas, creating knowledge through that process of dialogue. >> I think the idea of praxis is very interesting, and I think it'd be important for teachers. Most often, teachers do not think about the theory aspect of it. >> Mm-hm. >> And if only they could include theory into their practice, I think it'll become very much richer. >> Mm-hm. >> And, yeah. >> There's this terrible dichotomy that people go into colleges of education or teacher training or whatever, and they say, oh, that's all about theory, and you know, tell us about practice. And that kind of dichotomy, that dualistic thinking, and I think this is a great contribution of Freire's, to make us think and know these two things. We all have a theory, a four-year-old, three-year-old, two-year-old child has a theory about how the world works, and that theory informs practice. So, everything a child does connects actually with their theoretical understanding of the world. >> Could you please give us an example how praxis could work for teachers? >> Well, unconsciously, what teachers are doing, or good teachers are doing is they are theorizing all the time about practice, and they're asking their students to make explicit the theory that they have when they're engaging in some very practical task. So, it may be in a science experiment that the teacher is saying, "What are you seeing?" And not saying then, "No, that's not right." Tell me what you see. The student says, "Well, what I see here is that the level in this beaker has risen when it was heated." So, what's your theory about that? Do you have a theory? And I think science, for example, is one way of constantly challenging young people not to be given a theory of why things happen, but to be able to see that every practical thing that they do in the classroom is underpinned by a theory. So, they develop their theoretical understanding through the practice, and a good teacher would be able to pull that out of the practical activity to make them understand, yes, you have a theory, and it's a theory in action. >> Earlier you mentioned this word, conscientization. And how do you see this explained by Freire? >> He's a terrible man for inventing difficult words! And a lot of theorists, of course, that's what they do, is they make up words, and I think this is a Freire word, "conscientization". It's really a way of talking about consciousness and not just being conscious of what happening around, but being able to reflect on your own consciousness, and seeing when you have a political consciousness, you are in a much better position to be able to act in the world, and what he called transform reality, transform the world. So, it's not just consciousness. It's consciousness in action. The same way that praxis is theory in action. >> Now, I'm wondering how this can be related to teachers' work? >> Well, again, it's a question of how a teacher makes the students' consciousness something that is not just passive, and a sense of awareness that actually helps the student to take some form of action on the basis of what they now know and understand. So, if there's something in the school that they've talked about in theory that they're not very happy with, and they've developed a much more critical understanding of that. Alright, what are you going to do about it now? How are you going to go beyond understanding to transform something, make it real, something that you care about? You have to act on it then, to transform the reality of what you're talking about and what you're experiencing. >> And could you please tell how our participants in this course could expand their ideas on this concept put forth by Freire? >> Well, we've always asked people in every course to think, pair and share. And here's another example, I think, where you need to talk about some of these key ideas, like banking. What does that mean to you? What does the teacher do? Are you really in a situation where you're the oppressor and the oppressed? Discuss that. And, if you were to be asked what is Freire's main contribution to our thinking and to your practice as a teacher, what would you say? >> Thank you, John for joining us this week. I hope you have learned a lot of things that will be helpful for you. [MUSIC]
