Notes on Pedagogy of the Oppressed---Chapter 2

Difference between “Education” and “Schooling” (as a type of “social relation”)

Alienated Education = Schooling

-----”to be” = “to be like…”
-----and unlike one’s self (separation from)
-----using one’s self to imitate the “is” presented
-----NARRATIVE character (of teacher-student relationship)
---------a narrating Subject (teacher)
---------patient, listening OBJECTS (students)
-----”narration sickness”

Teacher’s Task
-----to “fill” students with contents of the narration

Student’s Task
-----to be “containers” (“receptacles”)
-----to record, memorize, and repeat the contents

-the “better” the “container” is filled…the better the teacher is considered to be

-the more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be “filled”…the better students they are considered to be

THUS: the “BANKING” concept of Education

-----Education = “the act of depositing”
-----”ready-to-wear” approach of knowledge
-----Teacher deposits by issuing communiqués (vs. communicating)
-----the “deposit” =
---------lifeless, petrified content
---------detached from reality (AS IF it really is)
---------motionless, static, compartmentalized…and…predictable
---------disconnected from the TOTALITY which gave rise to it
---------and which COULD give it significance
---------discussion of topics alienated from the EXISTENTIAL experience of the students

-----QUALITY OF THE CONTENT RESIDES IN THEIR “SOUND”
----------NOT in its transforming power
----------NOT in its creative and re-creative power

-----KNOWLEDGE become something (a “gift” to “have”)
-----BESTOWED by those who consider themselves (teachers) “knowledgeable”
-----TO THOSE WHOM THEY CONSIDER TO KNOW NOTHING
---------”empty vessels” in need of “filling”
-----NEGATES education and knowing as a PROCESS OF INQUIRY
-----of curiosity
--------a fundamental prerequisite of being human
-----based or predicated on a “profound distrust” of humans
-----INQUIRY is distorted as being about the “narration”
----------amplification of the “deposit”

-----Teacher is presented as the “necessary opposite” of the student
-----common ground of inquiry is separated/alienated
---------Thus, justifying teacher’s own existence

-----Students, in their alienation, accept their role of “ignorant” (stupid)
---------Thus, justifying the teacher’s own existence

-----Students never discover that they educate the teacher

-----a POLARITY (as a matter of “being”---ontologically) is created and maintained rather than reconciled
-----rather than revealing that EACH is BOTH teacher AND student

DOES SO THROUGH ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES
(Teacher maintains and stimulates contradiction of Teacher & Students)

TEACHER……………………………STUDENTS
(active voice)………………………….(passive voice)

-teaches……………………………….-are taught

-knows everything…………………… -knows nothing (“empty”)

-thinks……………………………….. -are thought about

-talks……………………………….... -listen..meekly

-disciplines (authority)………………. -are disciplined (behave/obey)

-chooses (& enforces it)………………-comply

-acts………………………………......-illusion of acting through action of the teacher

-chooses program content …………….-adapt to it

-confuses professional authority………-unfree except what authority permits
with authority of knowledge

-Subject of learning process…………..-objects of learning process

-----”Banking” regards humans as ADAPTABLE & MANAGEABLE beings

--------the student adapts to the “deposits”
--------THUS: less development of “critical consciousness
--------through intervention in their world as transformers of it
--------MORE they remain PASSIVE role-players, the MORE they simply ADAPT to the world AS IT IS (AS IF…it OUGHT to be that way)
--------and…to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them
--------THUS: a DEHUMANIZING (in the “name” of humanizing)

-----”Banking” immobilizes and fixates
--------fails to acknowledge men as HISTORICAL BEINGS

-----”Banking” reinforces man’s fatalistic perception of their situation

PROBLEM-POSING EDUCATION

-----the posing of the problems of men in their relations with the world
---------“problem” is not equal to “what’s wrong”
---------a liberation of men: men as conscious beings
---------consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world

-----PROCESS OF HUMANIZATION
---------interactive inquiry with the world
---------a resolving (reconciliation) of the teacher-student contradiction

-----DIALOGICAL RELATIONS

-----Involves a constant UNVEILING of reality

-----strives for EMERGENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

-----and…CRITICAL INTERVENTION in reality

-----Education become the PRACTICE OF FREEDOM
--------NOT the practice of domination

-----Authentic reflection considers neither abstract man NOR the world without men, BUT men in their relation with the world…feet on ground

-----P-P takes man’s HISTORICITY as its STARTING POINT (PREMISE) -----affirms men as beings in the process of BECOMING
--------as unfinished, uncomplete beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality
--------facilitates the awareness of being “unfinished”

“In this incompleteness and this awareness lie the very roots of education as an exclusively human manifestation”

-----P-P helps men to perceive their “state of being” NOT as fated and unalterable, but merely as LIMITING
--------THUS: as CHALLENGING

-----PROBLEM-POSING presents their very situation as a “PROBLEM”
--------to be encountered every day and in everything they do