Summary & Close Reading of Paulo Freires - Essay Example

In Pedagogy of the oppressed, Paulo Freire uses a combination of political, educational and philosophical theories in order to address the real source of oppression as well as liberation for the oppressed. He advocates for the awakening of critical and creative thinking as the only medium of liberation which takes place through a new and a more dynamic approach to education. This new approach to education focuses on a close partnership between the teacher and the student by seeking to empower the student to be involved in a dialogue process and adoption of human qualities evident in the thought process and its correlative action.

The book begins by introducing the idea of developing critical awareness among the oppressed people in the society. The oppressed normally have the fear of freedom which increases the chances of then being oppressed. According to Paulo Freire, those who are under oppression must strive to see the bigger picture outside them so that they develop an understanding of their situation in order to begin thinking about their own world. Such a process can only be attained through dialogue in education in which one has to adopt change as the only tool for transformation.

The only way towards reclaiming humanity is by critical consciousness which leads to synthesis of thought and actions. As a result only those who are being oppressed have got the power to save themselves from such kind of oppression and the only approach is through critical analysis as well as understanding of reality that guides them to action. The term, “banking education” has been adopted by Freire to refer to the traditional relationship between the teacher and the student owing to its oppressive nature.

In such a case, the teacher possesses control thus playing the role of the oppressor while the student who is always passive in the learning process assumes the position of the oppressed. The role of the teacher is to deposit information into the student who