Topic > Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed: How the Educational Structure Has Taken Away True Humanity

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Freire explores the entrenched banking structure of education and how it deprives people of true humanity . While promoting the main idea that our education system follows an oppressive “banking method,” Freire discusses what it means to be human and have full awareness, neither of which are achieved through the education systems in place. Education in Freire's eyes is not simply about learning in the classroom, but rather about “authentic liberation – the [true] process of humanization” (79) that students bring into the world. In the system currently in place, students are constantly being dehumanized in education, leading them to become more fearful and robotic, rather than prosperous. What appears to be a flaw in the way education is given and received actually refers to a broader idea of ​​wholesomeness, creativity, and the pursuit of “people's historical vocation” (85) of humanization and barriers students face that prevent them from ever realizing this calling. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Freire's main points involve the idea that our educational model has adopted a system where teachers pay deposits and students simply receive them without any critical analysis or thought, never allowing them to evolve and grow as individuals. He claims that "the more docile the containers are allowed to be filled, the better the students" (71) in the eyes of teachers and society. In a sense, students are trained to become robots, completely stripped of their humanity, but never realizing it as this same robotic phenomenon is glorified in our society. The more empty the students are, the better they are able to be "filled" with the information "deposited" in them by their teachers. This very notion prevents students from thinking for themselves, because if they already have individual ideas, they will no longer be able to retain the information they receive. Therefore, the only way to thrive in such a society is to be empty, devoid of individuality, and worst of all, conform to their dehumanization. From Freire's point of view, education is intended to create. Whether it is the creation of new ideas, individual perspectives, or a new world, the knowledge gained from education is intended to enable people to think critically and as part of the world around them. The purpose of such education is to help people see and understand the world “not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation,” (83) which simply does not happen in the bank clerk's method. The aforementioned terrible process of "filing and archiving" has a simultaneous effect on the personality of students, since "it is the people themselves who are archived for lack of creativity, transformation and knowledge" (72) as they receive more information from the outside. from their education, O oppressors. Before being placed in this education system, students have desires, curiosity, and the ability to think critically. However, the horrible structure of education frees them from this as they are introduced to the material in class and the methods by which they are expected to demonstrate their understanding of that material. They have information thrown at them robotically and their job is to eventually return it, but this time in the form of a test or quiz. Instead of evolving and growing as human beings through education, they face the opposite effect. Apartthe inherent conditioning of students that occurs in our educational system, Freire also argues that there is economic exploitation of students by their oppressors. The dehumanization he speaks of comes from a power complex of oppressors who “use their 'humanitarianism' to preserve an advantageous situation” (74) of students who will never see a creative world because they will not have enough productive knowledge to create one. The “win situation” in this case is the powerful role that oppressors play, through which they can constantly condition students to become more and more lifeless and never allow them to truly pursue their true calling. Furthermore, by encasing students' personalities and creative potential in a constant cycle of "fill" and "store," oppressors can ensure a world in which they are always at the forefront of the education system and, in turn, more economically advantaged. . compensated in their fields without allowing new generations to break out of the cycle of oppression to become one of the oppressors. The way students are conditioned and educated creates an atmosphere not unlike that of a slaughterhouse. Students are trained, taught to do things in a certain way that is beneficial to their oppressor, without any individuality. Freire uses the term “domestication” (75) when describing the style of education imposed on students. They are spoken of as pets, or animals, being trained for their inevitable failure in the pursuit of their true vocation: humanization. Through the juxtaposition of “biophilia,” the connection humans unconsciously seek with the rest of life versus “necrophilia.” ,” the death wish, Freire further reveals the implicit desires that educators inherently have to condition students to “become lifeless and petrified” (71). The evident need for power and control in teachers is evident in their necrophilic desires which over time suppress any space for the development of biophilia in students. The way of teaching is clearly oppressive and “oppression – overwhelming control – is necrophilic; it feeds on the love of death, not of life (75). Precisely this love of death explains the reasons behind the method adopted by oppressors by which they slowly take away the life, creativity and potential for transformation from their students. The constant domestication that students face ultimately takes away their individuality, and since educators are the ones who facilitate this process, they feed that necrophilic desire. While not literally killing, they take so much away from their students that eventually all life is drained from them. The list of practices of a teacher-student dynamic listed by Freire implicitly serves as a primary example of such a circumstance. (73)All the characteristics implicit in the list of teachers show great power. Everything that happens in a classroom is transferred from the teacher to the student. The student is simply the recipient of the action and has no say in what is happening. In this way, they are dead inside and unable to think for themselves or make conscious decisions, and their passive nature in such situations allows them to thrive in this world with a “fragmented view of reality lodged in them” (73). Students will only ever know what the teacher tells them and, therefore, will be slowly stripped of their identities and their potential to thrive in the world and become fully human. Therefore, the current education system is only suitable for the oppressors, because the more the oppressed learn, the more passive they become and let themselves.