93 quotes
In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people's historicity as their starting point.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
The basic thing, starting from the initial perception of these nuclei of contradictions (which include the principal contradiction of society as a larger epochal unit) is to study the inhabitants' awareness of these contradictions.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they existin the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
Some may think that to affirm dialogue—the encounter of women and men in the world in order to transform the world—is naively and subjectively idealistic. There is nothing, however, more real or concrete than people in the world and with the world, than humans with other humans.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
If education is the relation between Subjects in the knowing process mediated by the knowable object, in which the educator permanently reconstructs the act of knowing, it must then be problem-posing. The task of the educator is to present to the educatees as a problem the content which mediates them, and not to discourse on it, give it, extend it, or hand it over, as if it were a matter of something already done, constituted, completed, and finished.
Extension or Communication (1974)
Men are defeated and dominated, though they do not know it; they fear freedom, though they believe themselves to be free. They follow general formulas and prescriptions as if by their own choice. They are directed; they do not direct themselves. Their creative power is impaired. They are objects, not Subjects.
Education as the Practice of Freedom (1974)
Implicit in the banking concept is the assumption of a dichotomy between human beings and the world: a person is merely in the world, not with the world or with others; the individual is spectator, not re-creator.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal. For the oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more—always more—even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
Thematic investigation thus becomes a common striving towards awareness of reality and towards self-awareness, which makes this investigation a starting point for the educational process or for cultural action of a liberating character.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
Organization is not only directly linked to unity, but a natural development of that unity. Accordingly, the leaders' pursuit of that unity is also an attempt to organize the people, requiring witness to the fact that the struggle for liberation is a common task.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
The dialogical character of education as the practice of freedom does not begin when the teacher-student meets with the students-teachers in pedagogical situation, but rather when the former first asks herself or himself what she or he will dialogue with the latter about.
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968)
The integrated person is person as Subject. In contrast, the adaptive person is person as object, adaptation representing at most a weak form of self-defense. If man is incapable of changing reality, he adjusts himself instead. Adaptation is behavior characteristic of the animal sphere; exhibited by man, it is symptomatic of his dehumanization.
Education as the Practice of Freedom (1974)