Reflecting Freire’s Chapter 3

  

Reflecting Freire’s Chapter 3

Author: Santosh Kumar Biswa, Sr. Teacher, Damphu CS, Tsirang, Bhutan

 

Introduction

The education system had observed lots of merits in the field of reformation of education, right from Dewey’s philosophy of progressivism to Freire’s critical pedagogy. Being in political exile, according to Freire (1970, 1993), the main purpose of education is to acquire freedom from the realities people are facing due to politics, power, and oppression. It is because Freire thinks that people are traumatized by the fear of acting for freedom. After all, it involves the risk of freedom (LitCharts, 2021) due to politics. In chapter three, it is traced that to discuss dialogue, praxis, and actual liberation for a free society, Freire combined reflection and action during his discussion. Through his book, it is evident that he discusses sectarianism to prevent change, the change like radicalization that focuses on the change in the social setting for human liberation. His philosophy of banking education is just an alternative to any kind of traditional models of education (Nguyen, 2019) in which his central concept in chapter three is centered on ‘dialogue’. Thus, this write-up expands on dialogue with the analysis based on Freire’s discussion.

Analysis of Freire’s concept of the chosen term “Dialogue” and its Meaning

Freire discusses the methods of perfecting any kind of dialogical issues that pave education in the right direction within a hierarchical society, as it is one of the most important elements of human communication. A proper dialogue makes communication from both sides equal and effective. He argues that any spoken words would become ineffectual if they were spoken against oppression without its backup. He stressed why discussion is significant to make the words effective. To him, words in the absence of reflection are similar to activism, and without action is similar to verbalism (Course Hero, 2021).

He further stated that one of the attributes of dialogue is love which he referred it as an act of creating love towards humanity and a word because, in the absence of it, one may not have sympathy for humanity. On the other hand, he stated that dialogue should be a product of humility in which we should talk with humility respecting other’s views while dialogizing and acknowledging them because no effective dialogue takes place if a person thinks that they knows better than any other people. The next idea he shared is about having faith in humanity with the belief that humans live in their own condition because all humans work together, and should follow the process of reflection and action. Moreover, he insisted on having trust between one another in which the authenticity of the dialogue will be validated well by both parties. A lack of trust doesn’t make the complete dialogue. Further, he insisted on having hope in dialogue that promotes the transformation of one another through the change in one another. Finally, he concluded that, without critical thinking in the dialogue, it makes no sense. They should be able to relate their own perception of the world around them with the dialogue. But, he insisted that one should be an active listener (Dimitrov, 2002)

Connection to Curriculum Development and its Effectiveness

In any curriculum reformation, the notion of dialogue into a method he stressed is crucial because it focuses on directing a teacher in making them dialogically pedagogical in a classroom setting, any teacher would love their student and teach them about loving one another. Moreover, they teach their student about humility because they go into the classroom with humility, although they do not enter the classroom with a bundle of knowledge, and they will have faith in students with their interest in learning. Most importantly, the trust between the teacher and the student will be strengthened enabling everyone to have the hopeful pedagogy, both the individual and the collective one, through intensive critical thinking on the go. Ultimately, it enables the classroom to be an effective, transformative classroom that changes everyone positively through meaningful learning. Freire said, “The starting point for organizing the program content of education] must be the present, existential, concrete situation, reflecting the aspirations of the people. Utilizing certain basic contradictions, we must pose this existential, concrete, present situation to the people as a problem which challenges them and requires a response — not just at the intellectual level, but at the level of action”  (Freire, 1970, 1993, para. 17). Dialogue is essential during curriculum reform because even the curriculum designers with the discussed attributes can themselves build trust within themselves for better communication and critical thinking so that a better version of the curriculum can be derived through effective talk.

The Strength and Validity of this Term

The concept of dialogue, the strength it provides is that it enables the teacher to create progressive learning and involve students in theorizing experiences gained during the process of dialogue through critical pedagogy to engage through it for the agreed views based on the choice made on the term (Ramos, 2005). But, words can be true or false words in which the false word won’t be able to transform the reality of life, but the true word does (Nguyen, 2019). It encourages students to be “dialogic” so that they get some kind of freedom in the classroom while discovering the knowledge through their learning by turning them to be proactive learners at all times.

Conclusion

To conclude, Freire’s point of discussion in his text about dialogue is truly awakening because any kind of proper curriculum development, review, and design can make any intended environment democratic.  The most important thing is that the impacts on learners depend on every individual teacher who makes some differences in support of their values and beliefs (The Digi Teachers, n.d.). The main focus on the learners is to be prioritized and should not be compromised with any other factors and ultimately.

 

Reference

Course Hero. (2021). Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Chapter 3 Summary. Retrieved December 14, 2021 from https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Pedagogy-of-the-Oppressed/chapter-3-summary/

Dimitrov, S. (2002). Paulo Freire (1921—1997). Retrieved December 14, 2021 from https://iep.utm.edu/freire/#SH6c

Freire, P. (1970, 1993). Chapter 3. In Pedagogy of the oppressed. The Continuum International Publishing Group. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon2/pedagogy/pedagogychapter3.html

LitCharts. (2021). Pedagogy of the Oppressed Summary. Retrieved December 14, 2021 from https://www.litcharts.com/lit/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed/summary

Nguyen, T. L. (2019). A Brief Analysis of Freire’s Dialogue Term. Retrieved December 14, 2021 from https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/a-brief-analysis-of-freires-dialogue-term-81cb12fd9d71

Ramos, M. B. (2005). Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Retrieved December 14, 2021 from https://envs.ucsc.edu/internships/internship-readings/freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf

The Digi Teachers. (n.d.). Understanding the Different Types of Teaching Philosophies. Retrieved July 3, 2021 from https://thedigiteachers.com/teaching-philosophies/