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FREIRE PAULO Pedagogy of the Oppressed 50th Ed.
FREIRE PAULO Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 50th anniversary edition
181 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 11, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 13, 2026
3.5 stars rounded down in light of my personal critiques.
Freire is undoubtedly an astute student of his own personal experience, and considering his upbringing, his analysis of consciousness and its interaction with the material is very impressive. At the time that he wrote this treatise, Marxism was the predominant leftist current in most of the world, and it's clear that he tried to fit his pedagogy within this tradition.
This alignment is also the pedagogy's greatest downfall--Or rather, its greatest downfall is that Freire's vision doesn't really expand beyond a Leninist or Maoist framework. This weakness is particularly evident in the second half of this book, where Freire rambles about dialectalism with all the pretentiousness of a vanguardist. In this respect, the book could have been much shorter, or it could have at least provided more concrete examples of how Freire applied his pedagogy to real life study groups. There are only sparse examples of this teaching method represented in the actual text itself, which is a huge blind spot. In the 50th anniversary edition, this problem is sort of reduced by the foreword and epilogues, but not by much.
So while I feel that the book is useful and I certainly recognize its impact globally, I was left with more questions than answers when I finished it. How would this pedagogy apply to classrooms with students from several socioeconomic backgrounds, which may include both oppressed and oppressor? Freire seems to assume that his pedagogy is mostly going to be tailored to homogenous groups of oppressed students, but if it is truly a pedagogy meant for all students, then it should stand the test of working in all classrooms. I have my doubts about how this would work, having been to a private liberal arts college with cohorts influenced by Freire's work.
What if the students come to a different conclusion or worldview than the one provided by Marxism-Leninism? Freire seems to take for granted that MLism, or Maoism, or Castroism, are not objective sciences, although Marx did indeed succeed in correctly analyzing the flaws of capitalism. This question, to me, is the biggest problem with this pedagogy, as ultimately I feel that the ML framework is restrictive. We need the ability to think beyond Marxism, and while Freire might not be opposed to this, I have a feeling that he as a "teacher-student" would be unwilling to let a class steer the curriculum in that fashion. As an anarcho-communalist myself, this unwillingness is also my critique of the authoritarianism, however subtle, that Marxist-Leninists and Maoists engage in in order to adapt pre-existing institutions to their philosophy. Retrofitting leftism to institutions will not do--We need to rebuild the institutions from the ground up.
So it is with education. I think Freire was very much on the right track, and I see a lot of useful techniques in this pedagogy. But I can't help but wonder if Freire himself would balk at students who questioned his techniques, or how he would respond to criticisms from other leftists concerning his politics. I don't know him personally (and couldn't, because he's dead), so I will never have the answer to these questions. Because of this, the pedagogy feels incomplete and slightly outdated to me, personally. Definitely still worth a read though.
Freire is undoubtedly an astute student of his own personal experience, and considering his upbringing, his analysis of consciousness and its interaction with the material is very impressive. At the time that he wrote this treatise, Marxism was the predominant leftist current in most of the world, and it's clear that he tried to fit his pedagogy within this tradition.
This alignment is also the pedagogy's greatest downfall--Or rather, its greatest downfall is that Freire's vision doesn't really expand beyond a Leninist or Maoist framework. This weakness is particularly evident in the second half of this book, where Freire rambles about dialectalism with all the pretentiousness of a vanguardist. In this respect, the book could have been much shorter, or it could have at least provided more concrete examples of how Freire applied his pedagogy to real life study groups. There are only sparse examples of this teaching method represented in the actual text itself, which is a huge blind spot. In the 50th anniversary edition, this problem is sort of reduced by the foreword and epilogues, but not by much.
So while I feel that the book is useful and I certainly recognize its impact globally, I was left with more questions than answers when I finished it. How would this pedagogy apply to classrooms with students from several socioeconomic backgrounds, which may include both oppressed and oppressor? Freire seems to assume that his pedagogy is mostly going to be tailored to homogenous groups of oppressed students, but if it is truly a pedagogy meant for all students, then it should stand the test of working in all classrooms. I have my doubts about how this would work, having been to a private liberal arts college with cohorts influenced by Freire's work.
What if the students come to a different conclusion or worldview than the one provided by Marxism-Leninism? Freire seems to take for granted that MLism, or Maoism, or Castroism, are not objective sciences, although Marx did indeed succeed in correctly analyzing the flaws of capitalism. This question, to me, is the biggest problem with this pedagogy, as ultimately I feel that the ML framework is restrictive. We need the ability to think beyond Marxism, and while Freire might not be opposed to this, I have a feeling that he as a "teacher-student" would be unwilling to let a class steer the curriculum in that fashion. As an anarcho-communalist myself, this unwillingness is also my critique of the authoritarianism, however subtle, that Marxist-Leninists and Maoists engage in in order to adapt pre-existing institutions to their philosophy. Retrofitting leftism to institutions will not do--We need to rebuild the institutions from the ground up.
So it is with education. I think Freire was very much on the right track, and I see a lot of useful techniques in this pedagogy. But I can't help but wonder if Freire himself would balk at students who questioned his techniques, or how he would respond to criticisms from other leftists concerning his politics. I don't know him personally (and couldn't, because he's dead), so I will never have the answer to these questions. Because of this, the pedagogy feels incomplete and slightly outdated to me, personally. Definitely still worth a read though.
July 17, 2025
This books has good information for educators regarding how our teaching practices can be oppressive & the importance of challenging the “banking system” of education. Read this for an M.Ed History & Philosophy course.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews