1.) When Freire described the “problem-posing method” of learning, I immediately thought of my senior AP English class. My teacher devoted the entire first semester to poetry; in this poetry unit, we would discuss each poem as a class and have a dialogue about its meaning, symbols, literary devices, etc. Mrs. Levitt never told us the meaning of the poems, which literary devices we would need to know for the test, or which poems were “famous”; she would simply call upon raised hands, answer questions, and grade our tests. Sometimes there would be arguments about the answers Mrs. Levitt would give and sometimes she would even admit that she was wrong. Overall, it was a symbiotic student-teacher relationship. I remember doing quite well in that class and I still to this day remember most of the poems we went over, because I actually LEARNED in that class– the lessons entered my consciousness. By becoming responsible for my own learning, I was able to reflect on each poem rather than passively consume it. I established my own relationships with the poems and authors who wrote them; by tracing the progression each author’s poems, I could delineate their personal lives and contributions to the world around them. Freire describes this reflection as considering, “neither abstract man nor the world without people, but people in their relations with the world. In these relations consciousness and world are simultaneous: consciousness neither precedes the world nor follows it.” (263). Mrs. Levitt’s AP English class allowed me to reflect this way and it hasn’t escaped from my consciousness yet.
2.) Towards the beginning of his essay, Paulo Freire states, “for apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human” (257). The fact that we are able to question the world, question others, and questions ourselves separates us from the animals; but beside that, the fact that we put on clothing, drive cars, go to Starbucks, and make calls on our cell phones also grants us our humanity. Our actions and practices, or as Freire puts it, our “praxis” is how knowledge is invented— discovery, experiment, writing, reading, learning, teaching— humanity’s praxis leads to it’s intelligent authority above animals. Later, he uses liberation as a form of praxis: “the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” (262). He describes liberation as a process of humanization, a physical practice of adopting men and women as conscious beings and, by doing so, allowing them to change society. The banking concept of education dehumanizes people and alienates them. By viewing people as empty containers that must be “filled” with knowledge, one is not liberating them but rather alienating them. Freire uses the term “alienation” to describe the categorizing and dehumanizing of people. Those who try to liberate the “ignorant” by allowing them to memorize facts they ramble on about, are actually alienating them from their conscious relation to the world.
3.) Though Paulo Freire sings the praises of dialogical learning, he is guilty himself of “talking at” the reader. Towards the end (page 265), he compares and contrasts the banking concept and problem-posing concept of learning. He defines each one and tells the reader why problem-posing is better. This particular bit of the essay establishes no dialogue at all; Freire is simply stating the truth, or what he perceives as the truth. Overall, however, I believe Freire succeeds in not “making deposits” in to my empty vessel of a brain. The section where he discusses the items on his desk and then draws a parallel to entering consciousness I think inspires a lot of dialogue. I had to read this paragraph a few times to really “get it”, and that’s what makes it a good discussion piece. By using an example from his own reality, Freire allows each reader to apply his reflections to their own surroundings. I know I started looking around at the stuff on my desk and thought about how I was aware of them, but they’re not a part of me. By inspiring the reader to actively apply his thoughts, Freire succeeds in practicing what he preaches.
