This is an old book that is still relevant in our times. So, I’d like to share a few things that others have said that I agree with.
But before that, let me share some great thoughts that this books invoked in me as pertains to my present situation.
Kenya is a country that has gone to the dogs economically and the elites are more withdrawn from the people.
In Pedagogy of The Oppressed, we learn that the opperesser is also lost and inhuman, and in our quest to liberate ourselves from the oppressers hold, we need to humanize first. Because in the roughness of life, humanity is usually the first to be lost
A better society that recognises that we are. WE ARE HUMANS FIRST is possible.
The educator, Paolo Freire, advises that in the attempt at humanising ourselves, we are also humanising the oppressors, for in their (oppressors) dehumanization efforts, they have also dehumanized themselves.
In their dehumanized forms, they thrive by passing communiques and slogans that are irrelevant and unawakening. They ride on our ignorance to dehumanize us and oppress us further.
So, the task of the revolutionary, who mostly, must come from the side of the oppressed, must be to undertake that great task above; to humanize.
Warning to the revolutionary is that you need not impose your words on those you lead towards liberation. If you do, then you falsify that word and establish a contradiction between your methods and your objectives. If you are truly committed to liberation, your action and reflection cannot proceed without the action and reflection of others.
Here are what some have written about the book in Google Reviews
Muhammad Yasin
The book is very revolutionary in the context of the way we teach our students.
Here the author says that students are not empty vessels to be filled. They should be engaged to co-learn and engaged creatively. They should be encouraged into dialogue and to ask why.
The oppressors want to maintain status quo by preventing creative thinking in students and in the society. The functions of the education should be liberating and engaging men and women in solidarity with others in the world.
Must read for all the teachers, educators and parents.
Vincent Ndlovu
The ideal therapy for the oppressed against whom conventional education is used to keep them slaves of monopoly capital no matter how creative they could be if allowed to think outside his/her master’s box. Education for the liberation of the mind that produces a rounded being ready to face the real world that we live in than the cloning concept that produces graduates who cannot think beyond the parameters of the textbook. Even good for adult education as it promotes and emphasises critical thinking against passive participation.
Gus Perez
Run of the mill communist dogma from the 1960’s gibberish!! Yes folks according to the mentally ill nut job who wrote this everybody is oppressed or marginalized . Just Marxist drivel save your money and go buy yourself a coffee and donuts it has more substance then this old tired Marxist read.
Buy this book from Nuria Store.