carlin
Classic example of a book with one message that it repeats for 200 pages. The ideas are good, some great, but the book fails to interrogate it or apply it to more than its very narrow context.
Before getting into my critiques, I do want to commend the ideas that he surfaced, namely:
- banking pedagogy as an oppressive force, which sows passivity
- problem-posing inquiry between teacher-students and student-teachers
- the duality of the oppressed
I believe that he is more right than he is wrong, but the ideas weren't sufficiently developed for me
The book is commonly studied in education classes, however Freire is very clear that this is a manual for how to perform a cultural revolution, which is quite different to teaching a class. It is still a useful idea regardless, but it is interesting how people defang it from it's Marxist and revolutionary text.
For one, and I'm not being pithy or insincere, but why is this a book? Like genuinely, if the banking model of education is fundamentally oppressive, why would you present this as a book. Perhaps this should be a textbook in which you are able to come to your own conclusions. However in reality, perhaps it is because it's powerful (and scalable) for someone to do a bunch of thinking and convey it in the form of a lesson or a book, like he has done. Obviously this is fine, but it would be appreciated if Freire could similarly elaborate on what types of information are appropriate for different mediums.
For another, the worst part of the book is his conceptualisation of animals as essentially automatons. He genuinely contends that animals don't take risks as they are unthinking. This chauvanistic thinking must've been dated even at the time of publication, and not only is it eye-rolling to read him talk so blatently out of his ass, but it makes me doubt the soundness of his conception of human processes if he's unable to see the rest of the natural world as Subjects.
There are some truths here that I think are worth ingesting for the wanna-be revolutionary, but equally the idea of having to dialogue with everyone feels ... masculine ? Like if you have a house to clean and kids to raise do you have the time, energy, or care, to invest in this vocation? To be clear, sure they also should be liberated and everyone should be able to realise themselves, but in different parts of your life you want to be a sheep and in others a goat. Even in a utopia, not everyone would want to be a political philosopher.
In terms of the presentation of the book, I found the endnotes to be almost always be disruptive as they lacked relevance and so I ended up just reading them in a big block at the end of the chapter. I was also frustrated that there were blockquotes that were left untranslated.
In all, I think this endures due to it's memorable title and for naming something which is worth interrogating. It's a shame that this book is not definitive in any sense.
Classic example of a book with one message that it repeats for 200 pages. The ideas are good, some great, but the book fails to interrogate it or apply it to more than its very narrow context.
Before getting into my critiques, I do want to commend the ideas that he surfaced, namely:
- banking pedagogy as an oppressive force, which sows passivity
- problem-posing inquiry between teacher-students and student-teachers
- the duality of the oppressed
I believe that he is more right than he is wrong, but the ideas weren't sufficiently developed for me
The book is commonly studied in education classes, however Freire is very clear that this is a manual for how to perform a cultural revolution, which is quite different to teaching a class. It is still a useful idea regardless, but it is interesting how people defang it from it's Marxist and revolutionary text.
For one, and I'm not being pithy or insincere, but why is this a book? Like genuinely, if the banking model of education is fundamentally oppressive, why would you present this as a book. Perhaps this should be a textbook in which you are able to come to your own conclusions. However in reality, perhaps it is because it's powerful (and scalable) for someone to do a bunch of thinking and convey it in the form of a lesson or a book, like he has done. Obviously this is fine, but it would be appreciated if Freire could similarly elaborate on what types of information are appropriate for different mediums.
For another, the worst part of the book is his conceptualisation of animals as essentially automatons. He genuinely contends that animals don't take risks as they are unthinking. This chauvanistic thinking must've been dated even at the time of publication, and not only is it eye-rolling to read him talk so blatently out of his ass, but it makes me doubt the soundness of his conception of human processes if he's unable to see the rest of the natural world as Subjects.
There are some truths here that I think are worth ingesting for the wanna-be revolutionary, but equally the idea of having to dialogue with everyone feels ... masculine ? Like if you have a house to clean and kids to raise do you have the time, energy, or care, to invest in this vocation? To be clear, sure they also should be liberated and everyone should be able to realise themselves, but in different parts of your life you want to be a sheep and in others a goat. Even in a utopia, not everyone would want to be a political philosopher.
In terms of the presentation of the book, I found the endnotes to be almost always be disruptive as they lacked relevance and so I ended up just reading them in a big block at the end of the chapter. I was also frustrated that there were blockquotes that were left untranslated.
In all, I think this endures due to it's memorable title and for naming something which is worth interrogating. It's a shame that this book is not definitive in any sense.
