In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing... The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence.

Paulo Freire

Categorized in : Teacher Opposites Ignorance

The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is him/herself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.

Paulo Freire

taught teaching teacher

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.

Paulo Freire

creativity learning educational

Learning is a process where knowledge is presented to us, then shaped through understanding, discussion and reflection.

Paulo Freire

learning understanding reflection

Educators need to know what happens in the world of the children with whom they work. They need to know the universe of their dreams, the language with which they skillfully defend themselves from the aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of the school, and how they know it.

Paulo Freire

dream children school

Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.

Paulo Freire

inquiry hopeful learning

The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.

Paulo Freire

teaching teacher mean

Education is an act of love, and thus an act of courage

Paulo Freire

acts-of-courage acts-of-love

Whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning.

Paulo Freire

teach teaching

The more people participate in the process of their own education, and the more people participate in defining what kind of production to produce, and for what and why, the more people participate in the development of their selves. The more people become themselves, the better the democracy.

Paulo Freire

democracy self people

No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.

Paulo Freire

experience self world

Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause--the cause of liberation.

Paulo Freire

matter love-is commitment

Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.

Paulo Freire

contradiction students teacher

Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.

Paulo Freire

leader decision people

It would be extremely naive to expect the dominant classes to develop a type of education that would enable subordinate classes to perceive social injustices critically.

Paulo Freire

educational would-be class

No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so.

Paulo Freire

humans

Within the word we find two dimensions-reflection and action. If one is sacrificed even in part, the other immediately suffers. To speak a true word is to transform the world.

Paulo Freire

suffering reflection two

Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information

Paulo Freire

pedagogy-of-the-oppressed cognition information

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

Paulo Freire

honesty powerful peace

Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.

Paulo Freire

burning treats building

Dialogue cannot exist without humility.

Paulo Freire

dialogue humility