See Pedagogy of the Oppressed at From Word to Word

Great book!!!! Paulo Freire takes concepts of education and links them to social change relative to observations of occurrences throughout history and present realities. An insightful perspective that calls people to awareness of themselves through understanding of love, unity and diversity in order to create a better world. ( )

Every educator should be made to read this book. I can't believe I went through Peace Corps and the Fellowship program at Columbia without running across this pivotal book on pedagogy.

This is a must read for any working within the bounds of the educational sphere. Finally a compassionate manifesto guiding us towards the end of human suffering and oppression through love and dialogue. ( )

I ended up reading this over a period of about six months, just getting through a bit of it and then moving on to read something else and coming back to it much later. It was all so disjointed that I didn't get much out of it other than the basic points.

I remember the part about "praxis", for example - he said that action without thought and thought without action are both pointless; what is needed is "praxis", which he defined as a combination of action and reflection.

Then the stuff for which the book is well known, about how teaching should be a collaborative project between teacher and learners rather than a hierarchical "banking" approach where the all-knowing teacher deposits knowledge into the "vessels" of learners. ( )

Freire stresses the importance of dialogue in the act of teaching. Diaglogue, he argues, is not separated from actions which make the world better, especially for the oppressed. Scholars of all fields, epecially educators, should read this book. It is very informative. ( )