Reading Freire

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I personally find Freire’s argument quite convincing. His extremity, his repeating use of words, his powerful exaggeration actually compels me to agree with him in some way. What is more, all these words, structure of the passage make it clear that he is in the conversation with people who are part of the education system, his argument is trying to make those people notice the problem and solve it.
In the opening of the article, Freire points out that the narrative education makes the learning process become pointless and destroys the student’s creativity. “A careful analysis of the teacher- student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified.” (Freire, 71) By using the existing analysis, Freire states the relationship between student and teacher is almost narrative: the students play the role of objective receiver, while the teacher (narrator) gains satisfaction from “depositing” their knowledge in students’ mind.
Being part of the education system, I had experienced about the “Narrative” teacher-student relationship in person. “You would never fail the quiz if you do what I told you to!” “Trust me, you are going to thank me for asking you guys to memorize these formulas!” These are the words I constantly heard from some of my teachers. It is like I am thrown into this dilemma---Accept everything we were taught and succeed or doubt it and fail the test.
As Freire’s argument unfolds, he starts t...

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...vel, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified.
Problem-posing education, responding to the essence of consciousness-intentionality-rejects communiqués and embodies communication. It epitomizes the special characteristic of consciousness: being conscious of, not only as intent on objects but as turned in upon itself in a Jasperian “split”—consciousness as consciousness of consciousness.
Banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people’s historicity as their starting point

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