Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition | Paulo Freire
First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
blurb
SpaceCowboyBooks
post image

Today's reading

Readergrrl Fantastic book! I‘ve only read excerpts, but I‘ve enjoyed each one! 5mo
AmandaBlaze I remember reading this at a Ska bar during my grad school years. 5mo
Bookwomble Brilliant book! I read it earlier this year and it's still so relevant. 5mo
35 likes3 comments
review
Singout
post image
Pickpick

Revisit to one I studied in teachers‘ college (my choice!) years ago. Still relevant: students aren‘t empty vessels, there shouldn‘t be a split between “leaders” and “followers” when organizing for social justice, the political left can be just as guilty as the right for self-righteously neglecting to include everyone in work for change, space for love and creativity is needed.
#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Brazil
#Nonfiction2023 #MasterofPuppets

Librarybelle Hooray for covering a couple of prompts! 5mo
TheAromaofBooks Great progress!!! 5mo
15 likes2 comments
quote
Singout

The essential elements of witness include consistency between words and actions; boldness, which urges the witnesses to confront issues of permanent risk; radicalization, not sectarianism; courage to love, which doesn‘t accommodate an unjust world, but transforms that world on behalf of the increasing liberation of humankind; and faith in the people. Witness which has not borne fruit under certain conditions can still bear fruit tomorrow.

quote
Singout
post image

In the process of oppression, the elites subsist on the living death of the oppressed, and find their authentication in the vertical relationship between themselves and the latter. In the revolutionary process, there is only one way for the emerging leaders to achieve authenticity. They must die in order to be reborn through and in communion with the oppressed….what can be more important than to live and work for the wretched of the Earth?

quote
Singout
post image

Revolutionary praxis cannot tolerate an absurd dichotomy in which the praxis of the people is merely following the leaders… revolutionary praxis is a unity, and the leaders cannot treat the oppressed as their possession. Manipulation, sloganizing, depositing, regimentization, and prescription cannot be components of revolutionary practice, precisely because they are components of the praxis of domination/1

Singout A revolution is achieved with neither verbalism nor activism, but rather with praxis, that is with reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed. The revolutionary movement to transform the structures radically cannot designate its leaders as thinkers and the oppressed as mere doers. True commitment to transforming action requires assigning the people a fundamental role in the transformation process. 7mo
6 likes1 comment
blurb
RebL
post image

I read this because:
* Someone at work said of a 17 YO I admire, “PF would say the oppressed will become the oppressor.” And now I can say that work person doesn‘t know jack about what PF would say about this kid.🖕🏻
* POTO was banned at my kids‘ high school.
* I‘m working on my advocacy.

13 likes1 stack add
quote
Singout
post image

The oppressed must realize that they are not fighting merely for freedom from hunger, but for freedom to create and construct, to wonder and to venture. Such freedom requires that the individual be active and responsible, not a slave or a well-fed cog in the machine. It is not enough that men are not slaves, if social conditions further the creation of automatons, the result will be not love of life, but love of death.

quote
Singout
post image

“Certain members of the oppressive class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation…They almost always bring with them the marks of their origin, their prejudices and deformations, which include a lack of confidence in the people‘s ability to think, to want, and to know… because of their background, they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation. They talk about ‘the people,‘ but they do not trust them.”

quote
Singout
post image


The oppressor is in solidarity with the oppressed only when he stops seeing them as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor: when he stops making pious, sentimental, individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love in its existentiality, its practice.

blurb
Bookwomble
post image

"Pedagogy of the Oppressed was banned in apartheid South Africa, parts of Latin America and, in 2010 in Tucson, Arizona by right-wing policymakers who prohibited texts that ‘promote the overthrow of the US government‘. ‘Pedagogy‘ was one of the texts used on an ethno-studies programme taught to Native Americans and Chicanos, and the books ‘were seized from classrooms right in front of students‘, who learned first-hand about oppression."

Bookwomble https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue/issue-30/pedagogy-oppressed
As I'm reading this book I thought, "Some fucker somewhere has banned this book!" Leaps to t'internet ... Yep! ? #bannedbooks
1y
TieDyeDude 😧 1y
The_Book_Ninja Did he write this in prison? Wanted to see if I remembered right before I googled 1y
See All 17 Comments
vivastory The book banning here is fucking unreal. There was a city that literally defunded their local library bc they would rather lose access to a library than have books remain. Last week there were several popular Stephen King books (Stephen King!!) banned in a HS...Fascists 1y
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja I don't think so, but please do check it out and let me know if he did 🙂 1y
Bookwomble @vivastory If you ban this book, you might as well wear a t-shirt with the logo OPPRESSOR in big red capital letters on it! >shakes head< 😮‍💨 1y
vivastory They don't care about what these books really contain...they just use it as fuel for their culture wars 1y
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble He wrote it while exiled. I got that wrong didn‘t I?🤦🏻 1y
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja Well, that it was written while he was in a state of official opprobrium is correct, so it's just details - no face-palm required 😊 1y
Bookwomble @vivastory TBF, "they" are right about this book - it is subversive of the presently established order, and I think banning it is an appropriate response from "their" perspective, because I don't think Friere's position is easily assailable if you try to argue against it, so "their" best option is for people to not have access to his ideas. Oppressors gonna oppress! ? 1y
Aimeesue @vivastory Culture wars - 💯 They don't even read them before getting all het up and getting dramatic. 🙄 1y
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble so it popped into my head today. I don‘t know why I got them mixed up, it‘s been a while since I read my Marxist literature (I was younger and more rebellious) but I was thinking of Antonio Gramsci. Deffo needs a face-palm! 13mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja Well, take that hand away from your face, Mister! I haven't come across Gramsci before, so your face-palm is my revelation! I'm not a systematic reader, so gaps in my knowledge abound 😏 I'm scoping out titles I might as to my TBR! 13mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble well I‘d recommend a “reader” rather than his works as I remember it being heavy going. I didn‘t read a single book for “fun” when I was studying. 13mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja I've found a shortish book of his prison letters at a reasonable price. I've not ordered it yet as I'm going to see if I can pick something up offline - I mean in a shop 😁 13mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble you‘re a glutton for punishment (no pun intended)😉 13mo
39 likes1 stack add17 comments
quote
Bookwomble
post image

"As an act of bravery, love cannot be sentimental; as an act of freedom, it must not serve as a pretext for manipulation. It must generate other acts of freedom; otherwise, it is not love."

When I began reading Friere & Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" at around the same time, I didn't have any expectation of there being a significant overlap between them, but I am finding that my reading of the one informs the other in a pleasantly surprising way ?

Suet624 That‘s amazing. Thanks for sharing these quotes. I see by my interest that it might be time to read Wuthering Heights again. 1y
Bookwomble @Suet624 And, perhaps, Pedagogy of the Oppressed? 😁 I'm enjoying WH, but so far (38%) most of my sympathy is with Edgar Linton ❤️‍🩹 Cathy and Heathcliff are obviously people in deep-seated distress who, sadly, in their pain lash out at those around them. Still, at least it looks like there will be a happy ending (😜) 1y
Suet624 Yes! Pedagogy looks really interesting. 1y
36 likes2 stack adds3 comments
quote
Bookwomble
post image

"To speak a true word is to transform the world."

dabbe Stunning. 1y
37 likes1 comment
quote
Bookwomble
post image

"While the problem of humanization has always been, from an axiological* point of view, man's central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern.

* An axiological viewpoint is one which involves the ethical, aesthetic and religious."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

quote
Bookwomble
post image

"Any attempt to 'soften' the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their 'generosity', the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this 'generosity', which is nourished by death, despair and poverty. ⬇️

Bookwomble ... That is why its dispensers become desperate at the slightest threat to the source of that false generosity." 1y
Aimeesue False generosity indeed. "Look at me, giving to people! Even though I have the power to effect change in the conditions are necessitate charity and won't do so!" ? 1y
40 likes2 comments
quote
Bookwomble
post image

"Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of most of us and subtly programming us into conformity to the logic of its system...The paradox is that the same technology which does this to us also creates a new sensitivity to what is happening. Especially among young people, the new media together with the erosion of old concepts of authority open the way to acute awareness of this new bondage. ⬇️

Bookwomble ...The young perceive that their right to say their own word has been stolen from them, and that few things are more important than the struggle to win it back.”
- from the Foreword, by Richard Shaull
I think this is going to be one of those books that is quotable from every page. I will try to forbear!
1y
37 likes1 comment
blurb
Bookwomble
post image

Mandy B. Smith first owned my book back in September '73, and I've no idea who she is, but I'd like to imagine she was marching in the falling snow in flares and platform shoes for women's rights to bodily autonomy and equal pay ✊♀️

TheBookHippie ✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼♥️ 1y
Leftcoastzen 👏✊ 1y
TrishB I would like to imagine that too!! 1y
See All 6 Comments
UwannaPublishme 🙌🏻🙌🏻👏🏻👏🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻 1y
bibliothecarivs I love to think about the people who owned my books previously. Here's an inscription from a book I bought from a charity shop just today: 'To our Dad - who we all love very much. [From] Your kids' 1y
Bookwomble @bibliothecarivs That's really sweet 💖😊 1y
46 likes6 comments
blurb
Bookwomble
post image

Although I didn't get on too well with Clarice Lispector, I'm not ready to give up on #Brazil 🇧🇷 for #ReadingTheAmericas2023, so dipping into the old TBR pile for Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Given Bolsonaro's attempt to replay Trump's armed insurrection on the seat of government, this one feels relevant despite having been published in 1968.
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB

Librarybelle Hope this one goes better for you! 1y
34 likes1 comment
blurb
PaperbackPirate
post image

🌷 Thanks for the #WondrousWednesday tag @TheSpineView !
1. Tagged - read with my anti-racist teacher group
2. 👍
3. I like horror, thrillers, memoirs, historical fiction, true crime, coming-of-age, magical realism, and animal stories most. However I do read and enjoy a variety of genres especially because of my book club.

💐 I tag anyone who wants to play!

🌻 Thank you for asking @Eggs !

TheSpineView 😘😊🌞 3y
Eggs A true bibliophile!! Thanks for joining in ❤️📚❤️ 3y
28 likes1 stack add2 comments
blurb
GatheringBooks
post image

#SleighTheShelves Day 21: It is #Nice to have unhealthy cheetos fries and animal-style “farm” fries every now and again. Our version of animal fries here in the UAE with Wow Burger.

OriginalCyn620 Yum! 😋 3y
Texreader Sounds yummy! 3y
Mrs_B That looks sooo good. 3y
Reggie The Cheeto fries!!! 3y
49 likes4 comments
quote
sleepy.ash87

"Yet it is... precisely in the response of the oppressed to the violence of their oppressors that a gesture of love may be found. ... As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors' power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression." (p. 56)

Nute Interesting quote...possibly I‘m misunderstanding this out of context...oppressed people don‘t fight to BE human. They fight to be SEEN and TREATED as humans - the humans that they are. I do agree that the opportunity for flow of humanity seems to be from the oppressed to the oppressor. I‘m happy that we are meeting today. I‘m looking forward to much conversing with you!🙂 4y
sleepy.ash87 You are lovely! Thank you for challenging this post. Freire never argues that the oppressed are not human. His original writing was in Portuguese so this wording might have been caused by how the text was translated. He does talk a great deal about how the oppressed are TREATED in a way that is not human and so oppressors are not necessarily BEHAVING in a way that is human. 4y
See All 10 Comments
sleepy.ash87 ^^This link provides important context for his philosophy. 4y
sleepy.ash87 "Freire‘s context was the North Eastern region of Brazil from the 1930s through the 1960s. Brazil was a Portuguese colony from 1500 to 1822. As was the case with other American colonies, most of the Indigenous people of Brazil perished due to the harsh, forced labor conditions and because they did not have any immunity to European diseases. Some of the natives who survived were enslaved in engenhos (sugar mills)" 4y
sleepy.ash87 Also, here is a link to the text itself. Let me know if you give it a skim! 4y
sleepy.ash87 @Nute I apologize! I shared all these comments and forgot to tag you! Again, thank you for commenting on my post 4y
Nute This is my favorite part of Litsy...the meeting of thinking minds. I just got home from work and had the first opportunity to spend time here. I was happy to see a response from you. I will check out the links that you provided, but it might be a minute before I can get back in touch. Monday thru Thursday evenings I‘m a zombie! 4y
sleepy.ash87 @Nute I hope you have a good week and so look forward to your thoughts. No need to check out the links unless inspired. Grateful to you for being the first to help me process this material in years. 4y
2 likes10 comments
review
sleepy.ash87
post image
Pickpick

Even though it is short, it is also dense and completely theoretical. This is a read for someone interested in mastering it's concepts. I digested this material throughout my 6 years in graduate school and it is the foundation of my understanding of hierarchy, oppression, and critical pedagogy. There is a lot on the psychology of the oppressed and oppressor. I just think a book like this would be much more powerful if written in layman's terms.

review
sarahlandis
Pickpick

This book was good, but hard and dense to read. Important, but I really hate reading theory. By definition, it is not fun reading. This book is ever so relevant and reminds us that change can be a long battle.

quote
breadnroses
post image

“education as the practice of freedom [...] denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent & unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from the people...in problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which & in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.”

blurb
DoubleLane
post image

I read slowly. I pause whenever I find a really good line. I lay down and just imagine what's going on inside my books. But boy I gobbles this thing up. Twice. Probably going to do it again. It's like eating fire after living in winter.

blurb
RavenLovelyReads
post image

“The oppressed have been destroyed precisely because their situation has reduced them to things.”
I can only take this book a little at a time, but it always leaves me thinking. If the oppressed are seen as things- why would they/we be offered a livable wage? Or affordable housing? Or even clean water and health care? 🤯

78 likes5 stack adds
review
Emilymdxn
post image
Pickpick

Really wonderful, exactly what I needed right now. This made me feel like my job matters and can change the world. Really powerful stuff.

blurb
Emilymdxn
post image

My MP (Crispin Blunt Reigate & Banstead) replied to my email about fossil fuels and environmental issues today, and I felt very disrespected by his reply. Comes after a few days of right wing men telling me directly and indirectly that I‘m not well read or intelligent enough to be heard, and it‘s made me feel invisible and ignored. Educating myself on politics and the environment tonight, trying to remind myself never to stop trying to speak up

mrsmarch I‘m so proud of you. You are important. You are intelligent. Don‘t let this kind of response stop you. 5y
quietlycuriouskate I hear you! 5y
dawn-pInk I loved this book. It felt very important to read during this era of US politics. 5y
See All 14 Comments
MicheleinPhilly Don‘t ever stop telling them how you feel. They represent you, not the other way around. 💪🏼 5y
Emilymdxn @mrsmarch thank you so much for saying this, it made me a little teary 💖💖💖 5y
Emilymdxn @kathedron thank you 💖 feeling heard is honestly amazing right now 5y
Emilymdxn @dawn-pInk it felt like the right time to read it here in England too. Working in education during brexit is terrifying, it‘s difficult trying to feel like my job in literacy and drama education can help change the world when I see so much awful stuff going on. Reminding myself pedagogy is powerful is what I need right now (edited) 5y
Emilymdxn @MicheleinPhilly it can be hard to feel like that living in a conservative safe seat! Trying to avoid feeling powerless I guess is the most important thing right now, but it can be hard living here! 5y
MicheleinPhilly I can imagine but he represents everyone, not just the people who agree with him. Keep speaking your mind. And if it feels too draining or anxiety inducing, take a step back and take care of yourself. But keep fighting. 🤜🏼🤛🏼 5y
Emilymdxn @MicheleinPhilly thank you so much for such thoughtful insightful words. All of you guys are nourishing me so much right now. I‘m reminding myself that I‘m very young, and I can work and educate myself to a point where I can make myself heard, and be part of organisations that make themselves heard. 5y
mrsmarch @MicheleinPhilly PS, this is totally the advice I‘d imagine getting from someone in Philly. My friend lives in Brewerytown and works at the art museum. 5y
MicheleinPhilly @mrsmarch My cousin is the executive chef at the new restaurant in the Art Museum! 5y
mrsmarch @MicheleinPhilly SMALL WORLD hahahahaha! 5y
enidkeaner Please also keep in mind that it‘s not your intelligence that is questionable. We should all keep informing ourselves but they way they have disrespected you has more to with them - I‘ve noticed that a lot of right wing men simply do not feel that a woman, young or old - has the right to question them. 5y
33 likes1 stack add14 comments
review
dawn-pInk
post image
Pickpick

“Only in the encounter of the people with the revolutionary leaders- in their communion, in their praxis- can this theory be built.”. 5 out of 5 stars on GR. Required reading

blurb
dawn-pInk
post image

A great reminder that the road to eradicating oppression is a long and difficult one. The author stresses the need for both deep self reflection and communication with those oppressed to motivate the actions we take. Also, keeping me such good company at the job.

quote
GFB
post image

All my reading these days is for work #everyday

blurb
bloodylovely
post image

blurb
Imbookenit
post image

.... um ya. That sucked to read. I have no clue what I just read. It was the most frustrating read if my life. #paulofreire #education

review
SoniaC
post image
Pickpick

A very enlightening look at oppression and how it should be understood and managed. This is not light reading and with each reading more reveals itself. I truly believe this book should be required reading for all of humanity.

Joybishoptx Great book. I think all teachers should read it. 7y
Gissy Yes! I read long time ago during my BA and then we talked about again in graduate studies! 7y
SoniaC @Joybishoptx I agree 7y
SoniaC @Gissy a worthy read! 7y
47 likes3 stack adds4 comments
blurb
SoniaC
post image

Lunch and a book on this rainy day. Tomato Soup, Grilled Cheese, and jasmine tea along with the thought provoking words of Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of The Oppressed. Not bad at all.

LeahBergen Nice!! 7y
mhillis This book was my favorite assigned reading in grad school 7y
SoniaC @LeahBergen it really was a moment of perfection. 7y
See All 6 Comments
SoniaC @mhillis it is such an important book. 7y
Caryl I just learned of Paulo Freire in grad school this fall. Love his work. 7y
SoniaC @Caryl it's so thought provoking 7y
56 likes2 stack adds6 comments
blurb
SoniaC
post image

Starting the day with a little light reading and a nice breakfast. Nourishing body and mind.

Megabooks Yum! 😋 7y
WanderingBookaneer I had to do a paper on Freire and Ivan Illich. Radical ideas that inspired social change. 7y
SoniaC @WanderingBookaneer I've never formally studied him but I do appreciate this book. His ideas on oppression speak to me. I also appreciate how he doesn't soften his language to make bad things pretty. I.e Oppression not Disengagement 7y
52 likes2 stack adds3 comments
blurb
SoniaC
post image

Time for a reread. This book needs to be required reading in our high schools and colleges.

35 likes1 stack add
quote
Danlim
post image

"For the oppressors, "human beings" refers only to themselves; other people are "things."

I usually struggle with nonfiction but this is straight ???