Giroux on Freire and Critical Pedagogyl

7/25/2019 Giroux on Freire and Critical Pedagogyl

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Critical Pedagogy, Paulo Freire, and the Courage to Be Political

Henry A. Giroux

At a time when memory is being erased and the political relevance o education is

dismissed in the embrace o the language o measurement and !uantiication, it is all the more

important to remember the legacy and wor" o Paulo Freire. Paulo Freire was one o the most

important educators o the twentieth century. He occupies a hallowed position among the

ounders o #critical pedagogy$%the educational movement guided by both passion and

principle to help students develop a consciousness o reedom, recogni&e authoritarian

tendencies, empower the imagination, connect "nowledge and truth to power, and learn to read

both the word and the world as part o a broader struggle or agency, 'ustice, and democracy.

Paulo played a crucial role in developing a highly successul literacy campaign in Bra&il beore

he was 'ailed by a military 'unta that came to power in ()*+, and then exiled rom his country o

birth. hen Bra&il oered once again the possibility o democracy -or at least amnesty in ()/0,

Freire returned and rom that point onward played a signiicant role in shaping the country1s

educational policies until his untimely death in ())2. His groundbrea"ing boo",Pedagogy of the

Oppressed, has sold more than a million copies and is deservedly being commemorated this year

%the +0th anniversary o its appearance in 3nglish translation%ater having exerted its

inluence over generations o teachers and intellectuals in the Americas and abroad.

4ince the ()/0s, there have been ew i any intellectuals on the 5orth American

educational scene who have matched Freire1s theoretical rigor, civic courage, and sense o

moral responsibility. And his example is more important now than ever beore6 with institutions

o public and higher education increasingly under siege by a host o neoliberal and conservative

orces, it is imperative or educators to ac"nowledge Freire1s understanding o the empowering

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and democratic potential o education.

Freire believed that education, in the broadest sense, was eminently political because it

oered students the conditions or sel7relection, a sel7managed lie, and critical agency. For

Freire, pedagogy was central to a ormative culture that ma"es both critical consciousness and

social action possible. Pedagogy in this sense connected learning to social change8 it was a

pro'ect and provocation that challenged students to critically engage with the world so they could

act on it. As the sociologist 4tanley Aronowit& has noted, Freire1s pedagogy helped learners

#become aware o the orces that have hitherto ruled their lives and especially shaped their

consciousness.$ hat Freire made clear is that pedagogy at its best is not about training in

techni!ues and methods, nor does it involve coercion or political indoctrination. 9ndeed, ar rom

a mere method or an a prioritechni!ue to be imposed on all students, education is a political and

moral practice that provides the "nowledge, s"ills, and social relations that enable students to

explore or themselves the possibilities o what it means to be engaged citi&ens while expanding

and deepening their participation in the promise o a substantive democracy. According to Freire,

critical pedagogy aorded students the opportunity to read, write, and learn rom a position o

agency%to engage in a culture o !uestioning that demands ar more than competency in rote

learning and the application o ac!uired s"ills. For Freire, pedagogy had to be meaningul in

order to be critical and transormative. :his meant that personal experience became a valuable

resource that gave students the opportunity to relate their own narratives, social relations, and

histories to what was being taught. 9t also signiied a resource to help students locate themselves

in the concrete conditions o their daily lives while urthering their understanding o the limits

oten imposed by such conditions. ;nder such circumstances, experience became a starting

point, an ob'ect o in!uiry that could be airmed, critically interrogated, and used as resource to

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engage broader modes o "nowledge and understanding. =ather than ta"ing the place o theory,

experience wor"ed in tandem with theory in order to dispel the notion that experience provided

some orm o unambiguous truth or political guarantee. 3xperience was crucial but it had to ta"e

a detour through theory, sel7relection, and criti!ue to become a meaningul pedagogical

resource.

Critical pedagogy, or Freire, meant imagining literacy as not simply the mastering o

speciic s"ills but also as a mode o intervention, a way o learning about and reading the word

as a basis or intervening in the world. Critical thin"ing was not reducible to an ob'ect lesson in

test7ta"ing or the tas" o memori&ing so7called acts, decontextuali&ed and unrelated to present

conditions. :o the contrary, it was about oering a way o thin"ing beyond the seeming

naturalness or inevitability o the current state o things, challenging assumptions validated by

#common sense,$ soaring beyond the immediate conines o one1s experiences, entering into a

dialogue with history, and imagining a uture that would not merely reproduce the present.

By way o illustration, Freirean pedagogy might stage the dynamic interplay o audio,

visual, and print texts as part o a broader examination o history itsel as a site o struggle, one

that might oer some insights into students1 own experiences and lives in the contemporary

moment. For example, a history class might involve reading and watching ilms about school

desegregation in the ()>0s and *0s as part o a broader pedagogical engagement with the Civil

=ights movement and the massive protests that developed over educational access and student

rights to literacy. 9t would also open up opportunities to tal" about why these struggles are still

part o the experience o many 5orth American youth today, particularly poor blac" and brown

youth who are denied e!uality o opportunity by virtue o mar"et7based rather than legal

segregation. 4tudents could be as"ed to write short papers that speculate on the meaning and the

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power o literacy and why it was so central to the Civil =ights movement. :hese may be read by

the entire class with each student elaborating his or her position and oering commentary as a

way o entering into a critical discussion o the history o racial exclusion, relecting on how its

ideologies and ormations still haunt American society in spite o the triumphal dawn o an

allegedly post7racial @bama era. 9n this pedagogical context, students learn how to expand their

own sense o agency, while recogni&ing that to be voiceless is to be powerless. Central to such a

pedagogy is shiting the emphasis rom teachers to students and ma"ing visible the relationships

among "nowlege, authority, and power. Giving students the opportunity to be problem7posers

and engage in a culture o !uestioning in the classroom oregrounds the crucial issue o who has

control over the conditions o learning and how speciic modes o "nowledge, identities, and

authority are constructed within particular sets o classroom relations. ;nder such

circumstances, "nowledge is not simply received by students, but actively transormed, open to

be challenged, and related to the sel as an essential step towards agency, sel7representation, and

learning how to govern rather than simply be governed. At the same time, students also learn

how to engage others in critical dialogue and be held accountable or their views.

:hus, critical pedagogy insists that one o the undamental tas"s o educators is to ma"e

sure that the uture points the way to a more socially 'ust world, a world in which criti!ue and

possibility%in con'unction with the values o reason, reedom, and e!uality%unction to alter

the grounds upon which lie is lived. :hough it re'ects a notion o literacy as the transmission o

acts or s"ills tied to the latest mar"et trends, critical pedagogy is hardly a prescription or

political indoctrination as the advocates o standardi&ation and testing oten insist. 9t oers

students new ways to thin" and act creatively and independently while ma"ing clear that the

educator1s tas", as Aronowit& points out, #is to encourage human agency, not mold it in the

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manner o Pygmalion.$ Critical pedagogy insists that education cannot be neutral. 9t is always

directive in its attempt to enable students to understand the larger world and their role in it.

oreover, it is inevitably a deliberate attempt to inluence how and what "nowledge, values,

desires, and identities are produced within particular sets o class and social relations. For Freire,

pedagogy always presupposes some notion o a more e!ual and 'ust uture8 and as such, it should

always unction in part as a provocation that ta"es students beyond the world they "now in order

to expand the range o human possibilities and democratic values.

Central to critical pedagogy is the recognition that the way we educate our youth is

related to the uture that we hope or and that such a uture should oer students a lie that leads

to the deepening o reedom and social 'ustice. 3ven within the privileged precincts o higher

education, Freire said that educators should nourish those pedagogical practices that promote #a

concern with "eeping the orever unexhausted and unulilled human potential open, ighting

bac" all attempts to oreclose and pre7empt the urther unraveling o human possibilities,

prodding human society to go on !uestioning itsel and preventing that !uestioning rom ever

stalling or being declared inished.$ :he notion o the uninished human being resonated with

ygmunt Bauman notion that society never reached the limits o 'ustice, thus re'ecting any

notion o the end o history, ideology, or how we imagine the uture. :his language o criti!ue

and educated hope was his legacy, one that is increasingly absent rom many liberal and

conservative discourses about current educational problems and appropriate avenues o reorm.

hen 9 began teaching, Paulo Freire became an essential inluence in helping me to

understand the broad contours o my ethical responsibilities as a teacher. ater, his wor" would

help me come to terms with the complexities o my relationship to universities as powerul and

privileged institutions that seemed ar removed rom the daily lie o the wor"ing7class

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communities in which 9 had grown up. 9 irst met Paulo in the early ()/0s, 'ust ater my tenure as

a proessor at Boston ;niversity had been opposed by the president Dohn 4ilber. Paulo was

giving a tal" at the ;niversity o assachusetts at Amherst, and he came to my house in Boston

or dinner. Given Paulo1s reputation as a powerul intellectual, 9 recall initially being astounded

by his proound humility. 9 remember being greeted with such warmth and sincerity that 9 elt

completely at ease with him. 9 was in a very bad place ater being denied tenure and had no idea

what the uture would hold. @n that night, a riendship was orged that would last until Paulo1s

death. 9 am convinced that had it not been or Paulo Freire and Eonaldo acedo%a linguist,

translator, and a riend o Paulo1s and mine%9 might not have stayed in the ield o education.

:heir passion or education and their proound humanity convinced me that teaching was not a

'ob li"e any other but a crucial site o struggle, and that ultimately whatever ris"s had to be ta"en

were well worth it.

9 have encountered many intellectuals throughout my career in academe, but Paulo was

exceptionally generous, eager to help younger intellectuals publish their wor", willing to write

letters o support, and always gave as much as possible o himsel in the service o others. :he

early ()/0s were exciting years in education studies in the ;nited 4tates, and Paulo was really at

the center o it. :ogether we started a Critical 3ducation and Culture series with Bergin

Garvey Publishers, which brought out the wor" o more than *0 young authors, many o whom

went on to have a signiicant inluence in the university. Dim Bergin became Paulo1s patron as his

American publisher8 Eonaldo became his translator and co7author8 9ra 4hor also played a

important role in spreading Paulo1s wor" and wrote a number o brilliant boo"s integrating both

theory and practice as part o Paulo1s notion o critical pedagogy. :ogether, and we wor"ed

tirelessly to circulate Paulo1s wor", always with the hope o inviting him bac" to America so we

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could meet, tal", drin" good wine, and deepen a commitment to critical education that had all

mar"ed us in dierent ways.

Paulo spent his lie guided by the belies that the radical elements o democracy were

worth struggling or, that critical education was a basic element o progressive social change, and

that how we thin" about politics was inseparable rom how we come to understand the world,

power, and the moral lie we aspire to lead. 9n many ways, he embodied the important but oten

problematic relationship between the personal and the political. His own lie was a testimony not

only to his belie in democratic principles but also to the notion that one1s lie had to come as

close as possible to modeling the social relations and experiences that spo"e to a more humane

and democratic uture. At the same time, Paulo never morali&ed about politics8 he never evo"ed

shame or collapsed the political into the personal when tal"ing about social issues. Private

problems were always to be understood in relation to larger public issues. For example, Paulo

never reduced an understanding o homelessness, poverty, and unemployment to the ailing o

individual character, la&iness, indierence, or a lac" o personal responsibility, but instead

viewed such issues as complex systemic problems generated by economic and political structures

that produced massive amounts o ine!uality, suering, and despair%and social problems ar

beyond the reach o limited individual capacities to cause or redress. His belie in a substantive

democracy, as well as his deep and abiding aith in the ability o people to resist the weight o

oppressive institutions and ideologies, was orged in a spirit o struggle tempered by both the

grim realities o his own imprisonment and exile and the belie that education and hope are the

conditions o social action and political change. Acutely aware that many contemporary versions

o hope occupied their own corner in Eisneyland, Paulo was passionate about recovering and

rearticulating hope through, in his words, an #understanding o history as opportunity and not

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determinism.$ Hope was an act o moral imagination that enabled educators and others to thin"

otherwise in order to act otherwise.

Paulo oered no recipes or those in need o instant theoretical and political ixes. 9 was

oten ama&ed at how patient he always was in dealing with people who wanted him to provide

menu7li"e answers to the problems they raised about education, people who did not reali&e that

their demands undermined his own insistence that critical pedagogy is deined by its context and

must be approached as a pro'ect o individual and social transormation%that it could never be

reduced to a mere method. Contexts mattered to Paulo8 he was concerned how they mapped in

distinctive ways the relationships among "nowledge, language, everyday lie, and the

machineries o power. Any pedagogy that calls itsel Freirean must ac"nowledge this "ey

principle that our current "nowledge is contingent on particular historical contexts and political

orces. For example, each classroom will be aected by the dierent experiences students bring

to the class, the resources made available or classroom use, the relations o governance bearing

down on teacher7student relations, the authority exercised by administrations regarding the

boundaries o teacher autonomy, and the theoretical and political discourses used by teachers to

read and rame their responses to the diverse historical, economic, and cultural orces inorming

classroom dialogue. Any understanding o the pro'ect and practices that inorm critical pedagogy

has to begin with recogni&ing the orces at wor" in such contexts and which must be conronted

by educators and schools everyday. Pedagogy, in this instance, loo"ed or answers to what it

meant to connect learning to ulilling the capacities or sel and social determination not outside

but within the institutions and social relations in which desires, agency, and identities were

shaped and struggled over. :he role that education played in connecting truth to reason, learning

to social 'ustice, and "nowledge to modes o sel and social understanding were complex and

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demanded a reusal on the part o teachers, students, and parents to divorce education rom both

politics and matters o social responsibility. =esponsibility was not a retreat rom politics but a

serious embrace o what it meant to both thin" and act politics as part o a democratic pro'ect in

which pedagogy becomes a primary consideration or enabling the ormative culture and agents

that ma"e democrati&ation possible.

Paulo also ac"nowledged the importance o understanding these particular and local

contexts in relation to larger global and transnational orces. a"ing the pedagogical more

political meant moving beyond the celebration o tribal mentalities and developing a praxis that

oregrounded #power, history, memory, relational analysis, 'ustice -not 'ust representation, and

ethics as the issues central to transnational democratic struggles.$ Culture and politics mutually

inormed each other in ways that spo"e to histories whose presences and absences had to be

narrated as part o a larger struggle over democratic values, relations, and modes o agency. He

recogni&ed that it was through the complex production o experience within multilayered

registers o power and culture that people recogni&ed, narrated, and transormed their place in the

world. Paulo challenged the separation o cultural experiences rom politics, pedagogy, and

power itsel, but he did not ma"e the mista"e o many o his contemporaries by conlating

cultural experience with a limited notion o identity politics. hile he had a proound aith in the

ability o ordinary people to shape history and their own destinies, he reused to romantici&e

individuals and cultures that experienced oppressive social conditions. @ course, he recogni&ed

that power privileged certain orms o cultural capital%certain modes o spea"ing, living, being

and acting in the world%but he did not believe that subordinate or oppressed cultures were ree

o the contaminating eects o oppressive ideological and institutional relations o power.

Conse!uently, culture%as a crucial educational orce inluencing larger social structures as well

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as in the most intimate spheres o identity ormation%could be viewed as nothing less than an

ongoing site o struggle and power in contemporary society.

For critical educators, experience is a undamental element o teaching and learning, but

its distinctive coniguration among dierent groups does not guarantee a particular notion o the

truth8 as 9 stated earlier, experience must itsel become an ob'ect or analysis. How students

experience the world and spea" to that experience is always a unction o unconscious and

conscious commitments, o politics, o access to multiple languages and literacies%thus

experience always has to ta"e a detour through theory as an ob'ect o sel7relection, criti!ue, and

possibility. As a result, not only do history and experience become contested sites o struggle but

the theory and language that give daily lie meaning and action a political direction must also be

constantly sub'ect to critical relection. Paulo repeatedly challenged as alse any attempt to

reproduce the binary o theory versus politics. He expressed a deep respect or the wor" o

theory and its contributions, but he never reiied it. hen he tal"ed about Freud, Fromm, or

arx, one could eel his intense passion or ideas. et he never treated theory as an end in itsel8

it was always a resource whose value lay in understanding, critically engaging, and transorming

the world as part o a larger pro'ect o reedom and 'ustice.

igilant in bearing witness to the individual and collective suering o others, Paulo

shunned the role o the isolated intellectual as an existential hero who struggles alone. He

believed that intellectuals must respond to the call or ma"ing the pedagogical more political

with a continuing eort to build those coalitions, ailiations, and social movements capable o

mobili&ing real power and promoting substantive social change. Politics was more than a gesture

o translation, representation, and dialogue6 to be eective, it had to be about creating the

conditions or people to become critical agents alive to the responsibilities o democratic public

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lie. Paulo understood "eenly that democracy was threatened by a powerul military7industrial

complex, the rise o extremists groups, and the increased power o the warare state. He also

recogni&ed the pedagogical orce o a corporate and militari&ed culture that eroded the moral and

civic capacities o citi&ens to thin" beyond the common sense o oicial power and the

hatemongering o a right7wing media apparatus. Paulo strongly believed that democracy could

not last without the ormative culture that made it possible. 3ducational sites both within schools

and the broader culture represented some o the most important venues through which to airm

public values, support a critical citi&enry, and resist those who would deny the empowering

unctions o teaching and learning. At a time when institutions o public and higher education

have become associated with mar"et competition, conormity, disempowerment, and

uncompromising modes o punishment, ma"ing "nown the signiicant contributions and legacy

o Paulo Freire1s wor" is now more important than ever beore.

Henry A. Giroux is a proessor o 3nglish and Cultural 4tudies at caster ;niversity.

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Giroux on Freire and Critical Pedagogyl

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