Critical Pedagogy Beyond Humanism - After Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of the foundational books we might turn to when thinking about a revolutionary sort of education. Freire was an inspiring, amazing thinker, and a true believer in people’s capacity to self-organize and to create their own, transformative knowledge, away from the “banking education” model of institutionalized education. However, his pedagogy is deeply rooted in humanism and uncritical to it - privileging humans to the detriment of other animals. In this video, we explore his ideas regarding critical pedagogy and point to some ways forward.

00:16 Part I - Pedagogy of the Oppressed
03:53 Part II - Against banking education
07:48 Part III - Being critical of critical pedagogy
10:54 Part IV - Learning in solidarity with non-humans

This video was made by just wondering…
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Credits:
Written by M. Martelli
Writing suggestions by Aron Nor
Recorded by M. Martelli & Aron Nor
Illustrations made by Mina Mimosa
Directed & Edited by Aron Nor

This video is the sixth in our series ”dictionary of thinkers & concepts” that we think with!

Bibliography

Apple, M. W. (2013). Can education change society? Routledge.

Bowers, C. A. (2005) How the Ideas of Paulo Freire Contribute to the Cultural Roots of the Ecological Crisis in Bowers, C. A. & Apffel-Marglin, F. RETHINKING FREIRE: Globalization and the Environmental Crisis. 221.

Case, K. A. (Ed.). (2016). Intersectional pedagogy: Complicating identity and social justice. Routledge.

Corman, Lauren. (2011). Impossible Subjects: The Figure of the Animal in Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 17.

Freire, P. (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

Giroux, H. A. (2020). On critical pedagogy. Bloomsbury Academic.

Lysgaard, J. A., & Bengtsson, S. (2020). Dark pedagogy–speculative realism and environmental and sustainability education. Environmental Education Research, 26(9-10), 1453-1465.

Noacella, A. (2017) Unmasking the Animal Liberation Front Using Critical Pedagogy: Seeing the ALF for Who They Really Are. Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Volume V, Issue 1

#paulofreire #criticalpedagogy, #pedagogyoftheoppressed

[justwondering]

📑 If anyone wants to read the full text with its references and bibliography, it's now up on our website with image descriptions!


One more thing, there's an essay that was published last month in the Journal of Critical Animal Studies that offers a more extended critique of Freire's work and some very interesting thoughts for moving towards a critical pedagogy for and with nonhuman animals. We definitely recommend reading it if you watched the video and wanna follow up with some of the thoughts we've been discussing in the second part of the video.

[benjaminhulett]

Love this. I have always loved Freire but regretted the limits of his anthropocentrism. This was a wonderful video to stumble upon.

[jessekos]

This is like really great. I love how you don't pretend to be neutral but let your values show in what you say and how you say it, that also goes really well with the topic. And the drawing happening is so beautiful 💚
At first I thought Friere was a little out of place for this channel but boy did you show me wrong. I've got a new interesting link between (critical) pedagogy and AR in my brain now that's gonna come out in many great ways, I can feel it☺️
So thanks again 💚

[alexpalomino]

A new view of a staple of my country's education. Here in Brazil we still suffer a lot with social injustice and colonial inheritance. I would never even consider this view, if weren't for your videos. I hope one day we manage to deal with oppression.

[nymm]

It's beautiful and moving! your videos are very useful tools for knowledge.

[dbyrd]

This is a beautiful video and powerful message. Thank you!

[annjalexander]

As an educator and a social justice activist, I commend you for this wonderfully written and directed video and its message!

[travissharon]

If charity is a myth we are doomed, Freire was a mad man.

[jonjuul]

this was such a good video. i hope it gets more views/likes/comments because it deserves it. thank you!!

[stevedempsey]

That was very interesting. I'd not even hear about Friere before.

I don't disagree that teaching is political but not all teaching is the same. Some of it's about technique or logic which is difficult to politicise. I mean you might like to find some other result to 7x8 (in base 10) but thinking it's not 56 is probably not going to get you very far. I don't think tautologies are oppressive.

I think you might have mentioned also what models Friere proposes to replace the banking model and liberate the teachers and the taught from oppression.

[pauloanderson]

I just wanna know why so many people hate this man🤔🤔🤔
Freedom of think is dangerous? For whom? The oppressors? Status quo?

[johncarey]

Im trying to learn more about critical theory, but I feel this is all real over generalized, and very unclear.

Not everything that's vague and too unclear to scrutinize is deep.

[dorotheasav]

Honestly, I don't think you can equivocate dialogue between humans of different cultures + different levels of oppression, and dialogue between humans and animals/other entities. There's stuff all humans have in common with eachother that we don't have in common with other living beings, which influences how the dialogue takes place, and you can't wipe those things away just because you already have an anti-humanist conclusion. Very reductive in my opinion.

Besides, most of western pedagogy hasn't even had a shift in paradigm from banking to human dialogue. You can't honestly expect to be able to put into practice a theory which equates dialogue within our own species with dialogue between us and the beings around us which are not humans, and gain any concrete results at the present moment. The jump is just too far, it seems lofty and purely theoretical musings for the sake of theory.

[travissharon]

No one teaches another, or is self taught, in other words, no one learns.

[pevitzachast]

Creepy presentation. Music and voice over.