Meanwhile, I've been thinking on and off again about Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and his educational philosophy, as his philosophy has a direct bearing on the question of how to recruit and organize oppressed people into a liberation struggle. The biggest hurdle an organizer or would-be organizer faces is how to begin to activize people who have been submerged all their lives in oppression. Freire developed a method of what he called "critical education" or "problem-posing education" in which each participant could function at times as both student and teacher. The focus of his education effort was adult literacy among poor Brazilian peasants. But for Freire, the development of literacy always had an end goal that was larger than merely learning to read, namely, to move the peasants to begin to see their situation of oppression not as a fixed element of their fate, but as a problem to be examined and acted upon by the peasants themselves. His educational methods and strategy were so successful that the CIA-backed Brazilian government "honored" him in 1964 by arresting and imprisoning him for "preaching communism". The government also "honored" his teaching methods by banning them.
Freire wrote a book titled Pedagogia do Oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), a book that first caught my attention as a result of an interview of Dr. Soong-Chan Rah which I recorded for The Well Run Dry back in 2017. After hearing about Freire's book, I decided to get a copy and read it. Freire's book is short - only 140 pages, not counting the preface - yet it is densely packed with statements that require deep thought. I read it while commuting to and from work on the light rail train, and my attention was frequently divided between the book, watching to make sure that my bike didn't get jacked, and watching to make sure that I didn't miss my stop. Therefore I did not retain very much of what I read. But the concept of conscientizacao (loosely equivalent to consciousness-raising or "critical consciousness") by means of problem-posing education stuck with me, and intrigued me over the past few weeks to such an extent that I bought an audiobook copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed to supplement my print copy. (Audiobooks are good companions when uprooting blackberries, pruning trees, cleaning the yard, etc. Just one word of warning: DO NOT buy audiobooks from Audible or Amazon! They will sell you an audio file that is in a proprietary format and force you to download a proprietary app to listen to it!)
Chapter 3 of the book has always been hard for me to grasp. In this chapter, Freire describes how to set up what he calls "culture circles" in which participants can collectively examine the "generative themes" which frame the perceptions which oppressed people have of their oppressive situations. It would have been nice (although practically impossible at the time Freire wrote his book) for readers to have a set of videos showing these culture circles in action. If a picture had been worth a thousand words, a short video would have been worth much, much more! As a result of my renewed interest in the book, this weekend I scrounged YouTube to see if I could find any videos which showed such culture circles in action.
I did not quite find what I was looking for. However, I did find a couple of videos that either came close or were intriguing for reasons of their own. The video below illustrates the contrast between what Freire calls the "banking concept of education" versus the "problem-posing education"which Freire advocates. (Although the video seeks to make a serious point, it has a certain goofy humor...)
I think the second video was included in the YouTube search results only because it had "Paulo Freire" in the title. The video is not a picture of a Freireian culture circle, but of something that seems rather similar, and it takes place at a Brazilian school named after Freire. (It seems that since Freire's death, the Brazilian government has decided to confer on him the status and recognition that are more appropriate to honor - although Brazilian society remains under the control of oppressors.)
Although this video does not illustrate a Freireian culture circle, I was intrigued for a few reasons. First, it is a good present-day example of real, in-the-flesh, boots-on-the-ground community organizing in the age of COVID. Note that almost everyone in the video is wearing a mask, and the one woman who is not masked is there to serve as a visual prop to illustrate what the presenters are talking about. This indicates an implicit (and perhaps unspoken) covenant between the participants to respect this public space by acting for the common good. There are no selfish, reactionary anti-maskers or anti-vaxxers here! Second, note that the circle is intimate - that is, the total number of participants is manageable enough for people to ask questions and to begin to form relationships with each other if they so choose. Third, note that a wide range of ages is represented in this group. Last, note that although the group is not collectively exploring a problem of their lived situation (instead, a few presenters do most of the talking), the group is still confronting a societal problem that needs to be addressed.
I am still searching for visual examples of Freireian culture circles in action. What I want is examples of oppressed people and their self-chosen leaders engaging in these circles. What I am not interested in is circles formed and organized for the "disadvantaged" by so-called "saviors" who are not from among the oppressed. Nor am I interested merely in the use of Freireian methods or culture circles to help to shore up the rotting structures of American primary education. Rather, I am interested in the use of problem-posing education as a means of activizing people, as a means of fostering nonviolent revolution. Maybe I'll have to make my own video. That should be quite a project...
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