Literacy liberation and oppression

Literacy: Liberation &

OppressionPaulo Freire

© 2013, John Wesley White, University of North Florida

‘Warm Up’ Question/Issue

It is widely held—at least by academics and intellectuals—that there is no such thing as an “unbiased” perspective. Being uniquely human and ontological, all knowledge is based in some form of bias. As humans, we are all biased in our views and beliefs about virtually everything we encounter.

This begs the question: If we as teachers are inherently biased, if the materials we teach are biased, and if the system of education (the aims of education) are biased, can we and should we attempt to assume a stance of objectivity in who we are, our beliefs, and how we present materials?


‘Warm Up’ Question/Issue

The Big Questions:

a) Are we being ethical and responsible to our students by ‘pretending’ we are unbiased when in fact we are full of bias? By attempting to present ourselves and our content as unbiased, are we perpetuating a dominant ideology that is itself problematic?

c) Might we be more honest—with ourselves and with our students—about our biases and thus provide them with added context with which to judge the ideas and materials we teach them?

d) Would disclosing our own biases promote a more nuanced understanding of the content, of us as teachers, and of the world more generally?

e) Would such ‘disclosure’ engender respect, distrust, more candor, or more silence from our students? What caveats would one need to address to be more open about one’s bias? © 2013, John Wesley White, University of North Florida

Power of Literacy (and why those in power have historically feared it)

Major texts—texts that have guided and shaped history—have been opened to the public only when there was no alternative but to do so. Faced with a public able to read (and possibly interpret texts) those with power often ‘framed’ what those texts said, thereby controlling what people reading them could learn and know.

When these texts are authorized as “official” versions, they are given huge credibility. When they are called “the word of God,” they become sacred (and thus questioning them is heresy).


Domination & Fears of Literacy

Printing was completely forbidden in the royal colony of Virginia until 1730. As one Governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley (1642-1652 and 1660-1677), put it:

"But, I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing...for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both" (Ford, 2001, p. 6).


Domination & Fears of Literacy

The advent of the printing press was feared and English translations of the Bible were initially fought by the Church: “[U]nder the 1408 Constitutions of Oxford, it was strictly forbidden to translate the Bible into the native tongue” *

With technology—the printing press—and future translations of the Bible imminent, King James commissioned scholars to create The King James Version (1611). This version was ‘authorized’ by the Church of England and ‘rectified’ problems puritans had with the two earlier English translations.

The King James Version of the Bible excludes and/or changes some of the content found in the Vulgate and Apocrypha.

* http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/kingjames.html


Domination & Fears of LiteracyKing James Bible:

Those holding power in England (and especially the King and his court) chose who would translate the Bible and what and how they were to translate it.

The most influential text in the western world is not “the word of God” so much as it is a third iteration of translations that were controlled by those with power.

- Those interested in issues of power and domination should ask why some people still insist that the King James Bible is the “literal” word of God despite the fact that the version they read evolved from at least two prior versions?



http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/kingjames.html









Domination & Fears of LiteracyKing James Bible:

Those holding power in England chose who would translate the Bible and how they were to translate it. The most influential text in the western world is not “the word of God” so much as it is a third iteration of translations that were controlled by those with power.

Example: The King James Version of the Bible repeatedly makes uses the term “virgin” in its description of Mary, mother of Jesus. This is the foundation for “the virgin birth.” However, the Hebrew word—from which the books of the New Testament were translated into Greek and Latin and then into English—is Almah, which means a young woman (married or not, ‘virginal’ or not). Put succinctly, in the Hebrew text, “The pregnant woman in Isaiah 7:14 is never called a virgin.”



Fun Fact

- There have long been significant debates over who should have a say in ‘official’ documents, literacy, and official knowledge. - For example, debates have raged for 400 years about

whether or not Shakespeare (1564-1616) had a role in translating the King James Bible. Purists have long held that as a ‘bawdy’ purveyor of poplar culture, he would not have had a part in making the meaning behind this most seminal of texts despite his command of the English language and his knowledge of Greek and Latin.


Psalms 46

See Psalms 46:

If one counts 46 words into the Psalm, one finds “shake”; counting 46 words from the end of the Psalm, one finds “spear.” Coincidence or Shakespeare’s crafty signature?


Literacy FOR Oppression“The rationale for the Iiteracy campaign [Sweden, 1686], one of the most successful in Western history before the last two decades, was conservative: piety, civility, orderliness, and military preparedness were the major goals” (Graff 1981: 22)

- Literacy as Oppression - History and Today

- Literacy as Oppression (academic article)


http://www.junkyardwisdom.com/2009/06/08/literacy-as-oppression/













http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/vita/articles/matusov,%20st%20julien,%20print%20literacy%20as%20oppression,%20text,%202004.pdf

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Paulo Freire(1921-1997)

Born into lower middle-income family in small town Brazil. Father died when he was young, leaving him and his family in poverty. His association with poverty affected him deeply, especially in how he saw lost educational opportunities because of poverty: "I didn't understand anything because of my hunger. I wasn't dumb. It wasn't lack of interest. My social condition didn't allow me to have an education. Experience showed me once again the relationship between social class and knowledge."


Paulo Freire (1921-1997)

- Trained as a lawyer but never practiced law- Appointed by the Brazilian Government to direct a state-run

education program; his goal was to help make peasants literate (a requirement to vote in Brazil)- Using a radical approach he called “liberation theology,” he taught 300+

sugarcane workers to read and write in 45 days.- His program was expanded dramatically

- The program was halted and he was imprisoned after the 1964 military coup

- He was exiled from 1965-1979.


Fear of Freedom

- What does Freire mean when he states that many people are afraid of freedom (preface, p. 18)?

- What is the relationship of freedom to the status quo?


Fear of Freedom- The oppressed are so rooted in the dominant paradigm

(the oppressors’ paradigm) that they cannot conceive of another ‘reality.’

- The oppressors create ‘reality’—that is the most insidious component of hegemony

- Changing the paradigm instills fear because it is the only ‘reality’ one has ever known or considered

- The oppressed (and oppressors) trade security for freedom (the status quo to change).

- Acceptance of post 9-11 restrictions to personal freedom and increased surveillance


Freire

- Deconstruct the following:

“Sectarianism, fed by fanaticism, is always castrating. Radicalization, nourished by a critical spirit, is always creative” (p. 19).

“…the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it” (21)


Freire

- “This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well”

- “False Charity”:- See p 26, 3rd paragraph (oppressors/oppressed and ‘generosity’) –

another form of oppression and hegemony

- The oppressed must not become the oppressors- They must therefore change ‘reality’ so that both the oppressed and

the oppressors realize the extent of their dehumanization- Oppression affects both the oppressed and the oppressors equally

(though differently)


Freire

- Seeking liberation is an act of love (p. 27)- Lovelessness lies at the heart of oppressors’

violence


Freire

“The oppressed, at a certain moment of their existential experience, adopt an attitude of ‘adhesion’ to the oppressor. Under these circumstances they cannot ‘consider’ him sufficiently clearly to objectivize him—to discover him ‘outside’ themselves. This does not necessarily mean that the oppressed are unaware that they are downtrodden. But their perception of themselves as oppressed is impaired by their submersion in the reality of the oppression” (27)


Oppression of Dominant Paradigm

Analogy:

Those stuck in desperate poverty in ‘advanced’ western economies seldom strive for a change to the system that engenders poverty for some and wealth for others (wealth often based upon things other than merit); rather, they strive to join the wealthy classes and—in the unlikely event that they find wealth—they desperately protect this newfound capital and protect it from being ‘taken’ or ‘stolen’ by those seeking greater economic equality (whether the latter be governments or individuals)—people like themselves just moments before.

Similarly, many of those stuck in poverty consistently vote against increased income taxes for the wealthy. They do so not because of an affinity for those holding great wealth or as a result of philosophical opposition to income taxes but because they fear a hypothetical future in which their wealth is taxed. © 2013, John Wesley White, University of North Florida

Oppression of Dominant Paradigm

Analogy:

So rooted in the paradigm are both oppressed and oppressor, that any change to the system—especially one that eliminates repression and inequality—seems to the oppressors as oppression (that they are being oppressed). Freire argues that the formerly oppressed are not oppressed by changes to the ‘reality’ but rather are stuck within the paradigm itself.

Example: were a society to become more socialist—were the U.S. to ‘redistribute wealth’ more equitably across people, cultures, regions, etc.—those who formally had great wealth would consider themselves oppressed when they lose some of the privileges they formerly had. Absent from their evaluation of the situation would be a) that previously the “other” never had such privileges, b) individual privileges, though fewer and less ostentatious, are now more equitably distributed.


Commodification and Domination

- P. 40, 2nd paragraph: cultural and social reproduction of privilege and power (and conversely, oppression) necessitates the ownership and commodification of all things. The system of domination is perpetuated by an ideology in which all things can and should be bought, sold, and consumed. - This is itself dehumanizing; the oppressed define

themselves (and others) by their possessions rather than by their ‘humanized’ qualities

- The oppressed see those lacking similar possessions as weak, lazy, or unworthy (thus dehumanization to them)


Religion- See p. 44

- Have you ever heard someone state in response to the extreme hardships someone is facing that “you’ll receive great rewards in heaven”?

- Have you ever heard someone from an oppressed class (race, poverty, etc.) say something similar?

Friere posits that this is again part of the dominant ideology that represses/oppresses. It is the use of myth or superstition—guised as religion—to perpetuate an unjust social order. One is, according to the logic inherent in such statements, supposed to quietly abide injustices here on earth because there will be ‘just rewards’ in heaven. © 2013, John Wesley White, University of North Florida

Sectarianism

- Sectarianism, according to one definition, is bigotry, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions within a group, such as between different denominations of a religion, class, regional, or factions of a political movement.


Subjectivism vs. Objectivism

- Subjectivism is the philosophical tenet that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience.”. The success of this position is historically attributed to Descartes and his methodic doubt. Subjectivism accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it.


Subjectivism

- Sectarians from both rightist and leftist camps “as he revolves around ‘his’ truth, feels threatened if that truth is questioned” (21).


Education and Critical Consciousness

- “To surmount the situation of oppression, people must first critically recognize its causes, so that through transforming action they can create a new situation, one which makes possible the pursuit of a fuller humanity” (29).

- “Yet, although they [the oppressed] desire authentic existence, they fear it. They are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized” (30).


Education and Consciousness

- “In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform” (31).

- what does this mean for us as teachers?

- how do we (and our students) not become despondent when seeing a world of hegemony and domination?


Oppressor & Changed Consciousness

- “This is true with respect to the individual oppressor as a person. Discovering himself to be an oppressor may cause considerable anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the oppressed” (31).


Oppressive Pedagogy

- What is the “banking” method of teaching and why does Freire find it so problematic?

- What elements of the “banking” model permeate modern educational contexts?

- Is it possible—or desirable—to change the model to one more aligned with a pedagogy of the oppressed?


Literacy liberation and oppression

Education

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