The behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor.
Paulo FreireRead
It is absolutely essential that the oppressed participate in the revolutionary process with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as subjects of the transformation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The oppressed must be actively involved in their own transformation and understand their critical role in the revolutionary process.
Paulo Freire emphasizes the importance of the oppressed being active participants in their own liberation. This quote highlights that true change comes from a deep awareness and understanding of one's role in the struggle for transformation, suggesting that empowerment and critical consciousness among the oppressed are essential for effective revolutionary action.
Themes
OppressedParticipationRevolutionTransformationAwareness
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social justice, this quote can highlight the necessity for community engagement.
More from Paulo Freire
All quotes →How can the oppressed, as divided, unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation?
Paulo FreireRead
Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation. The content of that dialogue can and should vary in accordance with historical conditions and the level at which the oppressed perceive reality.
Paulo FreireRead
This is the sense in which I am obliged to be a listener. To listen to the student's doubts, fears, and incompetencies that are part of the learning process. It is in listening to the student that I learn to speak with him or her.
Paulo FreireRead
This pedagogy makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed, and from that reflection will come their necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. And in the struggle this pedagogy will be made and remade
Paulo FreireRead
The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have.
Paulo FreireRead
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Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Ambrose BierceRead
Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being controlled— those who are not trusted, given explanations, encouraged to think for themselves, helped to develop and internalize good values, and so on. Control breeds the need for more control, which is used to justify the use of control.
Alfie KohnRead
Nothing enrages me more than when people criticize my criticism of school by telling me that schools are not just places to learn maths and spelling, they are places where children learn a vaguely defined thing called socialization...I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.
Seymour PapertRead
My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go.
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The idea of education has been so tied to schools, universities, and professors that many assume there is no other way, but education is available to anyone within reach of a library, a post office, or even a newsstand.
Louis L'AmourRead
Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
Oscar WildeRead