by Paulo Freire

Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a book that shifted the lenses with which I view reality, and its author, Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire, is one man I so wish I could have met while he was still alive. Fortunately he writes in such a way that his heart and soul reach you through his words.

The book, and Freire's work in general, is about education as the practice of freedom. But even more, it is about social transformation through unveiling the world and introducing a new pedagogy for all people, liberating the oppressors as well as the oppressed - two characters who often live within the same physical body.

It would be a loss to see Freire's ideas about life and learning as applying only to formal education or only to working with the poor. His is a pedagogy which is becoming ever more relevant for everyone in this chaotic, paradoxical, and unjust age, this world of illusions.

His method is based on dialogue and "conscientizacao" - dialogue being the encounter between men, mediated by the world, so as to name that world in order to transform it. It is an exercise that requires critical thinking, hope, love, humility, faith in humankind, and mutual trust. Conscientizacao is the specific task of unveiling and demythologising reality and thereby coming to know it critically. It is about starting with the needs felt by, and the lives lived by, the people.

But Freire is not only about dialogue and conversation. He is about Praxis: combining reflection and action, and going beyond both activism and verbalism. Central to his process is to observe the world in a climate of creativity, then to build awareness of the contradictions and the paradoxes in society, to approach the nuclei of these contradictions, and to do our work there. These contradictions indicate limit situations, and understanding these will indicate the areas to work on, the "untested feasibilities" beyond the limit situations, where we should focus our action and experimentation.

Our vocation as human beings, according to Freire, is to become more fully human, and to recognise others as humans, and recognising this central problem of humankind is the first step to our liberation. He believes that both the oppressed and the oppressor are in need of having their humanity restored, but that "only the power that stems from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both." Paradoxically, the weakness that stems from the power of the oppressor demobilises them as change agents. Or in more simple terms - change doesn't come from comfortable people.

How comfortable are we?

To Freire, humans are beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and transformation. A "radical" is someone who enters into reality, in order to understand and transform it, someone who is not afraid to see the world unveiled, to dialogue and to engage with people; and "radicalisation" is a question of increasing commitment. This world, in which illusion is on the rise, needs such radicals.

How radical are we?

• Reviewed by Mille Bojer

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