Pedagogy Of The Oppressed Analysis

The world that surrounds people at every second of the day is considered their environment. Every environment is different because of factors like location, the people that exist in it, and economic standing. The essays Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire and “Fences of Enclosure, Windows of Possibility,” by Naomi Klein show the idea of the environment regulating revolutionary social change. The content of these two authors’ essays show how the varying environment that the public exists in affects how they live. They reveal how the environment people exist in controls how revolutionary social change can be created or suppressed. Revolutionary social change can be created and suppressed depending on if individuals are willing to overcome
Many times people have to weigh the pros and cons of taking an action. When people can have the courage to potentially face the cons, they take action. These people understand that the potential cons outweigh the monumental benefits of the action that they take. This courage can lead to revolutionary social change in the environment of the educational system. Freire says, “Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world,” (79) The previously discussed banking concept of education is an blocking factor in revolutionary social change. A promoting factor in the educational system is the problem-posing concept of education. Freire says, “They [revolutionary leaders] must be revolutionary-that is to say, dialogical-from the outset.” (86) If a unit of students who are inspired to stir up change work together, they can gain the attention of people. When their is a strengths in numbers of people who want to create change, the oppressors of society need to respond. When the actions of these motivated individuals is too much for the oppressors to handle, it will force the introduction of revolutionary social change. If students take this sort of action to further promote this rarely seen
People will become driven to cause revolutionary social change when their way of living is heavily deteriorated due to the methods of the government. Klein describes, “ invisible fence that goes up around clean water in Soweto when prices skyrocket owing to privatization, and residents are forced to turn to contaminated sources.” (195) People will have to deal with various parts of their life being deteriorated like their source of water if they don’t stand up for their rights and freedoms. Similar to creating revolutionary social change in the educational system, if individuals are willing to live with facing possible consequences regarding their actions, they can create revolutionary social change to improve the condition of their lifestyle. If the structure of society that the government has assembled needs to be modified, people will need to stand up to cause that change. They will need to do so even if the government will look down upon them, threaten them, or even punish. Klein states, “They will need to build a modern day fortress, to protect themselves from public rage, complete with armoured tanks, tear gas, water cannons, and attack dogs.” (198) A united front of people responding to the restrictions placed on them by the environment will lead to the government having to respond to that group of people.