I personally admire this wonderful piece by Freire. As I read on I came more doubtful of my "learning" experiences and I began to see learning in another light. For one, Freire makes a great point that "education is suffering from narration sickness" and in a way I see the seriousness yet light-hearted comic relief this line contains. I can relate to being "sickened" by the "narration" of education especially throughout my high school years. Essentially throughout high school I was never really required to learn, in the full meaning of that word. I was given information and I regurgitated that information on tests and it always got me by. Now reading Freire makes me realize that it isn't only me, the student is as much at fault as the teacher and society itself. Freire made me wonder, what constitutes "true knowledge". What I consider "true knowledge", will it be the same for another person? Can we blame a teacher for trying to "deposit" what he/she considers "true knowledge" into student's "depositories"?
I found it quite interesting how Freire dissociates the world and human beings. Freire states that a person is merely "in" the world but not quite with it. Then, could it be that each one of us is just a mix of every person we've ever met and every experience we've ever had? Maybe not any one single person is original. Freire makes a wonderful statement about reality, claiming that it cannot take place in an "ivory tower". He alludes to the ivory tower which represents a "dreamer's" state of mind a place where one is not conscientious of the world and surroundings. Freire does this to make the clarification that only on a day to day basis communicating with others just like ourselves is that we can really begin to be a "corpo consciente". I think that Freire makes a great argument through the use of his allusions and philosophy. He left me trying to answer my own questions, one of them being, have I experienced my existential moment in life and what if I have and do not know it? Is it no longer existential? And will I ever actually know?
Good job working through this essay. One thing I should note is that Freire does not dissociate the world and human beings--this is what the "banking" concept does--it alienates us from the world that we inevitably a part of (and not merely "in"). This is all drawing on the history of phenomenology which questions the idea that we are an autonomous subject who acquires/receives information about the "objective" world which already is constituted. Rather, as part of the world, we help transform the world through our actions and the way constitute and use knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThe "ivory tower" is also a negative reference to the space of the university. If we just know a lot of stuff, but do not think about how that can affect our political, social, and economic reality, then what is the use of education? If we just merely adapt to the world outside rather than change it, then what's the purpose of trying to critically think (or write?).