Summary of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The problem of humanization is a concern that arises from the recognition of dehumanization. Dehumanization, which is the distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human, occurs within history, but it is not an historical vocation. #2 True generosity is about fighting to destroy the causes of false charity. False charity is the oppression that forces the fearful and the submissive to extend their outstretched hands. The oppressed must strive to extend those hands less and less, and more and more they must become human hands that work and transform the world. #3 The oppressed fear freedom, because it would require them to eject the image of the oppressor and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. Freedom is not an ideal outside of man; it is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion. #4 The pedagogy of the oppressed is an educational process for the oppressed that helps them understand their place in the society in which they live. It helps them understand how their oppressors dehumanize them, and how this dehumanization causes them to live in duality.