Douglass vs Freire

By comparing Douglass’ love for education to Freire’s loathing for the common process of learning, it is difficult to determine for myself what I think of the system set up for children to gain knowledge through. It seems that the earlier stages are as Freire describes, but then the later stages are as Douglass depicts learning. Starting with before preschool through the beginning years of high school, all that is learned are facts and history; towards the end of high school and then through university, personal thought is encouraged, thinking outside of the box.

In elementary school, a child is required to take classes that are universal throughout all the classes. Basic math, the alphabet; both are bases for later learning, so how can Freire criticize what is meant to be the basis for progressive learning? I find what he describes as the “Banking Concept” crude. It is true that children are told things and are required to spit them back out, but a child isn’t one to learn on their own. Some kids are excited about going to school, because they know that they will see their friends. Children aren’t known to know what’s best for them, so having parents and the government makes them learn, they will not appreciate it until they are further along in their lives. I personally am extremely grateful of my high school learning, they way my teachers encouraged me to express my ideas without having to worry about them being wrong or not. But is everything that children are being filled with true?

There are so many topics that are touchy, and the type of learning that Douglass discusses is what’s so important for young learners to know. It can shake your world and it can open your eyes to the oppression and craziness that is the world today, but it will build up your ideas and that is what allows progression in the world. Take global warning, for an example of a touchy subject; so many people just believe what the entertainment industry is putting out, about how we need to save the planet and stop using pollutants. They don’t take the time to research it and find out that it could just be a high point in an endless cycle of warming and cooling the earth goes through every 100 or 1000 years; and this is what causes the populace to be ignorant of today’s issues. I personally don’t believe in global warming. Living in Alaska, we are at the head of the global warming rocket and the climate change is that of a minimal amount. I have done papers and watched anti-global warming shows, and they all have a common thread- the earth goes through stages, the ice age as an example, and though it is a good thing to help slow down the burning of the ozone layer and to reduce the greenhouse gases, it is not a thing that will kill us all in 1000 years. I just hope people will come up with their own ideals and not follow those that are put out into the air. I think this is some of what Freire is talking about when he calls students ‘depositories’, how people just take in what they are told and not thinking about it critically. Only if children were encouraged to be different and were not penalized by their peers for it would the education system be better.

Freedom of Education

Keely Boulton

January 27, 2008

No one can understand the meaning of freedom better than someone who has been under harsh oppression all their life. I think many Americans take for granted the freedom that we have and the price that has been paid, that is still being paid. One of the many things our country takes for granted is the freedom of education. Yes, most people would say that education is not always fun, its expensive in many cases and a good education requires a lot of work on the student’s end. Yet when we look at people such as Douglass and Freire it should seem easy to appreciate the freedom of education.

Unlike Douglass, most of us were not enslaved for most of our life, unless perhaps it was by Nintendo, I-pods, food or something of that nature. Douglass was oppressed and pushed past normal human limits and yet he saw that having an education could help him break free of that oppression. Douglass viewed education as a gift that he was ever thankful for because it made him aware of his rights and helped him to escape what could have been a life-long oppression. I think Freire has a similar view of education being able to free and liberate people. Freire saw that education required hard work by both the student and the teacher, but it was given freely for all people to grab hold of. He says, “Only through communication can human life hold meaning” (532). In other words, only by expressing our ideas to one another can we really achieve our purpose. Only then can we grasp the gift of education that has been freely given to us. We are not oppressed and we are not controlled by a tyranny. Why then should we not take hold of a special gift handed to us, no matter how hard it may be sometimes?

Douglass/Freire

Michael Chopp

Ariana Paliobagis

ENG 121

1/27/08

Paulo Freire and Fredrick Douglass were two men very fond of learning during their times. Like Hsun Tzu and Rousseau, they felt education was a basis for becoming complete and finding “oneness”. However, these two had other similar beliefs in the education process as well. As being born into slavery, Douglass was one of the fortunate few slaves to be taught the alphabet and embrace education. After being left without a teacher, he found ways to self-teach himself and earn the education needed to understand life. He realized “freedom” and the rights given to him in the United States. It made him realize he had been treated unfairly all his life and he wanted to fix that. Nonetheless, as he learned more about how blacks were treated through slavery, he had doubts as whether he was better off not knowing what he had learned. Freire was slightly different in the way one should learn. Group activities and interacting with other peers were main points of his. In the reading, he mentioned how learning was like a banking system, which he claims is false. A student to Freire needs to learn from his/her teacher, with the teacher inversely learning from the student too. Basically, he is stating they both gain knowledge even when the teacher is instructing the student. Looking back at both of these fine gentlemen, they would seem to get along great. Both had similar views on education, in how it showed one’s self freedom and the rights of all. It enabled people to think critically and interact with other people about their ideas. My take on their views is they are key components to learning. As a business major, group work is essential and is the centerpiece of a company. Also, a relationship on a personal basis, especially in college is vital in learning. The teacher is your number one resource and helps the teacher get to know you and learn from you.

Freedom!!

                 Frederick Douglas was born into slavery.  It seemed he began as any young slave, but circumstance shined down on him and he was blessed with an unlikely first teacher, Mrs. Hughs.  Who in the beginning opened her heart to him, teaching him the ABC’s.  Through an unhappy sequence of events she began to learn her true place as a slave holder and  now disapproved of these teachings.  But the fire had already been lit in little Fredrick’s heart and soul and it seemed nothing would hold this boy back.  He took it upon himself to further his knowledge and much to his dismay he only realized more and more the reasons for his and his peoples state and the monsters that put them there.  Though this curse that his knowledge began to reveal did not stop him.  He was determined to learn to write, despite his awareness of his oppression and the hole that it sucked him into.  Write he did!  Through his determination he created a person who would change the course of abolition.  GO FREDERICK!!

              It would seem that Paulo Friere was trying to free the minds of the students and open them up to thoughts of their own, discoveries about themselves and the world, and to take this subservient control away from the arrogant teachers.

Individual Education

Douglass’s and Freire’s views on education are slightly different because of the situations each of them faced. However, in many aspects, the two men’s ideas are very similar. Freire saw the danger that traditional education can bring because students are only educated to the level that their teacher is educated. The “banking system” is used to deposit information the teacher has into students’ minds; therefore, the students can not learn beyond what is taught. Douglass, on the other hand, believes that through his individual education one can achieve freedom. Because Douglass was a slave he was not educated in the traditional sense but his specific education helped abolish his ignorance. Clearly, both men thought that the traditional ways of education were corrupt; Freire believed that society was purposely corrupting students’ minds and Douglass also believed that society was purposely corrupting the whites’ minds to make them believe that it was humanly acceptable to own another human life. Both believe that education leads to freedom, but the education must not be tainted by society’s rules because society can alter the individual learning a student will go through to become a free thinker.  Both men feel that ignorance leads to oppression. Freire considers the form of the “banking system” as a form of oppression because the student is under the dictation of the teacher, who supposedly only teaches certain ideas and themes to her students. As for Douglass, he considers the white man educated, because he was as a child, and the black man ignorant because he was not educated. Because of that lack of education he allows the white man to own his body; however, one would never see a slave owner owning an educated white man. Each man faced similar struggles in different settings but in the end they both believe that education will lead to freedom if that education is not tainted by societies’ general beliefs.  

Freire v. Douglass

Henry Robertson

English 121

Mrs. P

Freire v. Douglass

          The two papers, regarding education, discussed below are by authors who have written during differing time periods.  Douglass’ work is from the late 1800’s (a time of slavery) while Freire writes during the late 1900’s (contemporary society).  Does one hundred years of separation between writings make a difference between two authors and their thoughts on education?  Maybe.

          Douglass was a slave during the late 1800’s. According to him a learned slave is a free slave.  In order for him to learn how to read and write he would have to teach himself.  The very beginnings of his schooling was by a teacher, the wife of his owner.   The rest of his education was self-taught.  He worked very hard for very long to gain his education.  He used his friends and turned them into teachers without them knowing it!  He would ask them to teach him one little thing at a time and sooner or later he put it all together and could read and write.

          Freire wrote during the late 1900’s.  His thoughts about the educational process compared it to a bank.  The teachers would put thoughts (the money) into the heads of the learner (the bank).  This type of learning can also be called rote memorization.  In his eyes this is the worst type of learning.  He believed the only way to learn is by doing. However, he did not believe in the “well rounded” sort of learned.  He felt humans should only learn what they need to know for whatever they wanted to do in life and nothing more.  He also believed that a teacher can learn from the student. 

          In comparison, both authors felt the somewhat the same – you must learn on your own.  However, Douglass felt guidance is necessary at first, while Freire did not.  Further, Douglass felt a person should learn as much as possible while Freire felt a person only needed to learn what was needed for that person’s future.

           My thoughts on this subject are very biased due to my career as a teacher.  I have taught on both a personal level as well as a university setting.  My teachings are based on the student learning on their own with guidance.  I agree with Freire on the fact that students must conform to whatever the teacher decides to teach which is not conducive to “user friendly” learning.  Grant it, this type of learning happens in grade school and high school. It is in college that the student is able to “choose” what he or she wishes to study.  One would think that this would help the student learn and provide for a better environment.  However, history will show students have become very lazy and only wish to “get by” the easiest way possible.  Understandable that there are a choice few who work very hard and go the extra mile to learn as much as they can. These narratives are not geared to them.  Both authors have very valid points about how people should learn but they are divided.  It is my feeling that students should learn through both school and on their own but as much as they can, not just what they need for their profession.  They have to go the extra mile and learn outside of school to succeed.  Through my experiences as a teacher students no longer do this. It is a detriment to their future and is only understood after the fact!  The best way to learn a topic is to teach it.  Also, as Freire suggested, the teacher can learn from their students.

Side Note: I do not wish to offend anyone.  I am only speaking through my experiences as a professor at University of North Dakota, MSU Bozeman, and as a flight instructor.  I understand that not everyone is lazy.  My teachings are very similar to how both Freire and Douglass feel about education.  In essence, I combine the two to provide the best possible education to produce the best students.

Douglass & Freire

Mary Alice Dewees

Writing 121

Ariana Paliobagis

 

 

          After reading Freire’s ” The Banking Concept of Education”, I was a bit conflicted by what he wrote. While I understand his comparing oppression to education, I do not comprehend how one can escape what he referred to as formal education. The student must learn the basics like reading and writing in order to participate in progressive learning.

 I do agree that once the basic foundation is made, active learning is the best format. To simply recite facts memorized back out serves no one. I know from personal experience that I would remember something long enough to be test on the material. I wonder what Douglass would have thought of Freire’s ideas on education?

Douglass viewed education as a means of achieving freedom; knowledge equaled freedom. Douglass, I believe would have jumped at the chance to be able to sit in a classroom and be filled with facts, formulas and discipline. It must be said Douglass himself was a pro-active learner on is own and I believe some people are just born that way. It is inconceivable to these types of people to simply accept what is being taught without their own independent research.

What Education Equals

Samantha Kujala        1/27/08          ENGL 121          Ariana Paliobagis

                                   What Education Equals                                                

            Douglas and Freire both look at education and see it as something else not just simply education. Douglas sees his education as a source and answer to his freedom. While Freire relates education to banking and also believes there is a problem with teaching.                                                                                       

 I think Douglas was very smart; smarter than he gave himself credit for. He was clever for really having no education. For example how he tricked the other boys into teaching him how to write. Douglas was very determined to learn how to read and write. I think reading played a very important role for Douglas, because being able to read was how he found out he was living in country that was all about freedom. Just knowing that piece of information as a slave would be very shocking. Although, knowing this for Douglas is also sometimes a curse. He is punished for reading, for what he has learned, and wishes to be as ignorant as other slaves. But even with this curse he continued to teach himself and learn from others.            

Freire I believe would think very highly of Douglas because Douglas didn’t go to school he learned from others. Freire felt that education wasn’t something that should just be received from a teacher at school. School became like banking in a way, because students don’t absorb information they just store it and go through the same routine each day. Teachers were depositing information into empty minds, creating an account. Freire believed to learn something and become knowledgeable, teachers need to engage in conversations. It’s hard to learn something if you are not actively learning and really retaining the information. I definitely agree with Freire that people learn from each other. With Douglas he was absolutely learning from others and teaching others. Douglas showed the little white boys in town how different slaves were, not being able to read and write. He taught his mistress that he was no different from anyone else and could learn to read. Learning from others was an important message Freire was trying to get across and was also an essential tool for Douglas.

Educating for Awareness

               Fredrick Douglass and Paulo Freire both center their writings on the fact that it is through an education that a person becomes aware of his/her human rights and also learns to be a conscious being—one which learns from others, but at the same time is able to think on their own and draw conclusions from their different life experiences.  The two pieces are similar in the fact that they focus on education as liberating, but their ways of obtaining that education are quite different.

                In Douglass’s piece, he takes us through his journey of learning to read.  Originally, his mistress instructs him—but soon after reaching out to him, she refuses to help continue educating him.  From then on Douglass is forced to find other ways of learning to read—this is the beginning of his self-educating journey.  After learning to read, Douglass faces a new challenge–he realizes that he has been deprived of his rights for his entire life and that he no longer desires to live as a submissive slave for another human being.  With this realization, he also struggles with whether it was better for him to have this new awareness with no solutions, or to altogether be unaware but content with his old lifestyle.

                Freire’s approach to obtaining an education is quite different from Douglass’s.  Freire focuses less on self-education and more on learning with and from other people.  Throughout Freire’s piece he talks about avoiding the “banking concept of education” where a supposedly all-knowing teacher bestows his or her knowledge onto stupid, empty students (Freire 531). Instead, he thinks that the teachers and students should both learn from each other—and in doing so, each gets a better education and becomes a self-thinking, solution-seeking individual. 

                Both Freire’s and Douglass’s works confirm that it is an education that gives a person an awareness of their rights and helps them achieve mental freedom.  It helps a person change from an empty receptacle into a self-thinking individual that is capable of changing their life as well as others (Freire 531).  As both Douglass and Freire show, a lack of education often times equals oppression so it is important to become an educated individual—both to help yourself and others.

Freire and Douglass on the Emancipatory Power of Education

Felix J Grobler
Ariana Paliobagis
English 121
28th of January 2008

Freire and Douglass on the Emancipatory Power of Education

Freire and Douglass each have interesting views on the liberating power of education. They both have realized, as Douglass wrote, “the emancipatory power of education” (Douglass, p.506). The two authors address the ability of education to free people from oppression. In the case of Douglass it was the black slaves in the southern United States and in the case of Freire it was the poor people of rural Brazil. Both groups of people have never really received any form of education, most of them are illiterate. Due to this fact they are often used and controlled by other factions of people.
Freedom can only be sustained through education, this holds true for the United States as a country as well, without and educated populace a republic can not function as it is intended to. On a more personal level the same idea follows, being educated allows you to understand your surroundings and react to them. For example many of the slaves did not realize entirely how much they were being oppressed, this life was all that they had ever known. Reading in particular made Douglass first realize how much he and his fellow slaves were being oppressed by the slave owners. Without education Douglass would have never realized that the state of slavery he was born into was not a natural one. Only through the books he read did he realize that everybody deserved and should be free, including the slaves.

Freire realized the freeing aspect of education as well. Freire was mainly concerned with the theory of how people should be taught. He believed that is was crucial to even the playing field between the students and the teachers. This way they would be on the same level and able to work together better. Freire favored open discussion over memorization. He wanted to make learning an active experience. Students should not just be copy ideas down, they should think about the subject and come up with ideas of their own. This type of learning process makes students more pro-active and creative. They learn to think for themselves.
Douglass was very pro-active with his own education. He would have never learned to read and write if he had not done so. In this respect he was learning in a similar way as Freire envisions learning. Douglass of course did not have a choice, this was the only way.

Post 2

Douglass : Freire

 

            Douglass and Freire both expressed the importance of education, especially to the poor and underprivileged. Douglass proclaimed that in order to maintain power over slaves it is absolutely necessary to keep them in the dark and uneducated. I would also assume that this is the reason that Freire was forced to stop his education of the poor in Brazil by the government and thrown into jail. Perhaps once educated the lower class of Brazilians realized some unfairness produced by their government and revolted. Without an education, Douglass would not have recognized the injustice of slavery to the extent that he did and would not have become a key figure in the abolitionist movements. Douglass’s “Learning to Read” deals with how education defeats oppression, Freire discusses more the importance of how someone is taught, but I do think that Douglass would agree with Freire’s method. Freire compares poor teaching methods to filling a pot. The student is but a pot in which the teacher is to fill with information. He believes in a system where “both are simultaneously teachers and students”. This well taught education he refers to as “problem-posing education” where education is not only memorization but a process of “discussion of possible solutions”. The other form of poorly taught education he calls “banking”. The reason for Douglass’s approval of Freire’s methods is Freire’s disagreement with the banking system and that it leads to oppression. In banking teachers and students are opposites. It is assumed that the teacher knows all and the students know nothing, projecting ignorance onto the students nonetheless oppressing them. (pg 531) The main reason for Douglass’s emphasis on education was to eliminate oppression in a country that was founded on the principles of liberty and freedom.

Response 2

Education Education is the foundation on which our country, even civilization itself is built on. Where it is available life flourishes; both monetarily but more importantly culturally. The education systems in the United States or Japan are strong and this power is mirrored by the economic benefits we see both these countries enjoying. Contrastingly, many countries in Africa, disease and famine run rampant while the educated of other countries reap the rewards. The infrastructure that allows for the widespread education of all classes is the same system that begins to become impersonal, impractical, and even alienating. The education system of the United States has become so large and diverse that giving every student an “equal” opportunity has severely restricted the knowledge available to students. While being designed to give each student a level playing field, it has only limited itself, and thus the students, to a basic sampling of subjects merely touched upon with no connection to any real world applications. Students find themselves memorizing facts, given to them by an authority for which they have no allegiance, that have no use to them only in order to advance to the next level of education. Unlike knowledge that is learned from experience, which has a direct application to daily life, knowledge learned in this classroom setting is merely a list of facts to be memorized by the student for no reason other than the teachers authority over his or her advancement to the next level of education. Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educational theorist, describes reality taught in this way as “motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable”(Freire, 531), while real life is constantly changing and reforming itself. Education is the cornerstone of a successful nation and its widespread availability is enormously important but it must be shaped to fit a fluid world.

Douglass and Freire: Friends from Different Times

I believe that Douglass and Freire would have been friends.  There are some major differences in regards to the era that they each come from, but I think that those differences would have been set aside.  Freire speaks out in direct opposition to what I would call tradition teaching.  He thinks that the student-teacher relationship referred to as banking is not only encroaching upon students’ freedom, but removing it completely.  Freire believes that a liberal education is what it will take to lead students to learn, not just divulge what they have memorized.  This is why I think Douglass would be friends with him.

            Douglass grew up in a time when only white people were educated and an African-American was a slave.  There were practically no people other than white’s receiving education, and this was a direct action against Douglass’ freedom.  I believe that the key point that would start their friendship is that Freire supports a liberal education while Douglass lived it.  Douglass never had a teacher who sat down with him and taught him facts.  Douglass was on his own, and he became his own teacher, breaking the trend of education through direction from a professor.

            Education plays a huge roll in regards to one’s freedom.  A person will not understand if something is wrong if they do not know the truth, and the only way for the truth to become apparent is if they learn.  The only way to learn is to have freedom, so that what you learn is not biased or dictated, but rather received with an open mind, having both sides presented.  Thus, freedom comes through education. A country stifles freedom if it limits education.

Same Person, Different Era…

Benjamin Burns

Araina Paliobagis

English 121

1/28/08      

 

                                          Frederick Douglass vs. Paulo Freire

 

Frederick Douglass and Paulo Freire had comparative views on education and why it is important to human kind. Frederick Douglass was a slave that had the privilege of being taught the alphabet and was thankful for every piece of knowledge he could get. Douglass was forced to learn almost by a sort of “osmosis” in which he had no materials or book access. He was forced to learn from others and learned in a group with white children. His view on education and how he was educated was that learning by group conversation and group debate was the most effective. Douglass and Freire came from much different times and the theory of education and its importance to man-kind in Douglass’ era was far different from its importance and accessibility in Freire’s era, yet their beliefs on the issue were quite similar. Freire has observed the current state of the educational system and referred to its style as what he called “the banking system.” Which was that school was the opportunity for the students to get education and referred to the students as “empty accounts” in which the teacher makes deposits of knowledge (531). He believed that the control the teacher had over the student is “complete” and total, and that the student was to be submissive to the teacher. In his book he talks about the banking concept saying “In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.” He is essentially stating that the teacher was to assume that the student knew nothing, for if he knew anything he would not be seeking aid by the teacher.

This method, according to Freire, was ineffective and unacceptable. He believed that students and teachers alike should approach education like a conversation, and issues that were argued over should be resolved by different viewpoints and extensive explanation of the viewpoint. He believes that this method of education would be the most effective and most beneficial for the student.

Freedom of Education

Chris Kurz

ENG 121
Ariana Paliobagis
January 28, 2008

“One does not liberate people by alienating them” (533).
Frederick Douglass would have agreed whole-heartedly with this quote from Paulo Freire. In fact, Douglass and Freire may have gotten along quite well.
While Frederick Douglass spent his life trying to flee oppression in order to learn, Paulo Freire wrote about how people need to accept a world without oppression in order to learn properly. Had these two gentlemen had the opportunity to sit with each other and discuss their views on education and learning, they may have found that Freire’s outlook on the subjects described how the slaves of Douglass’ era viewed their own situation.
Freire’ perception that teacher’s needed to treat students as equals in discussion was exactly the mentality that Douglass searched for in his oppressors. Slave owners saw Douglass and his fellow slaves as work horses who were beneath being educated. In the minds of the slave owners, an educated slave was a dangerous mind, capable of independent thought and rebellion. This relationship between servant and master is a mirror image of the “narrating subject” (530) and the “listening objects” (530) Freire would write about in The Banking Concept of Education.
Freire saw the established communication between a teacher and a student as being much like that of the oppressive association between master and slave. Until the teacher learned to accept his/her students on the same level as his/herself, there could never be proper education in the eye of Freire. “In the banking concept of education, knowledge is bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whim they consider to know nothing” said Freire (531).
The similarities between Douglass’ often inhibited quest for knowledge and freedom of learning that Freire wrote about were magnificent when you realize the gap between their lifetimes. Douglass was grateful for the way his mistress initially was able, “to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another” (507). Ultimately, she was the raison d’etre for Frederick Douglass despite her change of heart towards teaching slaves. Without the teachings of his mistress, Douglass may never have led himself down the road of enlightenment and freedom. The first stages of their relationship as teacher and student coincided with Freire’s feelings when he wrote, “In order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it” (534).