Methods or practices of teaching that recognize the inherently political nature of education and aim not, as Paulo Freire puts it in his description of the banking model of education, to produce receptacles of knowledge" to be filled by the teacher, but rather to produce fully self-actualized people. In other words, while dominant education would hold that the role of education is to eradicate any idiosyncrasies an individual is born with and to conform them to an ideal of character determined by the constructs of society, liberatory pedagogy assumes that each individual is born with potentialities that have positive value for that individual and it is good for that individual to develop these potentialities. Pedagogies of liberation, then, hold at their center a celebration of diversity and the infinite variety of types that come about when difference is encouraged to develop. Then, having fostered the inner-development of the individual, liberatory pedagogy moves outward through education based engagement with oppressions to transform the broader society.
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Seeing Through Paulo's Glasses: Political Clarity, Courage, and Humility, a short documentary by the Freire Project on the life and work of Paulo Freire.
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