I decided to re-read Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed because 1) to some degree I am an educator now, so I must be thoughtful about my pedagogical approach even if it's just 4 hours per month of teaching Linux; and 2) I've recently listened to someone discuss Karen Barad's theory of agential realism and its application in creating response-able science education and it made me interested in reading about critical pedagogy.

Something that strikes me about Freire is his absolute rejection of cynicism and those paths which can so easily lead to anti-human, misandrist behavior. To Friere, dehumanization is merely an historical possibility, not an historical necessity. He is hopeful and trusting of the oppressed, but never naive, always engaging in conscious suspicion.

The oppressor operates according to an object-oriented ontology: just as the oppressor conquers every object around them, so too do they conquer the oppressed, transforming them from a subject into an object, dehumanizing them. Subject ➡️ Object.

A liberating pedagogical theory is one that rejects this object-oriented ontology and instead posits that subjects engage in dialogue and seek to transform the world together. Subject ↔️ Subject

In the context of education, a liberating pedagogical theory is not one in which the teacher treats the students as receptacles (objects) on which to impart knowledge, but instead one where the teacher-student engages in dialogue with student-teachers in an attempt to uncover and transform the world together.

There is just so much to unpack in this physically small, but ultimately gargantuan piece of work. A must-read for anyone event remotely engaged in some form of education.