A Discussion On Pedagogy Of The Oppressed

The Philosophical Society, A Students Discussion Forum of Department of Philosophy of PGGCG-11, Chandigarh organized the second lecture of online seminar series “Dialogue” on 26th of October 2021 from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm The speaker of seminar was Dr. Jayanti Dutta who is a faculty in Human Resource Development Centre, Panjab University, Chandigarh. She is biologist by training and has been one of the founding members of Department of Public Health in Panjab University. She has an experience of working with 5000 teachers and of mentoring more than 100 professional progammes. The dialogue revolved around the book ‘PADAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED’ by Paulo Friere, a Brazilian educator. The book was published in Portuguese in 1968 and later on it was published in English in 1970. The speaker was given 40 minutes to keep her views followed by a 20 minute discussion. The speaker began by discussing the background and history of the writer Paulo Friere. And added that his text pedagogy of the Oppressed is considered one of the foundational texts of critical pedagogy which proposes pedagogy with a new relationship between teacher, student and society. The writer in his book argued that pedagogy should treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge which was explained with different examples by Dr. Dutta. She talked about different models given in the book and how “banking model of education” is not good because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. The book is dedicated to the oppressed and how she/he is unaware of that oppression. The speaker also talked about why this pedagogy is necessary and also Paulo’s theories of education where two models were discussed: the banking model and problem posing model. Emphasis was also laid on the idea of dialogue and processes how the oppressed can liberate themselves. The event was followed by a healthy discussion where students raised many questions like Why do we have an education system so rigid? What can be done to change this? Who is to be blamed the oppressor or the oppressed? Dr. Jayanti Dutta patiently answered all the questions. The discussion introduced new perceptions and new ways of looking at the education system. This indeed was a successful seminar. Courtesy: Bharti Rao