Freire in the classroom

A classroom in which Freire’s principles are applied will certainly be a melting pot of continuing dialogue between the teacher and the students.

Just like we all know that there are always many perspectives to every issue, a class working under Freirean principles will witness a daily examination and reexamination of reality and as a result more likely to likely to produce dialogue based on different outlooks to the reality. The end result will be a widening of the scope of the students’ knowledge base which is not easily achievable in the banking system of education.

The various inputs of the students themselves will certainly serve as a fertile ground for the teacher to learn about how the students view and perceive the reality of what is being studied.

I’d expect such a classroom to always throw up more questions on issues and learn to understand the dynamic, transformational nature of realty By encouraging creativity and creative reasoning, the students will grow up with an attitude of being will and able to question reality after critical examination and learning to offer their perspectives with due respect for other views even if they are different from theirs.

For the teacher, applying this principles will not in any way reduce his authority or status; on the contrary, it will offer him a continuously evolving forum where reality is always under critical examination and various ideas idea on how best to transform it being brought forward.

By serving as a participating Facilitating Guide/Moderator, the teacher himself will always find himself learning from the voices he has liberated – the Voice of the students