Paulo Freire's foundational work of critical pedagogy — arguing that traditional education reproduces oppression and that liberatory education requires dialogue, problem-posing, and critical consciousness.
The banking model vs. problem-posing education: Freire's framework has two poles. Banking education (teacher deposits knowledge, student receives passively) reflects and reproduces hierarchical social relations. Problem-posing education (knowledge co-constructed through dialogue starting from the student's experience) develops critical consciousness. The goal is not just literacy but conscientização — seeing one's oppression as systemic rather than natural. The book's influence is extraordinary: the most widely assigned text in education programs globally, the foundational text for critical pedagogy, social justice education, and much of what critics call 'woke education.'
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