To Teach Is Part Of

In Order For The Oppressed To Be Able To Wage The Struggle For Their Liberation, They Must Perceive The Reality Of Oppression Not As A Closed World From Which There Is No Exit , But As A Limiting Situation Which They Can Transform.

Critical Reflection On Practice Is A Requirement Of The Relationship Between Theory And Practice. Otherwise Theory Becomes Simply "blah, Blah, Blah, " And Practice, Pure Activism.

The Oppressed Find In The Oppressors Their Model Of 'manhood.'

Education Either Functions As An Instrument Which Is Used To Facilitate Integration Of The Younger Generation Into The Logic Of The Present System And Bring About Conformity Or It Becomes The Practice Of Freedom, The Means By Which Men And Women Deal Critically And Creatively With Reality And Discover How To Participate In The Transformation Of Their World.

Education As The Practice Of Freedom--as Opposed To Education As The Practice Of Domination--denies That Man Is Abstract, Isolated, Independent And Unattached To The World; It Also Denies That The World Exists As Reality Apart From People. Authentic Reflection Considers Neither Abstract Man Nor The World Without People, But People In Their Relations With The World. In These Relations Consciousness And World Are Simultaneous: Consciousness Neither Precedes The World Nor Follows It.