How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds?
Very attractive and engaging flash animation, developed for San Francisco's Department of Emergency Management, allows you to test your knowledge of how to cope during an earthquake.
This flash-based education resource has Pablo the dog mule guide us through the hazards of using that evil drug cocaine. Highly interactive it uses grim realism to hit the message home in a humorous, non-patronising way.
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Cinema Nosso is a media arts-based organization in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that uses film and video as a means of education, empowerment and cultural expression from diverse perspectives.
Pip and I will be working with them early next year. Rio, here we come!!
Pedagogia do oprimido is one of the few attempts anywhere to implement something like democracy as an educational method and not merely a goal of democratic education.
The first chapter explores how oppression has been justified and how it is overcome through a mutual process between the "oppressor" and the "oppressed". Examining how the balance of power between the colonizer and the colonized remains relatively stable, Freire admits that the powerless in society can be frightened of freedom. He writes, "Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion." According to Freire, freedom will be the result of praxis - informed action - when a balance between theory and practice is achieved.
The second chapter examines the "banking" approach to education -- a metaphor used by Freire that suggests students are considered empty bank accounts that should remain open to deposits made by the teacher. Freire rejects the "banking" approach, claiming it results in the dehumanisation of both the students and the teachers. In addition, he argues the banking approach stimulates oppressive attitudes and practices in society. Instead, Freire advocates for a more world-mediated, mutual approach to education that considers people incomplete. According to Freire, this "authentic" approach to education must allow people to be aware of their incompleteness and strive to be more fully human. This attempt to use education as a means of consciously shaping the person and the society is called conscientization.
Freire argues that words involve a radical interaction between reflection and action and that true words are transformational. Dialogue, and dialogics-"the essence of education as the practice of freedom"- requires mutual respect and cooperation to not only develop understanding, but also to change the world. "Authentic" education, according to Freire, will involve dialogue between the teacher and the student, mediated by the broader world context. He warns that the limits imposed upon both the colonizer and the colonized dehumanize everyone involved, thereby removing the ability for dialogue to occur, inevitably barring the possibility of transformation.
The last chapter proposes dialogics as an instrument to free the colonized, through the use of cooperation, unity, organization and cultural synthesis (overcoming problems in society to liberate human beings). This is in contrast to antidialogics which use conquest, manipulation, cultural invasion, and the concept of divide and rule. Freire suggests that populist dialogue is a necessity to revolution; that impeding dialogue dehumanizes and supports the status quo.
The Freire Project is dedicated to building an international critical community which works to promote social justice in a variety of cultural contexts. We are committed to conducting and sharing critical research in social, political, and educational locations.
The project promotes research in Critical Pedagogy, and brings together local and international educators. We are committed to continuing the global development of Critical Pedagogy and to highlighting its relevance with marginalized and indigenous peoples.
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