QUOTES
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.
I
cannot be a teacher without exposing who I am.
the
oppressed must not in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create
it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the
humanity of both.
It
is absolutely essential that the oppressed participate in the revolutionary process
with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as subjects of the transformation.
The trust of
the people in the leaders reflects the confidence of the leaders in the people.
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means
to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
When
we live our lives with the authenticity demanded by the practice of teaching that
is also learning and learning that is also teaching, we are participating in a
total experience…. In this experience the beautiful, the decent, and the serious
form a circle with hands joined."
"The
teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is him/herself taught
in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They
become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow."
"Although
the teachers or the students are not the same, the person in charge of education
is being formed or re-formed as he/she teaches, and the person who is being taught
forms him/herself in the process. …There is, in fact, no teaching without learning."
"To teach is
part of the very fabric of learning."
"…
there is no valid teaching from which there does not emerge something learned
and through which the learner does not become capable of recreating and remaking
what has been taught."
Any
situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process
of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human
beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.