In 1929, the economic crisis in the United States affected Brazil; Paulo Freire's middle-class family began to experience the life of the poor. Living with the agony of hunger and its resulting listlessness, lead Freire to dedicate his life to the struggle against hunger. He decided that education was a major instrument involved in oppression and hunger, and developed a new and creative philosophy of education. His method of teaching has been thought of as an instructional instrument for teaching the Third World; people were taught to overcome traditional structures with knowledge of how become a person and enter the modern world. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed was the first of his writings to be published in the United States (Shaull, as cited in Freire, 1994).
Freire's view states that the poor are oppressed and live in a "culture of silence". He viewed these people as victims, with their ignorance and lethargy resulting from economic, social, and political domination, and paternalism. People did not know how to respond to their world of oppression and they became submerged within their situation in such a way that creative response was almost impossible. With education, the poor would be able to learn that each was a person, able to think and speak, and create their world. The educated person rises above being a mere object, reacting to life occurring around them; they could now struggle against societal structures which oppress them.
The pedagogy of the first stage needs to deal with the oppressed and oppressor consciousness. Oppression is claimed to be a dehumanized and dehumanizing situation, affecting the oppressors and the oppressed. The oppressed must struggle for humanity for both; the oppressor who is dehumanized since he dehumanizes others is not able to lead this struggle. The oppressed desire freedom but fear it and liberation is a painful process.
The relationship of oppression implies violence si...