On Defining and Differentiating
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only by the authenticity of the student’s thinking. The teacher cannot think for his students, nor
can he impose his thought on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality,
does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication” (Freire, 1968, pp. 63-
64).
Freire’s practice of dialog involves a number of “classroom” techniques. These include
the use of “codifications,” or pictures meaningful to students. Codifications are used as the focus
of discussion aimed at identifying “generative words,” words that capture or illustrate key
features, issues, or complexities represented in the codifications. In a related technique the
approach takes multi-syllabic words and breaks them down into individual syllables. These
syllables can be analyzed, both for what they teach about language and for what they teach about
issues.
The influence of Freire’s work has been broad as well as deep not only in education but
in other fields as well, including communication. This is not to say Freire is without his critics,
many of them sympathetic. One common criticism concerns his analysis of power. In the
manner of Marxist thought, Freire’s theory holds that the oppressed are powerless. However, as
Foucauldian thinking tells us today, power circulates and is always available to some extent
(Rahnema, 1992, p. 123). In certain respects Freire’s analysis undervalues indigenous
understanding of local social conditions, assuming that “lower class people do not understand
their own situation, that they are in need of enlightenment on the matter, and that this service can
be provided by selected higher-class individuals” (Berger, 1975, p. 113).
At the same time, the theory treats the educational interventions of outsiders as neutral or
beneficial as long as the correct pedagogy is employed. However, since the theory is humanistic
it largely plays down the dignity of “magical” ways of looking at the world. It is secular, and
Convention