Chapter-by-chapter summary of the book

PEDAGOGY OF AUTONOMY BY PAULO FREIRE

• Index

Introduction:………………………………………………………………….…….…..

Development: ……………………………………………………………….………….….

CHAPTER I: There is no teaching without dissent:……………………………….…….

CHAPTER II: Teaching is not transferring knowledge:…………………………..

CHAPTER III: Teaching is a human specificity:………………………….…

Conclusion:……………………………………………………………………………….

Bibliographic……………….……………………………………………………………..

Introduction:
In this present essay the book “Pedagogy of Autonomy” by Paulo Freire will be described.
Initially it will focus on the description and subsequently on the study and analysis of the
author's three writings, which are aimed at educators. With the intention of contributing to a
democratic school.

Development:
Paulo Freire (1921 -1997) Brazilian pedagogue, undoubtedly one of the most important
pedagogues of the 20th century.
He adopted as a teaching method a variant of liberation theology or well known as Liberation
Pedagogy.
Who conceives the teacher in a different way, On April 10, 1997, he published his latest book
“Pedagogy of Autonomy” contrasting in his book the profile of the ideal teacher.
Which the author divides into three chapters or writings. Paulo Freire, died on May 2, 1997 in
Sao Paulo, victim of an acute myocardial infarction.

CHAPTER I:
There is no teaching without discence: In this first writing he makes it clear to us that the
teacher must be a good learner, and be open to the realities of his students. There is no
teaching without discence, since he who teaches learns to teach and he who learns teaches by
learning. This thought by Paulo Freire makes us reflect that we never stop learning, that we
constantly learn something new at all times. As a teacher as well as an apprentice.
I end this idea with the following words “To be a good teacher you must first be a good
learner.”
Being a teacher does not imply that you know everything, it does not imply that the student
listens to you and takes your progress topics as absolute truth. If so, dear reader, then you are
in error, because you are oppressing the student as an oppressor of critical thinking. Being a
teacher is making students search and develop the area of research, becoming autonomous
people of their own learning and also of their thinking. That the educational practice does not
remain only in banking education. And through this investigation, the teacher respects that
knowledge and the prior knowledge, lived experiences of the student. In this way, achieving
critical and autonomous learners of their own learning.
Paulo Freire tells us that:
“Teaching requires the recognition and assumption of cultural identity.”
With these words we are told that we as teachers must assume a cultural identity and then
respect the cultural identity of the students, this will help us as part of being ethical. Which is
absolutely fundamental in progressive educational practice. The diversity of cultural identities
shows that the student is different from one another, which difference should not be seen as if
it were a problem in the classroom, on the contrary, being different helps us learn new things,
new knowledge. Within the classroom, something that is very worrying is discrimination due
to these differences in the student's cultural identities mentioned above. For this reason I dare
to say that the teacher must be the first to treat all students equally, respecting differences.
Generating a climate of respect in the classroom or classroom.

• CHAPTER II:
Teaching is not transferring knowledge: The second writing defends the idea that the teacher
should not transmit his knowledge as the owner of absolute truths. Being a teacher does not
mean that I am completely right, on the contrary, we must help the student to develop their
own thoughts, we must not implant our truths in them. If we do this, we would be thinking that
the learner's mind is just a container into which knowledge is emptied. Teaching is something
more, it is enabling the student to take a step from naivety to criticality. Which will allow the
student to develop as ethical beings. And this is how training becomes part of the education
offered to students. Knowledge is unfinished, for this reason educators are eternal learners and
will always be that man who will always be in search of new knowledge. It is also important
that the teacher is aware of the Socio-historical-cultural reality in which he is working so that
he can develop a good activity according to the place where the educational practice is
applied. I will conclude by saying that every teacher must have a curiosity, since the exercise
of curiosity will help the educator's imagination, intuition, emotions, and the ability to
compare. In this way, getting the educator to participate in the search for the profile of the
object or as Paulo Freire says “The discovery of the reason for being.” The educator must
conceive discipline as a result of the harmony between authority and freedom. In respect for
each other, avoiding inclination to extremes.

• CHAPTER III:
Teaching is a human specificity Concluding the last writing, being a pedagogue requires good
preparation and qualification of the teacher, I mention that he must be sure of his profession.
Because insecurity shows incompetence, Paulo Freire tells us. We must be safe because safety
is expressed in the firmness with which we act, it helps us create a climate of respect in the
room.
Paulo Freire tells us:
“The teacher who does not take his training seriously, who does not study, who does not make
an effort to live up to his task, does not have the moral strength to coordinate the activities of
his classes.”
This clarifies any doubt, taking as a reference that the teacher wants to help the student
overcome his ignorance. First we as educators must overcome our own ignorance. I conclude
this idea with the following words “A blind man cannot lead another blind man.” The teacher
must know how to listen to be able to deepen the art of teaching, it is one of the most relevant
ideas at the moment, which the educator wants to talk to the student. Many teachers make the
mistake of speaking first, without first having listened. “You as a teacher must be the first to
listen.” You must learn as a teacher to listen to the student first and then talk to the student. As
an educator you must love your students well.

• Conclusion:
To achieve a Democratic Educational Practice, which has critical and not banking speakers.
First we must become critical teachers, and to become a critical teacher it is necessary to be an
agent of change in our environment.
And for that the teacher must:
• Be the first to treat everyone equally, respecting the individual differences of the student,
without excluding anyone.
• Conceive discipline as the result of harmony or balance between authority and freedom.
• You must know how to listen to be able to deepen the art of teaching.
• Overcome their ignorance first, and then help the student to overcome ignorance.
• Know how to listen.
• Love the students well.

• Bibliography
FREIRE, Paulo (2006), Pedagogy of Autonomy, 21st Century, Mexico, eleventh edition.2
FREIRE, Paulo (2006), Pedagogy of Autonomy, 21st Century, Mexico, eleventh edition.

PEDAGOGY OF AUTONOMY
Man becomes a subject through reflection on his situation, on his concrete environment, the
more he reflects on this, the more he "emerges" fully consciously committed, willing to
intervene with respect to his reality, to change it."
In Pedagogy of Autonomy, Freire calls us to think about what teachers should know, and what
they should do, in the process of teaching and learning, especially when the emphasis is on
educating to achieve equality. , the transformation and inclusion of all individuals in society.
Freire is not going to justify illiteracy or non-attendance at school due to the irresponsibility of
parents or due to the result of their low income, because for him education and the possibilities
it offers for the improvement of humanity are fundamental in his conception. about the
liberation of individuals and their inclusion in societies.
It offers us a conceptual framework related to the practice of education professionals, who for
this author will be committed to both teaching and learning. It articulates a total of twenty
"knowledge" or principles to take into account, linked to three main chapters, which in turn are
the conceptual pillars of this work: There is no teaching without learning; teaching is not
transferring knowledge; and the process of educating is only a human enterprise.

The first principle entails a profound conception of Freire, through which he urges us to think
about the interaction between educating and teaching. One does not exist without the other,
while they demand dialogue with and respect for the learner and their conception of the world.
Freire points out that education based on the interaction between educating and learning
requires following the following steps: observe methodological rigor; develops research;
respect for the particular knowledge of each student; exercises critical thinking; respects ethics
and aesthetics; do what you say and take risks by accepting the new, while rejecting any form
of discrimination; critically reflects on educational practices; and assume your cultural
identity.

Freire condemned the fatalistic ideas through which ideological immobility is accepted, that
"reality is what it is and what we can do about it." He pondered the educator's ability to make
decisions that transform students' realities from preconceived and hopeless to hopeful and full
of possibilities. His approach to education is nourished by his direct experiences with the
processes of individuals on the path to achieving their personal liberation: "we must achieve
the expulsion of the oppressor from within the oppressed," he will tell us.
This book makes a tremendous contribution to teaching as a major profession. It should be
required reading for every teacher in this world and especially in Latin America and the
Caribbean, because it undoubtedly provides new ideas about the most effective ways to train
educators, and about the reforms that the teaching systems must still have. undertake, to make
them real trainers of individuals embedded in their societies.
1. THERE IS NO TEACHING WITHOUT DISCENCE

1. Teaching requires methodical rigor. 2. Teaching requires research. 3. Teaching requires

respect for knowledge of learners. 4. Teaching requires criticism. 5. Teaching requires
aesthetics and ethics. 6. Teaching requires the embodiment of words by example. 7. Teaching
requires risk, acceptance of the new and rejection of any form of discrimination. 8. Teaching
requires critical reflection on practice. 9. Teaching requires the recognition and assumption of
cultural identity.

2. TEACHING IS NOT TRANSFERRING KNOWLEDGE

1. Teaching requires awareness of incompleteness. 2. Teaching requires the recognition of

being conditioned. 3. Teaching requires respect for the autonomy of the learner's being. 4.
Teaching requires good judgment. 5. Teaching requires humility, tolerance and fight in
defense of the rights of educators. 6. Teaching requires the apprehension of reality. 7.
Teaching requires joy and hope. 8. Teaching requires the conviction that change is possible. 9.
Teaching requires curiosity.

3. TEACHING IS A HUMAN SPECIFICATION

1. Teaching requires security, professional competence and generosity. 2. Teaching requires

commitment. 3 Teaching requires understanding that education is a form of intervention in the
world. 4. Teaching requires freedom and authority. 5. Teaching requires conscious decision
making. 6. Teaching requires knowing how to listen. 7. Teaching requires recognizing that
education is ideological. 8. Teaching requires availability for dialogue. 9. Teaching requires
loving your students well.

PEDAGOGY OF AUTONOMY
Development
In the first part of Pedagogy of Autonomy, the author descriptively develops the knowledge
necessary for teaching practice in a clear and explicit way, without waste. It highlights the
importance of the role of the educator, his teaching task is not only to teach the content, but
also to teach how to think correctly. It condemns pride and arrogance, incites reading, true
critical reading. Most of this knowledge is summarized below.
Research says that there is no teaching without research and no research without teaching.
These tasks are each found in the other's body. Inquiry, search, research, are part of the nature
of teaching practice. What is needed is for the teacher, in his or her ongoing training, to
perceive and assume that he or she is a researcher as a teacher.

In relation to the critical capacity of the teacher, the author expresses that in the difference and
in the "distance" between naivety and criticism, between knowledge made from pure
experience and that which results from methodically rigorous procedures, there is no break. ,
but an improvement..
There would be no creativity without the curiosity that moves us and makes us patiently
impatient with the world we did not make, which we increase with something we do.
One of the main tasks of progressive-educational practice is exactly the development of
critical, unsatisfied, indocile curiosity. Curiosity with which we can defend ourselves from
"irrationalisms" resulting from, or produced by, a certain excess of "rationality" of our highly
technical time. And in this consideration there is no falsely humanist outburst of denial of
technology and science. On the contrary, it is the consideration of those who, on the one hand,
do not deify technology, but, on the other, do not demonize it either. From those who see it or
even scrutinize it in a critically curious way.
Ethics and aesthetics proposes that the necessary promotion of naivety to criticism cannot or
should not be done at a distance from a rigorous ethical training always alongside aesthetics.
The journey from naive to critical knowledge must involve ethical and aesthetic training; As
opposed to technical training, if the human nature of the students is respected, the teaching of
content must be closely linked to their moral formation. Because educating is training and
training means knowing deeply, availability to review what is known, the possibility of
changing options, choices and the right to do so, which cannot exist apart from ethical and
aesthetic principles due to the beauty that it implies. the goal of social justice.
Educational practice must be, in itself, a rigorous testimony of decency and purity. A
permanent criticism of the easy detours that tempt us, sometimes or almost always, to leave
the difficulties that the true paths can present us. If the nature of the human being is respected,
the teaching of content cannot be separated from the moral formation of the student. To
educate is, substantively, to train.
He invites us to teach by example, for which he says: The teacher who really teaches, that is,
who works on the content within the framework of the rigor of correct thinking, denies, as
false, the pharisaical formula of "do what I command and don't do it." what I do". He who
thinks correctly is tired of knowing that words that lack the corporeality of the example are
worth little or almost nothing. To think correctly is to do correctly.
Risk, assumption of the new and rejection of any form of discrimination says that the
availability to risk, the assumption of the new that cannot be denied or received just because it
is new, as well as the criterion of rejection of the new, are characteristic of correct thinking.
old is not only chronological. The old that preserves its validity or that embodies a tradition or
marks a presence in time remains new.
Also the definitive rejection of any form of discrimination is part of thinking correctly. The
prejudiced practice of race, class, gender, offends the substantivity of the human being and
radically denies democracy. How far we are from it when we live in the impunity of those who
kill children in the streets, of those who murder farmers fighting for their rights, of those who
discriminate against black people, of those who underestimate women.
The author defends that the great task of the subject who thinks correctly is not to transfer,
deposit, offer, give to the other, taken as a patient of his thinking, the understanding of things,
facts, concepts. The coherent task of the educator who thinks correctly is, while exercising as a
human being the irrefutable practice of understanding, to challenge the student with whom he
communicates and to whom he communicates, to produce their understanding of what is being
communicated. There is no understanding that is not communication and intercommunication
and that is not based on the capacity for dialogue. That is why thinking correctly is dialogic
and not polemical.
Critical reflection on practice proposes that critical teaching practice, implicit in thinking
correctly, contains the dynamic, dialectical movement between doing and thinking about
doing. The knowledge that unquestionably produces spontaneous or almost spontaneous,
"disarmed" teaching practice is naive knowledge, knowledge made from experience, which
lacks the methodical rigor that characterizes the epistemological curiosity of the subject. This
is not the knowledge that seeks the rigor of thinking accurately. That is why it is essential that,
in the practice of teacher training, the apprentice educator assumes that the essential thinking
accurately is not a gift from the gods nor is it found in the teachers' manuals that enlightened
intellectuals write from the center of power, but rather that, on the contrary, accurate thinking
that surpasses naive thinking has to be produced by the apprentice himself in communion with
the teacher-trainer.
That is why the fundamental moment in the permanent training of teachers is that of critical
reflection on practice. It is by critically thinking about today's or yesterday's practice that the
next one can be improved. The theoretical discourse itself, necessary for critical reflection, has
to be in such a concrete way that it is almost confused with practice. His epistemological
distance from practice as the object of his analysis must "bring him closer" to it as much as
possible. The assumption that the subject makes of himself in a certain way of being is
impossible without the availability for change; to change, and of whose process it also
necessarily becomes subject.
Awareness of incompletion implies being aware of that which is inevitable: inconclusion,
which is typical of life experience; because where there is life there is inconclusiveness;
However, the ability to become aware of this is exclusive to man. From existence, man created
the world, the language through which he gave meaning to things and allowed him to build
knowledge; then, it was impossible to "exist without assuming the right or duty to choose, to
fight, to do politics. The awareness of incompleteness is what founds education as permanent,
therefore, training as a continuous process.
Reading the world, understanding the context, explaining the situation, implies knowledge of
one's own historical reality, within the framework of the whole; This has a very broad scope,
reading the world implies understanding it and this means explaining it to it. This explanation
is possible based on the significant relationships that can be established between the
understanding of the immediate context and how it is understood, with the context of
globality. It is important to recognize the limits of knowledge that is naively constructed from
the dominant ideology and that is insufficient to explain the facts and move towards a more
objective, more scientific knowledge that responds to the authentic interests of the groups,
therefore more explanatory.
Conviction that change is possible and assuming the commitment to intervention implies
problematizing the present and assuming the future as a problem; recognize that the world
does not "is" but "is being" and therefore "can be" different, which requires subjects not only
to verify it but also to commit to intervention (practice) to change it. This is not mere
adaptation, in any case it is adaptation as a path to an insertion that involves choice, decision
and committed and responsible intervention. In training, studying just to understand is
insufficient.
Freedom and authority. Only in the recognition of the limits of freedom is the fight for it
justified; The more the limits of freedom are critically recognized, the more ethical authority
there will also be. Teaching involves making it possible for the need for limits to be ethically
assumed by freedom.
Coherence between the theoretical discourse and one's own actions. When teaching within the
framework of methodical rigor, coherence between what is taught and the way in which it is
taught is a necessary condition; He who teaches seeking security in argument cannot fall into
contradiction in practice of the same principles that he claims to defend theoretically; because
the student not only learns what, but also how he learns it, including the teacher's actions.
Commitment, assuming responsibilities, with their risks and possibilities. Teaching involves
problematization, permanent questioning and commitment to intervention, which represents a
permanent challenge to what is established, a political risk; However, also the possibility of
generating new knowledge and alternatives involving ethical decisions that point to
responsibility: taking charge of the implications of the decisions.
Openness and challenge in the face of change and novelty: teaching with openness implies at
the same time a rejection of the reproduction of a current social order and of any form of
discrimination, but simultaneously the possibility of forming competencies that lead to the
development of instances that overcome what is rejected.
Dialogical capacity and affectivity: it is not by speaking to others, as bearers of the truth, that
we must teach; Teaching involves listening, because it is by listening that we learn to talk to
others. Dialogue involves speaking with students as subjects of listening and not as objects of
a discourse: it is by listening that the teacher can transform his or her discourse; Listening is
not just hearing, it is openness to the speech of another with whom you can agree or disagree.
In the dialogic relationship, affectivity is necessary as a condition of knowability; Openness
towards others allows communication but also affection. Affect is a founding component of
formative intersubjectivity.
Humility, tolerance and generosity. Teaching implies explicitly assuming the limits of
knowledge, its provisionality; Humility is not servility, it is recognizing limits and mistakes,
but also the possibility of overcoming them. Tolerance implies recognizing differences and
oppositions, while rejecting all forms of human discrimination and offering all knowability so
that students can build their own oriented towards improvement.
Joy and hope: Teaching means facing with joy the possibility of creating new transformative
knowledge and the hope of building with it alternatives to resist obstacles that oppose its
search, its praxis and the freedom of the students.
The autonomy itself and the contribution to the construction of the autonomy of the students.
Teaching is helping to build new knowledge that students can redefine, gradually meaning
greater autonomy; In this process of enabling autonomy for others, the greater autonomy of
the teacher as a professional is also implied.
Solidarity and collaboration in the defense of professional rights. Teaching is not restricted to
the relationship with students; It also implies participation with their peers in the fight to
defend their rights and dignity; political struggle that is not alien to professionalism itself
given that teachers necessarily "must see themselves as suitable professionals, since it is in the
competition that is organized politically where perhaps the greatest strength of educators lies
The author highlights that the teacher who belittles the student's curiosity, his aesthetic taste,
his restlessness, his language, more precisely, his syntax and his prosody: the teacher who
treats the student with irony, who minimizes him, who orders him " put himself in his place" at
the slightest hint of his legitimate rebellion, just as the teacher who evades the! fulfillment of
its duty to set limits on the freedom of the student, which avoids the duty to teach, to be
respectfully present in the formative experience of the student, transgresses the fundamentally
ethical principles of our existence. In this sense, it is like the authoritarian teacher, who for this
very reason stifles the freedom of the student, by belittling his right to be curious and restless,
as well as the permissive teacher breaks with the radicalism of the human being - that of his
assumed inconclusiveness where it takes root. ethics.
It is also in this sense that the capacity for true dialogue, in which dialogical subjects learn and
grow in difference, especially in respect for it, is the way of being coherently demanded by
beings that, unfinished, assuming themselves as such, are they become radically ethical. It
must be made clear that the transgression of ethics can never be seen or understood as a virtue,
but rather as a break with decency.

Conclusions
In the text Pedagogy of Autonomy, Paulo Freire talks about what teachers should know, and
what they should do, in the teaching and learning process, especially when the emphasis is on
educating to achieve equality. , the transformation and inclusion of all individuals in society.
He does not justify illiteracy or non-attendance at school due to the irresponsibility of parents
or the result of their low income, because for him education and the possibilities it offers for
the improvement of humanity are fundamental in his conception of liberation. of individuals
and their inclusion in societies. Nor does he justify the teacher in his culture of least effort,
which is evidenced when he says: “that someone becomes sexist, racist, classist, whatever, but
that he is assumed to be a transgressor of human nature.
Don't come to me with genetic, sociological, historical or philosophical justifications to
explain the superiority of whiteness over blackness, of men over women, of employers over
employees. Any discrimination is immoral and fighting against it is a duty, even if the strength
of the conditioning that must be faced is recognized. The beauty of being a person is found,
among other things, in that possibility and in that duty to fight.
Knowing that I must respect the autonomy and identity of the student requires of me a practice
that is totally consistent with that knowledge.
For him, educating and teaching demand dialogue and respect for the learner and their
conception of the world and points out that education based on the interaction between
educating and learning requires following the following steps: observe methodological rigor;
develops research; respect for the particular knowledge of each student; exercises critical
thinking; respects ethics and aesthetics; do what you say and take risks by accepting the new,
while rejecting any form of discrimination; critically reflects on educational practices; and
assume your cultural identity.
It is possible that all educational professionals could read this book; I hope that they unleash
the will and attitude to do so because the educational act is an eminently human, experiential
act; Education is more than a science, it is life; Therefore, the educational process itself is a
life process; It requires a profound philosophy of life that supports teaching work and
establishes a scale of values in order to be able to select the essential knowledge and values
and the most effective means to achieve them.