On Paulo Freire, and seeing computing as literacy

Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator, best known for his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Indeed, it's the most commonly assigned reading in education classes which isn't a textbook. His ideas have been used for teaching many topics, such as health and African American studies. And yet, most people in CS education circles aren't familiar with Freire. In this post I'll provide a short introduction to Freire and why his work is relevant to computing education.

To Freire, education is an inherently political act. Education can be a tool of empowerment, and it can also be a tool of oppression. Freire refered to traditional education as the "banking model": the teacher deposits coins of knowledge into the bank accounts of the students. "Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the "banking" concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits." (Freire, 1968)

This model ignores what the student already may know. It fails to give the students a sense of ownership over their knowledge, and fails to stimulate critical thinking. He argued this reinforces oppression. For education to be empowering, students need to be active agents in their own learning.