Pedagogy of the Distressed and Pedagogy of the Oppressed

There are many principles, method and practice of teaching. And no one can tell what the best method or what the most effective one to use. In this paper, I will compare and contrast Pedagogy of the Distressed by Jane Tompkins and Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire.

In Pedagogy of the Distressed, Tompkins tells about the true ideals that are necessary to teach. She clearly stated that on the top of them is particularly, fear. She uses her awareness of fearful teaching to relate herself and the teachers and pointed out that it’s normal to be a fearful teacher. At first, I was kind of confused because I was used to the idea that teachers are supposed to be fearsome and students are the fearful ones. The idea vanished when she stated in page 654 in the second paragraph, “Each person comes into a professional situation dragging along behind her a long bag full of desires, fears, expectations, needs, resentments—the list goes on.” This clearly supported her. All people, even teachers, have emotions. These teachers are doing their best to educate their students.

And in page 655, Tompkins said, “we exemplify a model of performance which our students succeed in in emulating, thus passing the model down to future generations. Ironically, as teachers, we are still performing for the teachers who taught us.” She clearly pointed out that if teachers use this kind of passing down of teaching through generations, more likely students of younger generations will have better understanding of their teacher. The students will have a strong bond or connection with the teacher which will help to build a stronger relationship for better learning. And as for the teachers, teaching (in some sense) will be lighter or easier.

There wasn’t really anything entertained me while reading Tompkins’ work, aside from her analogy of sex as teaching. I thought it was witty and at the same time accurate. It is on page 655, “In this respect teaching was exactly like sex for me—something you weren't supposed to talk about or focus on in any way but that you were supposed to be able to do properly when the time came.” Then she added, “It’s something you do alone, although you’re always with another person or other people when you do it; it’s hard to talk about to the other while you’re doing it, especially if you've been taught not to think about it from an early age. And people rarely talk about what the experience is really like for them, partly because, in whatever subculture it is I belong to, there’s no vocabulary for articulating the experience and no institutionalized format for doing so.” In here, she somewhat stated that teaching is something you do alone. (The argument in my head rose again and later, Freire’s work will cultivate it.)

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire tackled the relationship between oppressed and their oppressors. Or I’ll just use the term the dominant and the subordinate. In teaching, in my idea as I said before, teachers are always dominant and students are the submissive ones. Freire stated that for oppressors, to be is to have and the endless control over the oppressed is what they need to have. And men who dominate others see these submissive ones as things or objects, not humans to be treated with integrity. As a student, I had already seen a scenario like this. Whereas the teachers implants to their students the idea that they should just seat, be dependent and learn and the rest will be done by the teacher. They develop this in their head, "We ought to keep quiet and let you talk. You are the one who knows, we don't know anything." It is very teacher-directed and not interactive. The students later develop some kind of inferiority for the rest of his life. Or some will build the indication of revenge. I've heard a lot of my high school classmates before that they would like to be a teacher and punished the next generations of students because that’s what they experienced throughout their learning. Freire stated this, "Their (the oppressed) ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity. They are still identified with their oppressors' values. The peasant who becomes a foreman may be harsher toward the other peasants than the owner. The context of the situation remains unchanged.” This is somewhat scary because this is like revenge to the ones who oppressed you. And you can’t be teacher if you are like this. You will be like a monster created by monster. The opposite of what Tompkins is trying to say.

“The oppressor, who is himself dehumanized because he dehumanizes others, tries to hang onto his power and dehumanizing practices.” Not only have the oppressed needs to be aided but also the oppressor. They must help each other to see another perspective without oppression. In teaching, teachers and students are at the same time both teachers and learners. They learn from each other and help each other learn. The reverse of what Tompkins said “It’s something you do alone, although you’re always with another person or other people when you do it.” Freire created the idea that the students, while being taught, also teach the one who teaches them. "They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.", as he stated.

The idea that teachers are always dominant and students are the submissive one that I got used to is Freire’s oppression. And this is completely off beam. With Tompkins stating that it’s okay to be a fearful teacher combined with Freire’s idea, “the students, while being taught, also teach the one who teaches them” somehow fits teaching. Teaching, in my understanding, is the interaction between the teacher and the learner. There has to be some kind of bond or link between the two that makes them utterly vice-versa at the same time. Thanks to Freire and Tompkins, my idea of teaching in the future will be much more reasonable and humane.