WHY ASK WHY???
As we have talked about in class we learned to ask why about many injustices around the world and why these action are committed and what we learned from Paulo Freire has taught us to ask why. Paulo Freire was born in Brazil in 1921 and had spent most of his life working with illiterate adults. By learning the philosophy and beliefs of Freire i was able to connect my fire project topic to his ideas between the oppressed and the oppressors.By learning about Freire it had introduced the idea of conscientization which is the process of developing critical awareness of ones social reality through reflecting and action. Paulo Freire believed that knowledge was power and he had dedicated his life to educating people so they could liberate themselves. Freire had been imprisoned in 1964 for his so called radical beliefs on liberating people through his work. A important quote from Freire that supports my fire project was "Problem-posing education does not and cannot serve the interest of the oppressor: No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to begin to question: Why?"(Freire,pg.86). What we can learn from this quote by Paulo Freire is that the ones who hold the power will do whatever it takes to maintain it for as long as they can. In this case for my project the ones who have been oppressed would be the victims who have been living in polluted areas and have not been heard by the power holders who are the owners of these toxic power plants that pollute the lives and health of people living with a power plants next door to there homes. What we can learn from Freire is why ask why? what gives these corporation the wrong idea that we do not seem to care when in reality the power plants they own are literally killing us and send many more to hospitals do to polluted air. Freire's philosophy was to either take a stand and take action or simply just sit back and let stuff happen on its own. Learning from Freire it has taught me and many more of my classmates someone has to make a change in a corrupt society and rather than waiting around to see it happen,be the one who makes it happen.