“The Symbiotic Analogy”©
Symbiosis is a biological phenomenon that has always called my attention.
When two species live in close association for long periods, such associations
are called symbiotic. Parasitism, commensalism, and mutualism are three
types of symbiotic relationships. Parasitism refers to the relationships
in which one organism benefits from the relation while the other gets
injured. Commensalism occurs when two organisms are “at the table
together” and one eats the unused food of the other. In this case,
both organisms remain unaffected by the other. Symbiotic relationships
in which both organisms benefit from the relation are called mutualistic
(Kimball, 2003).
When I read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed I couldn’t
stop thinking on the “symbiotic analogy”. Before going deep
into the analogy, I need to make clear that I’m planning to reflect
on Freire’s concept of oppression strictly in terms of student-professor
relationship. Freire’s idea of liberation definitively goes way
beyond that point and here I acknowledge that the concept “pedagogy
of the oppressed” can be applied in a wide variety of settings,
other than a formal learning environment.
When we thing about the student-professor relationship in terms of
oppression we used to think of the student as the oppressed and the
professor as the oppressor. This might be true if we think of this relationship
based on traditional hierarchical models where, usually, the person
with authority is seen as the oppressor. The symbiosis analogy is only
an attempt to think of this relationship as one of reciprocity, where
either the student or the professor could get harmed, “untouched”,
or benefited.
Freire is a critique of what he called the banking approach to teaching.
Banking is the pedagogic model in which the student becomes just a repository
of information. In this kind of teaching style the students adhere to
the professor and are fed by him. In other words the students becomes
a parasite. This part of the analogy assumes that the professor is not
truly committed or engaged in the teaching/learning process. In this
“learning” experience the student most likely will acquire
the necessary information to survive and after that, will adhere to
other organism (another teacher). Although I’m convinced that
both “organisms” will get harmed, the real looser (or the
one who receives more harm) is the professor who misses the opportunity
of leaning and growing from the teaching process.
The second type of symbiotic relationship, the commensalism, I believe
is more likely to occur in graduate school. There are situations in
which the educator (advisor) is more focused on advancing his/her own
knowledge than in promoting an effective learning environment for the
student. Sometimes advisors “encourage” students to engage
in research projects that will advance their (advisor) research interests.
In a situation like this, the learner is “invited to the table”
but is actually fed with the “leftovers”. At the Masters
level, it is very common for graduate students to be involved in a major
research project and to develop a Master’s Thesis from a portion
of the project. I’m not necessarily arguing that this is always
negative but I’m almost convinced that the learning experience
is not learner-centered, and is a clear example of oppression.
The third symbiotic relation, the mutualistic, is the one that really
matches Freire’s approach to learning. In a mutualistic relationship
both the teacher and the learner are engaged in the learning process
and one learn from the other. Freire advocates for a relationship in
which both “organisms”, the teacher and the student, will
mutually benefit from the relation. When though in terms of liberation
or freedom from oppressive relations Freire calls for the liberation
of both the oppressed and the oppressor. And, according to Freire, the
burden of that liberation is on the oppressed.
How can we move from parasitism and commensalism to mutualism? Freire
recommends two basic steps: dialogue and love. In dialogue, the oppressed
will have the leading voice and the pedagogy will be forged with, not
for the oppressed. “Only power that springs from the weakness
of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both”, he
says. Would that be possible? I’m more than optimistic; I’m
idealist. But I think that the journey will be long.
This work is not a scholarly review of Freire’s work. It is just
my reflection, a personal journey through an ideology that I believe
is more a philosophy than a teaching approach. It is a philosophy because
it involves love, and love is something that seems to be very difficult
to accommodate in education. I hope that my journey will take me to
the quest of the true pedagogy of the oppressed, that is, “The
pedagogy of people engaged in the fight for their own freedom”
(Freire, p. 53).
References
Freire, Paulo. (1993). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th Anniversary
Edition). Continuum: New York.
Kimball, John W. (2003). Symbiosis. Available online: http://biology-pages.info.
Accessed February 26, 2003.