The method that Freire developed in his quest to teach literacy, follow three stages in the formation of a critical conscience (Gadotti, 1994: 22-23). In the first investigation stage, the daily life of the pupils was used to discover the universe of vocabulary. The
generative words were selected according to their syllabic length, phonetic value and social meaning. For the educators to gain such insight, it would mean that, in some form, they lived with and learned from the communities in which they taught. The second stage included the codification and decodification of the themes, known as the thematisation stage. The themes were contextualised and new relations with other themes and meanings were established. The breakdown of the phonetic groups was written on cards to be used for reading and writing. The third and final stage involved problemitisation, meaning a return from the abstract to the concrete. Limiting political, cultural, social and economic situations was related to concrete action. The acts of reading and writing became the
instruments of struggle, social and political activity. The final objective of the method was conscientisation, in terms of which oppressive realities are experienced as a process which can be changed or overcome.
Shor (in McLaren & Leonard, 1993: 32-33) describes Freire’s critical consciousness as having four qualities. The first quality, power awareness, meaning knowing and
understanding that human society and history are not static, but can be made and remade by individuals as well as organised groups. Being aware of power means knowing who dominates power in society, why and how power is organised and used. The second quality, critical literacy, refers to habits of analytical thinking, speaking or discussing, reading or writing and goes beyond the surface to understanding the deeper meaning of events, texts, techniques, processes, objects, statements, images and situations while applying that meaning to your own context or situation. The third is, de-socialisation, i.e. recognising and critically challenging regressive myths, values, behaviours and language that are internalised into consciousness – such as racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, glorification of the rich and powerful, hero-worship, excessive consumerism, runaway individualism, militarism and national chauvinism. Finally, the fourth quality is self- organisation/self-education, meaning that individuals take the initiative to transform schools and society to be democratic, with an equal distribution of power, participatory social engagement and recognising the intellectualism of mass education.
To develop this critical consciousness is to engage in student-centred dialogue, which problematises generative themes from daily life and other topics relevant to society and academic subject matter. Shor (in McLaren & Leonard, 1993: 32-33) offers an agenda of values for that pedagogy as:
1. Participatory. The students are expected to decode thematic problems and the learning process is interactive which means that all teachers and students are involved in discussing and writing as opposed to being passive listeners to teacher-talk.
2. Situated. Course material is grounded in the students’ reality, i.e. their thoughts, words/language and also reflects their conditions.
3. Critical. Class discussion should encourage self- and social reflection in terms of how we see issues, how we know what we know, how we can learn what we need to know and how effectively the learning process is operating. Students should also be encouraged to be critical of their own knowledge and language, as well as of the subject matter, the learning process and the relation of knowledge to society.
4. Democratic. The classroom discourse is constructed by students and teachers to include the dialogue regarding the co-development and evaluation of the
curriculum.
5. Dialogical. The dialogue format in the classroom is structured around problems posed by teachers and students. The role of the teacher lies in initiating and deepening the process. The process asserts the learners’ ownership of their education.
6. De-socialisation. Freirean dialogue desocialises students from being passive and authority-dependent in the classroom and from accepting anti-intellectualism. Students are also de-socialised from silence and submission. Teachers are desocialised from “dull and domineering teacher-talk” (McLaren & Leonard, 1993: 33) and socialised into becoming problem-posers and dialogue-leaders instead.
7. Multicultural. The class takes a critical attitude towards discrimination and inequality based on racial, ethnic, regional, age, and sexual social cultures. The curriculum is balanced for gender, class and race.
8. Research-orientated. Classroom and community research regarding the language, behaviours and conditions of students should be conducted by teachers. Students
should also be expected to do research on questions of their daily lives and society, as well as academic issues and material.
9. Activist. Knowledge gained should lead to action in order to gain power and change things.
10. Affective. The classroom experience shows interest in “the broadest development of human feeling as well as the development of social inquiry and conceptual habits of mind” (McLaren & Leonard, 1993: 34) and includes emotions.
According to Freire, these ideas and methods should be applied and reinvented in every different situation. Freire has opened a frontier of liberating education that we will have to develop in our own places, on our own terms, in our own words (McLaren & Leonard, 1993: 85).
At this stage, Freire knew that his experiments to perfect the method of progressive education would lead to him either being imprisoned or attracting the attention of UNESCO (Gadotti, 1996: 34-35). He was imprisoned in June 1964. In prison, the relationship between politics and education became much clearer to him and he realised that social change was an undertaking of the masses and not isolated individuals. After his release from prison, he opted for exile.