Oppressor or Oppressed

Paolo Fierre raises an excellent point in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In many situations in our world today there are two different groups that are typically represented-the opressors and the oppressed. You can see this happening throughout history and even in our world today. Accepting that we recognize this problem is still occuring in our world today, but still allowing oppression to continue is a hard thing to do. Maybe one day we can experience a world where these two roles of opressor and oppressed have been eliminated. Maybe we can learn from our past to make a better world for future generations. Although opression can be a sensitive and difficult topic to discuss, I think it is a very important topic to study as pre-service teachers. Since many of us as future TESOLers are likely to come in contact with a mariad of different students with different cultures and linguistic backgrounds, we are more than likely to encounter someone who has been oppressed. We as teachers need to recognize the problems and challenges these individuals may have experienced and use this knowledge to enhance our teaching. Being consciously aware of the role of oprression, we can provide the power to help our students let their voices be heard.