I’m interested in the contiguity of these texts. There’s a degree to which the dialogism between Freire and Boal is readily given to us—Boal’s book, following Freire’s, deviates in title by a single word: “pedagogy” becomes “theatre.” And what better way to practice the pedagogy of the oppressed than to perform it theatrically? Freire writes of “problem-posing education” as resistant to the normative “banking” model (in which students are treated as empty containers for the teacher’s knowledge, thereby re-inscribing the oppressive conditions of the here and now, securing its oppressive future). Boal extends this to his theatre of the oppressed, which stands in opposition to previous theatrical forms underwritten by the values of the state. If, as Boal writes, the theatre becomes a “rehearsal for the revolution” (122) then it performs Freire’s “problem-posing education,” which is at the same time “revolutionary futurity” (84).
Education and theatre, here coterminous with each other, constitute liberatory potentiality. And, as Boal suggests, they are weapons against oppression (122). Putting Césaire and Thiong’o into conversation with Freire and Boal, then, offers a specific decolonial-theoretical tint to the latter two’s practices. As Thiong’o writes: “[T]he night of the sword and bullet was followed by the morning of the chalk and blackboard” (436). And as Annie writes in her response, Césaire’s notion of the colonial “classroom monitor” (177) ultimately reflects the teacher in the “banking” model Freire critiques. The classroom becomes a space of violence and surveillance, where a canonical understanding of knowledge is instrumentalized as a colonizing tactic.
Perhaps it’s better—when possible—to make the classroom a theatre or workshop, as we did on Saturday. I look forward to further reflections on the experience.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagoy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum International Publisher, 2013. Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed. London: Pluto Press, 2008. Thiong'o, Ngugi wa. "The Language of African Culture" Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. eds. Patrick Williams, and Laura Chrisman. 435-455. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Césaire, Aimé. "From Discourse on Colonialism" Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. eds. Patrick Williams, and Laura Chrisman. 172-180. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.