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A public high school in a low-income neighborhood lacks essential resources like updated textbooks, functioning computers, and after-school programs. Meanwhile, a school in a wealthy district just a few miles away has brand-new technology, small class sizes, and a variety of enrichment opportunities.

Who are the oppressors and the oppressed in this scenario?

How does the education system maintain inequality?

What would you suggest as a solution?

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A factory employs hundreds of workers, many of whom are immigrants with limited English proficiency. These workers are paid minimum wage, have no benefits, and are discouraged from unionizing. Meanwhile, company executives receive huge bonuses each year, despite reports of unsafe working conditions.

Who holds power in this scenario?

Why might the workers be hesitant to challenge their conditions?

How can education and awareness lead to liberation?

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At a university, students organize a protest against a policy they believe is discriminatory. The administration, instead of listening to their concerns, imposes strict rules on campus protests, threatens suspension for participants, and increases security measures. Some students begin to doubt whether speaking up is worth the risk.

Who is the oppressed? The oppressor?

How is the oppressor maintaining control?

What options do the students and administrators have in this situation?

What does this say about the role of education in shaping critical thinkers?

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A community is struggling with poverty and unemployment, yet the mainstream media primarily portrays its residents as criminals. News stations rarely report on the systemic causes of these issues - like lack of access to quality education and jobs - but instead focus on negative stereotypes.

How does the media contribute to intellectual control and oppression?

How might this portrayal impact the community’s perception of itself?

What could be done to challenge these stereotypes?

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A school district decides to remove ethnic studies courses from the curriculum, arguing that they are “divisive” and “unnecessary.” Students from diverse backgrounds feel that their histories and identities are being ignored, and some teachers fear retaliation if they discuss these topics in class.

Why might those in power want to erase these histories?

How does this decision impact students’ sense of identity?

What actions could students take to reclaim their education?

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The bourgeois, aka the employers and company executives hold the power in this scenario by managing the wages that are directed to immigrant workers and who discourage unionizing through yellow-dog contracts, contracts that employers force on employees to sign in order to work.

The workers may be hesitant because they may be under contracts, such as the one mentioned above. It is also important to note that by unionizing a labor effort or organization, they'd be subjecting themselves to humiliation and negative views considering the history behind labor unions and violence. For instance, the Haymarket affair was a bombing in Chicago caused by anarchists amongst the Knights of Labor. They were associated as communists and anarchists and basically had their reputation ruined.

Education and awareness can lead to liberation by allowing employees to know what they are getting into and to allow them to cross language barriers considering they're immigrants and such. And by knowing their worth and being educated, they can protest in an organized fashion without using violence and without ruining their efforts.

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Why might the workers be hesitant to challenge their conditions? 

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Why might the workers be hesitant to challenge their conditions? 

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> The workers are hesitant because they are immigrants and can be deported if they resist, despite them having to be in an unsafe working condition area.

Reading Chapter 1, Freire mentions how the oppressed are often fearful of freedom.' I think that’s exactly what’s happening here with the immigrant workers. They are hesitant to challenge the conditions because the 'freedom' of speaking up comes with the massive risk of being deported. It shows how the system is set up to make the oppressed feel like they have to choose between their safety and their rights.

Fatmata / Napheca

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The oppressors are the lawmakers and the school board that directs the essential resources to the wealthy district, whereas the oppressed are the schools, students, and teachers in the low-income neighborhood.

The education system maintains inequality by distributing resources unfairly amongst schools in the districts.

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The state is the oppressor because it doesn't distribute the resources equally. The oppressed are public high schools in low quality neighborhoods. By constantly focusing on wealthy districts, the education system maintains inequality. A solution is to start prioritizing the districts in need, and maintain the levels of the districts that are doing well. Distributing more resources to low quality districts. To keep all the districts balanced, one doesn't have an advantage over the other, to get all the districts on the same level depending on the needs of the district.

-Fatoumata,Lizbeth,Edwina, and Lomiah

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The Oppressor is not Always Blantantly Obvious

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The Oppressor is not Always Blantantly Obvious

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In this scenario, I thought at first that the oppressor was the wealthy school, but after thinking it through, the oppressor is the state. The reason that the wealthy school has the funding that they have is because of redlining. This is not a fault of their own, because redlining began before they may have been a district since redlining began primarily in the 1930's as a means for discriminating against Black people.

The education system maintains inequality by redlining. It carves out neighborhoods into certain districts, and the homes surrounding whose housing taxes contribute to the schools money. The income of the neighborhoods is known by the people doing the redlining, so this inequality is happening purposefully.

I think this could be solved by not basing schools funding by local property taxes. This way, we could stop the cycle of poverty, which usually begins in the classroom.

-Bing A

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> We would recommend that the students that are closer to the wealthy school district should attend the high income high school.

I wanted to connect this to Freire’s idea of humanization. In the text, he says that liberation is a 'mutual process. Our solution of moving students to better districts gives them the tools they need, but as Freire argues, the students themselves have to be the ones to use those tools to transform their reality.

Adding to our point about moving students to wealthier districts in Chapter 1, Freire talks about how true generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. I think our solution helps in the short term, but through Freire’s lens, we have to be careful that this isn't just 'false charity. If we just move kids around without fixing the systemic reasons why one school is 'rich' and the other is 'poor,' are we actually liberating them or just trying to make them fit into an oppressive system

Fatmata / Napheca

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The bourgeois aka the employers and company executives hold the power in this scenario.

They might be hesitant to challenge their conditions because by protesting they would lose their wages and be nothing without their employers and by ruining their reputations, such as how labor unions were labeled as communists by the public because of their unorganized labor efforts and their history of violence.

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The oppressed are students at the university, and the oppressors are the administration and university.

Schools claim they wanna teach critical thinking but at the same time, they teach that they should conform and be obedient to them instead of deviating.

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The company executives hold the power. The company executives aren't paying the workers. They keep the money for their own interest and don't pay it to the workers. The workers might be hesitant because they don't have influence and power, and are scared they'll be fired, or their already low wages being reduced. Education and awareness makes it so that the workers know their rights, and won't just accept anything from the company. If they do decide to rise against the company, they'll have the education to do it right, for it to be effective.

-Fatoumata, Lizbeth,Edwina, and Lomiah

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The oppressed in this situation are the students and one of the oppressors are the administrators, but the other oppressors are the the Board of Trustees and university President. Like in the first scenario, some oppressors may be hidden which is how they dodge taking responsibility for their actions. The oppressor maintains control because they are not as disposable as the students. They contribute more money and have more credibility.

They students can bring these policy changes to the public eye via social media and the news. Administrators can also do the same, and go against the other administrators. But these are very risky situations, so honestly a very appealing option would be to just stop protesting. this says that education is not really shaping critical thinkers that go against the status quo.

-Bing A

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Options the students and administrators have in a situation like this is to listen to the students concerns and how the policy may be affecting them and why they think the policy is discriminatory then taking the students concerns to the board , discussing the affects it may cause the students by doing this.. it helps show the students that the school cares enough to take in their concerns to improve a better environment

Alexiz, Ellenda, Markayla

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The state acts as the oppressor while the community is the oppressed because the state distributes tax funding based on test scores. From my experience, this often leads to already struggling schools receiving less support, which causes them to become more underrepresented and underfunded then they already are. while, wealthier and richer schools become even more wealthier and richer! A solution that would benefit this imbalance would be equally distributed tax, This would prevent struggling schools to begin struggling even more, and

allow the playing field to be slightly more equal, making test scores go up, resources to began to be equally divided.

Makayla, Alexiz, Ellenda the queen!

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They might want to erase these histories because the history makes them look bad, and its a way of control. They don't want to take accountability for their past and want to hide, learning these cultures will show all the wrongs they did to those people. The students won't learn about their axiology, and won't know their identity. They'll be ashamed of their culture.

Lomiah,Edwina,Lizbeth,Fatoumata

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The Workplace, Divided is about how not everyone is treated the same at work. Some people have better opportunities, higher pay, and more power, while others struggle to move up or even get fair treatment. This can happen because of things like race, class, or bias. If workers don’t speak up or recognize these inequalities, nothing changes. But if people become more aware and start challenging these systems, it can lead to a more fair and equal workplace. -markayla ,ellnda, alxis

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How does the media contribute to intellectual control and oppression?

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How does the media contribute to intellectual control and oppression?

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The media has a lot of power because they decide what stories to tell. By only showing the criminal side and ignoring things like poor schools or no jobs, they control what the rest of the world thinks about that community.

I want to add a quote from Chapter 1 to support this. Freire talks a lot about 'dehumanization' and how the oppressor tries to take away the humanity of others. By the media only showing the 'criminal side' of a community, they are basically dehumanizing those people and making it easier for the rest of the world to ignore their actual struggles, like the lack of jobs or poor schools. It fits Freire's idea that the oppressor uses these narratives to stay in control

Fatmata / Napheca

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The media is a huge part of how people are seen and how things are justified. This is shown time in time again in history like with the Holocaust, slavery, oppression of Black and Brown people, and anti-immigrant sentiments. The media encourages the masses to excuse bigoted behavior and dehumanize people.

This portrayal may make the community itself feel as though they are what the media paints them to be. This can create internalized issue as well and rationalize the struggle that these people are going through without acknowledging the systemic issues that cause them.

To challenge these stereotypes, people from the community could publicly speak out on social media or a more open-minded news station.

-Bing A