A short primer on Humanization and Dehumanization - two essential concepts to understand Paulo Freire and his philosophy of education:
"Integration with one's context, as distinguished from adaptation is a distinctively human activity. Integration results from the capacity to adapt oneself to reality plus the critical capacity to make choices and transform that reality. To the extent that man loses his ability to make choices and is subjected to the choices of others to the extent that his decisions are no longer his own because they result from external prescriptions he is no longer integrated. Rather he has adapted. He has adjusted. Unpliant men with a revolutionary spirit are often termed as "maldajusted "
"Integration with one's context, as distinguished from adaptation is a distinctively human activity. Integration results from the capacity to adapt oneself to reality plus the critical capacity to make choices and transform that reality. To the extent that man loses his ability to make choices and is subjected to the choices of others to the extent that his decisions are no longer his own because they result from external prescriptions he is no longer integrated. Rather he has adapted. He has adjusted. Unpliant men with a revolutionary spirit are often termed as "maldajusted "
The
integrated person is person as Subject. In contrast, the adaptive person is
person as object, adaptation representing at most a weak form of self-defense.
If a man is incapable of changing reality, he adjusts himself instead.
Adaptation is a behavior characteristic of the animal sphere; exhibited by man
it is symptomatic of his dehumanization. Throughout history men have attempted
to overcome the factors which make them accommodate or adjust, in a
struggle - constantly threatened by
oppression - to attain their full humanity." from "Education for Critical Consciousness"
