UNIVERSITY

OF THE PEOPLE
Tuition-Free Online University
Pasadena, CA, USA

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT

EDUC 5220 – 01

CURRICULUM DESIGN

UNIT 5

AY 2022, TERM 3
EDUC 5220 CURRICULUM DESIGN
Unit 5 - Written Assignment

Paulo Freire is known for his critical pedagogy known as the pedagogy of the

oppressed. In chapter 3 of his book, he explored the concepts which describe the relationship

of human being to the world. One of those concepts is the term “generative themes.” It

appears twenty-three (23) times in the text.

It is regarded as the basic unit of the “thematic universe” of the people (Freire, 1970,

1993) in the first instance it was presented in the text. That if investigated it will start the

“dialogue of education as the practice of freedom.” Generative themes can be related to

people’s beliefs. In his master’s thesis, Garcia S.J. (1974 p. 23) defined it as “concrete

representations of many of the ideas, outlooks, hopes, doubts, fears, values, and challenges

arising out of human being’s orientations to the world at a given time and place” This meaning

of the term is consistent on how this term is used in the following sentence of the text:

“Consistent with the liberating purpose of dialogical education, the object of the investigation

is not persons (as if they were anatomical fragments), but rather the thought-language with

which men and women refer to reality, the levels at which they perceive that reality, and their

view of the world, in which their generative themes are found.” However, Freire believed that

this concept is something that does not need to be proven because it is fact. It is something that

really exist. Freire added that if it is a hypothesis to be proved, its existence needs to be verified

as a fact or a reality first.

How are generative themes connected to the idea of curriculum reforms? There is a

shift from a top-down to bottom-up approach in curriculum development focusing on the role

of teachers in the process (Gouëdard, et al., 2020). The concept of generative themes can

become an important tool in helping the teachers in its decisions to make. That is if teachers

would follow a student-centered approach and a constructivist philosophy in building the new
curriculum. Generative themes provide the curriculum designers the honest picture of what the

learner’s reality. In one of his interviews, Freire stated that one must possess the virtue of

tolerance to be able to understand others (LiteracyDotOrg, 2009). It is the virtue needed to

ascertain the most honest generative themes of the learners without being influenced by

designer’s own generative themes. Teachers and other curriculum designers are more often

influenced by what they have studied, their own personal educational philosophies and

experiences upon which they may use in the design of the curriculum. For example, before the

K-12 curriculum which is currently used by the Philippine education are influenced by western

education, and before this a different type of curriculum was being implemented that uses

“Understanding by Doing” or UBD approach in teaching. Both types of curriculum are framed

by the central office of the department of education based on other countries experience of the

curriculum.

Generative theme is a complex idea. The term is used in the study of language

(Simandan, 2009). It is also used as a unit of idea to be analyzed and form a common theme to

understand certain phenomenon (Beck and Purcell, 2013). Meanwhile, chapter 3 of Freire’s

work discusses the relationship of human beings and the world. Davis (2018) concluded that

this chapter that by discovering the themes of the moments in the history of the human and his

relationship in the world “in a classroom environment, students can deepen their understanding

of the world, and educators can gain insight into their students’ perspectives.” From these, the

used of the term generative theme made the whole chapter difficult to understand. Freire could

have used simpler term like beliefs.

References

Beck, D. & Purcell, R. (2013). Developing generative themes for community action. In:
Curran, S., Harrison, R. and Mackinnon, D. (eds.). Working with Young People [2nd
ed.]. Sage: Los Angeles, C.A., USA. In https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/80432/1/80432.pdf
Davis, J (28 Feb. 2018). Pedagogy of the Oppressed Plot Summary. LitCharts. Available:
March 1, 2022. In https://www.litcharts.com/lit/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed/summary
Freire, P. (1970, 1993). Chapter 3. In Pedagogy of the oppressed. The Continuum
International Publishing Group.
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon2/pedagogy/pedagogy chapter3.html
Garcia S.J. A.A. (1974). Generative themes: A critical examination of their nature and
function in Paulo Freire’s Educational Model. Master’s Theses. Loyola eCommons.
Loyola University Chicago. In Generative Themes: A Critical Examination of Their
Nature and Function in Paulo Freire's Educational Model (luc.edu)
Gouëdard, P., et al. (2020), "Curriculum reform: A literature review to support effective
implementation", OECD Education Working Papers, No. 239, OECD Publishing,
Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/efe8a48c-en.
LiteracyDotOrg. (2009 December 30). Paulo Freire – an incredible conversation [Video].
YouTube.
Simandan, V.M. (25 December 2009). A Generative Theme Approach to Teaching Reading
and Writing Elementary Level. V.M. Simandan [blog]. Available March 1, 2022. In
https://www.simandan.com/a-generative-theme-approach-to-teaching-reading-and-
writing-at-elementary-level/