Field evidence shows peasants engage only with felt-need codifications but cannot synthesize causes.

Evidence

In this connection, a very valuable contribution to our method has been made by Gabriel Bode, a young Chilean civil servant in one of the most significant Chilean governmental institutions: the Instituto de Desarrollo Agropecuario (INDAP). During his use of this method in the post-literacy stage, Bode observed that the peasants became interested in the discussion only when the codification related directly to their felt needs. Any deviation in the codification, as well as any attempt by the educator to guide the decoding discussion into other areas, produced silence and indifference. On the other hand, he observed that even when the codification30 centered on their felt needs the peasants could not manage to concentrate systematically on the discussion, which often digressed to the point of never reaching a synthesis. Also, they almost never perceived the relationship of their felt needs to the direct and indirect causes of these needs. One might say that they failed to perceive the untested feasibility lying beyond the limit-situations which engendered their needs. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 337

Categorization

• QUESTION: This empirical note — interest without synthesis — is a real weakness in the method; worth investigating whether the facilitator’s role is where synthesis-training must live.
• XREF: Empirical boundary of the method — connects directly to the reader’s worry about the facilitator knowing the correct consciousness.