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At the beginning of chapter four, Freire notes that “leaders cannot treat the oppressed as mere activists to be denied the opportunity of reflection and allowed merely the illusion of acting, whereas in fact they would continue to be manipulated –“ (107).  

In this case, I can’t help but relate Freire’s “leaders” to teachers and “oppressed” to students. By this extension, I wonder how this applies to classes today. Freire goes on to say that “The leaders do bear the responsibility for coordination and, at times, direction. . .” I question how this can be realistically achieved in classes today. It would seem to me that today, teachers respond passionately to this call for student “opportunity of reflection” almost too passionately at times. For instance, in classrooms where students are required to participate x amount of times in class discussion or classes in which you have a response paper due on readings or even a weekly blog post, is this true student reflection or is this another form of manipulation if the teacher or the leader is manipulating the student in a sense to write or participate?

How can teachers “coordinate” and provide “direction” without creating an “illusion of acting” through forced reflection? One solution to this, as Freire seems to suggest throughout this final chapter, would be unity and cooperation rather than conquest. Do teachers, as leaders, really cooperate or collaborate with students in the classroom? If teachers also take part in reflection, even if it is assigned reflection, this might decrease the level of manipulation. In relating this to my own life, during practice, regardless of the sport, I was more inspired and willing to run sprints at the end when the coach ran with us. Whenever you are assigned a task, don’t you ever find yourself thinking could my teacher/coach/leader etc. really do this too? Why are they assigning something they are not willing to do themselves?  I am always inspired when I feel like the leader can collaborate with me on any given activity. Can all leaders do this?  Do teachers practically have the time for this level of collaboration in all of their classes and with all of their students?