Why does Paulo Freire title his book The Pedagogy OF the Oppressed instead of The Pedagogy FOR the Oppressed?

Freire's book is titled Pedagogy of the Oppressed because his thesis asserts that traditional education methods are responsible for creating and sustaining an oppressor-oppressed model. In this model, the teacher is an instrument of the oppressor, and the student is the oppressed. The word of indicates a state of being; this is the way things are. The word of is exploratory in nature, as Freire examines how students have become oppressed, and suggests that a radical shift in pedagogy is required in order to break the oppressor-oppressed cycle.

A pedagogy for the oppressed would indicate a prescription, either a solution for bringing a person out of oppression, or a method of creating an oppressed person. While Freire provides suggestions for upending pedagogies -- the most popular of which is what we now call the "flipped classroom" -- his purpose is not to prescribe a pedagogy, but to inspire teachers, students, and societies to break away from old models.