PAULO FRIERE- A Brief Sketch

 

  • The most influential thinker about education in the late twentieth century.
  • His courageous views invited the disgust of Brazilian dictators. Arrested and send him to jail.
  • One of the founders of the most powerful oppositional party in Brasil, the labor party (PT).
  • Showed a new way of relation between teachers and students.
  • The pedagogue of the oppressed and gave us a pedagogy of hope.

"When I first read Paulo Freire, I was stunned and relieved and exuberant, for he was able to articulate what I knew and felt, but did not have the words for."

- David Diamond, Theatre artist

Paulo Freire (1921-1997)

Freire was born and brought up in a poor rural family among the community of laborers. He gained a deep understanding of the lives of the common man. It gave courage to challenge the elitist educational practices.

His educational work among the rural poor invited the hatred of Brazilian dictators and was imprisoned. He was compelled to immigrate to Genf during the military coup in 1964. But he continued his "pedagogy of the oppressed" in Bolivia and Chile. He lived in Chile for five years working in the Christian Democratic Agrarian Reform Movement. He published his first book, Education as the Practice of Freedom, which brought the acclaim and a position as a visiting professor at Harvard in 1969. In 1968 he wrote his famous Pedagogy of the Oppressed, published in Spanish and English in 1970, but not in Brazil until 1974.

He also worked with World Council of Churches in Geneva As the last exile of the Brazilian military revolt in 1964 he was allowed to return home in 1980. In 1979, after 15 years of exile, Freire was allowed to return to Brazil and did so in 1980. He joined the Workers' Party (PT) in São Paulo and, from 1980 to 1986, supervised its adult literacy project. In 1988 he was also appointed Minister of Education for the City of Sao Paulo--a position which made him responsible for guiding school reform within two-thirds of the nation's schools. His policy work and innovations in literacy training as Minister continue to affect the city and Brazil to this day. In 1991 the Paulo Freire Institute was created. In 1997 Paulo Freire died of Heart attack in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In Europe his ideas influenced all pedagogical fields: social work, adult education, youth education (out of school), schools and kindergartens. His books are translated in many different languages.

Freire's work continues to be reinvented and re-clarified according to changing political and intellectual thought and social movements.

 Landmarks

1921: Born in Recife (Northeastern Brazil )
1944: Married Elza Maria Oliveria, teacher
1946: Lecturer at the university of Recife
1959: Dissertation about adult education and illiterates
1962: Alphabetical programs gains recognition and implemented all over Brazil 1964: Military coup in Brazil. Arrested and sent to jail.
1964: Went to Chile in exile.
1964-69: Alphabetizing programs for the UNESCO in Chile
1969: Guest lecturer at Harvard University in the USA for 10 months
1970-80: "Counsellor of the Office of Education" for the World Council of            Churches in Geneve
1980: Returns to Brazil
1987: Marriage with Ana Maria Araújo
1989-91: Secretary of state for Education in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil
1997: Honorary doctor of the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg,           Germany
1997: Paulo Freire died of Heart attack in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Freire's Pedagogy

Freire's pedagogy of literacy education involves
not only reading the word, but also reading the
world.

This involves the development of critical consciousness . The formation of critical consciousness allows people to question the nature of their historical and social situation-to read their world-with the goal of acting as subjects in the creation of a democratic society (which was new for Brazil at that time).

For education, Freire implies a dialogic exchange between teachers and students, where both learn, both question, both reflect and both participate in meaning-making. Concretely, this pedagogy begins with the teacher mingling among the community, asking questions of the people and gathering a list of words used in their daily lives.

The teacher was to begin to understand the social reality of the people, and develop a list of generative words and themes which could lead to discussion in classes, or "cultural circles" (Gadotti 20). By making words (literacy) relevant to the lives of people, the process of conscientization could begin, in which the social construction of reality might be critically examined.

The year 1962 saw the first experiments in Freire's method when 300 farmworkers were taught to read and write in just 45 days (15). As a result, the government approved thousands of cultural circles to be set up all over Brazil. Unfortunately, the military coup of 1964 halted the work, and changed Freire's life.
Paulo Freire has been particularly popular with informal educators with his emphasis on dialogue and his concern for the oppressed.

(For a more complete exploration of Freire's Pedagogy, see Gadotti, pages 15-30, and Freire's Education for Critical Consciousness. For detailed insight into Freire's concept of conscientização, see Tom Heaney's work at: http://nlu.nl.edu/ace/Resources/Documents/FreireIssues.html)

 

Books of Freire

  • Education For Critical Consciousness. New York: Continuum, 1993.
  • Letters To Christina:Reflections on My Life and Work. Trans. Donaldo Macedo. New York: Routledge, 1995.
  • Pedagogy in Process: The Letters to Guniea-Bisseau. New York: Seabury Press, 1978.
  • Pedagogy of the City. Trans. Donaldo Macedo. New York: Continuum, 1993.
  • Pedagogy of the Heart. New York: Continuum, 1997.
  • Pedagogy of Hope: Reviving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Robert R. Barr. New York: Continuum. 1995.
  • Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. Rev. ed. New York: Continuum. (1973) 1994.
  • The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation. Trans. Donaldo Macedo. South Hadley: Bergin and Garvey, 1985.
  • Myles Horton. We Make the Road By Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.

 BOOKS BY FREIRE IN COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS

  • Castells, Manuel, Ramon Flecha, Paulo Freire, Henry A. Giroux, Donaldo Macedo, and Paul Willis. Critical Education in the New Information Age. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1999.
  • Escobar, Miguel, Alfredo L Fernandez, Paulo Freire, and Gilberto Guervara-Niebla. Paulo Freire on Higher Education. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
  • Faundez, Antonio, and Paulo Freire. Learning to Question: A Pedagogy of Liberation. Trans. Tony Coates. New York: Continuum, 1992.
  • Freire, Paulo, Ed., with James Fraser, Donaldo Macedo, Tanya McKinnon, and William Stokes. Mentoring the Mentor: A Critical Dialogue With Paulo Freire. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
  • Shor, Ira, and Paulo Freire. A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education. MA: Bergin and Garvey, 1987

BOOKS & ARTICLES ABOUT FREIRE & HIS WORK

  • Caulfield, Peter J. "From Brazil to Buncombe County: Freire and Posing Problems." The Educational Forum 55.4 (Summer 1991) : 307 - 317.
  • Collins, Denis E. Paulo Freire: His Life, Works and Thought. New York: Paulist Press, 1977.
  • Elias, John L. Paulo Freire: Pedagogue of Liberation. Malabar, FL: Kreiger Press, 1994.
  • Facundo, Blanca. Freire Inspired Programs in the United States and Puerto Rico: A Critical Evaluation. Washington, D.C.: The Latino Institute, 1984.
  • Freire, Ana Maria Araujo Freire, and Donaldo Macedo, Eds. The Paulo Freire Reader. New York: Continuum. Giroux, Henry A. "Paulo Freire and the Concept of Critical Literacy." Radical Pedagogy, pp. 77-82. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982.
  • Heaney, Tom. "Issues in Freirean Pedagogy." Thresholds in Education/ "Freire Issues" section,http://nlu.nl.edu/ace/Resources/Documents/FreireIssues.html. 08/29/96 and 12/28/99.
  • Leach, Tom. "Paulo Freire: Dialogue, Politics and Relevance." International Journal of Lifelong Education 1.3 (1982) : 185 - 201.
  • Mayo, Peter. "Synthesizing Gramsci and Freire: possibilities for a theory of radical adult education." International Journal of Lifelong Education 13.2 (March - April 1994) : 125 - 148.
  • "Critical Literacy and Emancipatory Politics: the work of Paulo Freire." International Journal of Educational Development. 15.4 : 363 - 379.
  • McLaren, Peter, "Paulo Freire and the Academy: a challenge from the U.S. Left." Cultural Critique. (Spring 1996) : 151 - 184.
  • Colin Lankshear, eds. Politics of Liberation: Paths from Freire. London: Routledge, 1994.
  • Peter Leonard, eds. Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter. London: Routledge, 1993.
  • McCoy, Ken. "Liberating the Latin American Audience: The Conscientizacao of Enrique Buenaventura and Augusto Boal." Theatre Insight 6.2 (Summer 1995) : 10 -16.
  • Shor, Ira, Ed. Freire for the Classroom: A Sourcebook for Liberatory Teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1987.
  • Spring, Joel. "The Growth of Consciousness: Marx to Freire." A Primer of Libertarian Education, pp. 61-79.
  • Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1975Taylor, P. The Texts of Paulo Freire. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993.
  • Torres, Carlos Alberto. The Politics of Nonformal Education in Latin America.
  • Paulo Freire: Political Philosophy of Education. Wallerstein, Nina. "Paulo Freire in the North: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Empowerment Education." Trabalhos em Linguistica Aplicada 24.3 (1990).

    Credits : Leslie Bentley, Mark K. Smith

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