Paulo Freire was a Brazilian adult educator. He worked hard to provide commitment, love and hope to American educators and this can be found in the critical pedagogy which infuses many college classrooms, organizations, and even school reform in major urban areas. Freire was exiled from Brazil during a military coup in 1964 because of his work among the poor. His philosophy of “pedagogy of the oppressed” was something he shared with educators throughout the world. After his exile from Brazil he continued his work in Chile, and through the World Council of Churches in Geneva, throughout the rest of the world.

Freire taught at Harvard from 1969 through 1979 when he was able to return to Brazil under political amnesty. In 1988 Freire was appointed Minister of Education for the City of Sao Paulo which made him responsible for guiding school reform within 2/3 of Brazil’s schools.

It was Freire’s desire to help men and women overcome their sense of powerlessness to act in their own behalf. Although educated in law, after Freire had children he became interested in education, philosophy, and the sociology of education. After passing the bar he gave up law to work as a welfare official and later as the director of the Department of Education and Culture of the Social Service in the State of Pernambuco.

Freire stated that true knowledge can result only from experientially based learning which permits the learner to make their way through the unknown, thus becoming aware and identifying the need for further knowledge. Freire believed that service learning projects usually provide greater opportunities for this kind of growth through awareness. Freire likened current education to a banking system: “The teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat.”

Freire argued that only through inquiry can men be truly human. elt that education should be a free and open dialogue rather than a formalized curriculum. He believed that too much (again formal, stale, standardized and formalized) education can be detrimental to individual creativity (that is, he was against education which is aimed at protecting the status quo). He studied all economic levels of schools and realized that teachers did not understand the damage they did to their students by insensitivity to their pupils viewpoint or lifestyles.

According to Freire there are two views of humankind, the first, the objective where humans are malleable and the second, the subjective, where humans must be independent. Freire chooses the second view, the subjective, to view history, a history of colonization and oppression by the Portuguese in the case of his native Brazil. Freire views this as a cultural invasion not a class conflict

As dialogue is a cooperative activity, education must be a cooperation rather than a divisive enterprise. In the same way, as the third world has had little voice in world affairs, that third world dialogue must be increased in modern education. The "hidden curriculum" was a concept in which Freire understood and practiced against.

Freire speaks of three levels of human consciousness: (1) Man believes in a magical state in which he has little understanding of how he is controlled by society, (2) a naive state in which he still believes he is personally free of that control, and (3) a critical state in which he accepts his situation and attempts to overcome or break free, or become subjective in his thinking.

Freire has also been deeply effected by religious thought and education, and these became part of his educational philosophy. He was affiliated with UNESCO and the World Council of Churches.

Books and Publicatons

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Pedagogy of Hope

Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed