Paulo
Regulus Neves Freire was a Brazilian writer and teacher and one of the most influential
educators of the 20th century. His book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one
of the most quoted educational texts in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Growing
up during the Great Depression, Paulo was profoundly influenced by the widespread
poverty and hunger he witnessed, and this concern for the poor would greatly shape
his thoughts about education. Educated as a lawyer, Paulo Freire instead turned
to teaching, primarily among the illiterate poor, first in secondary schools and
then teaching reading and writing to adults. His teaching methods were quite unorthodox,
and he helped the poor to see that literacy was a way to gain freedom.
Forced
into exile in the mid 1960s when a military coup began a series of military dictatorships
in Brazil that lasted until the mid-1970s, Paulo continued internationally to
promote education as a powerful tool for social transformation. First, he worked
in Latin America with the Christian Democratic Agrarian Reform Movement and the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. After the publication
of two books on social transformation through education he was invited to teach
in the United States at Harvard University. Then he became a special education
adviser to the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland acting as a roving
ambassador of literacy and education reform in Third World countries. Finally
he and his wife were allowed to return to Brazil in 1980 where he eventually became
Secretary of Education in São Paulo.
Paulo
Freire believed that while many educators saw democracy as the goal of education,
it should also be the method as well -- the roles of teacher and student should
not be as rigid as traditional education insists. To really learn, one must also
teach, and to teach, one must be willing to learn from his students. In 1986,
Paulo received UNESCO's Peace Education Prize. In
1991, the Paulo Freire Institute was set up in São Paulo to continue Freire's
teaching methods. Today it is headquartered at the UCLA Graduate School of Education
and Information, with projects all around the world.
