[AAACE-NLA] Boomerang Brings Deja Vu

[gdemetrion at msn.com]

Tom and others,

I view Frieire's historical impact from a dynamic perspective in fundamentally challenging the then pervasive modernization thesis.  Your early work on literacy as I understand it was broadly in line with the presuppositions of Post WWII UN modernization efforts at and the political precepts of the Kennedy administration.  That's not a criticism it's an observation.

Thus it's not just time sequencing and some broad affinities at the level of functional-contextual pedagogy but cultural-political impact and the fundamental paradigmatic shift that emerged as a result of Freire's understanding of the politics of literacy.  In the US there have been liberal and radical appropriations of Freire's vision, the former stressing the critique of "banking" pedagogy, the latter, the politics of capitalism. As I interpret Freire his politics informed his pedagogy as its undergirding filter, though there was as well a theological underpinning in the then emergent liberationist theology. In that respect he focused on agape love as the ultimate source of unity among people, but was not short on using such terminology as the oppressed and the oppressors.  This is usually not emphasized much, but it is a critical aspect of his work.

I've spent some time on Freire with critical appreciation of his underlying project.  My objection here is neither to defend nor to critique him, but to place the discussion of the relationship between functional context theory and critical pedagogy in its historical setting circa 1965-1975 and in that respect to note the paradigmatic differences in their fundamental political orientation.

George Demetrion
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