[Abesoutheast] 10th Anniversary of Freire's Death (Michel Coconis)

[Miller, Mev]

Fyi - thought you'd be interested....This came to me via the Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed elist.

Mev

 

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	Subject: 10th Anniversary of Freire's Death

	 

	http://www.fronesis.org/immagen/rmt/documentosrmt/texto_million_Paulo_Freires.pdf

	 

	On the 10th Anniversary of Paulo Freire's death

	The Million Paulo Freires

	by Rosa-Maria Torres

	 

	"They don't understand me," he told me during an interview in Sao Paulo back in 1985.  "They

	don´t understand what I have said, what I say, what I have written."

	 

	Mystified by some, demonized by others, misunderstood by many, Paulo Freire often distanced

	himself from the images about him and his work that came from both theoreticians and

	practitioners, left wing and right wing, all over the world.  Over and over again he demanded

	his critics -- but he might as well have demanded his followers -- to contextualize his work

	historically, to acknowledge the evolution of his thought and his self-criticism, and to allow

	him, in sum, the right to continue thinking, learning and living beyond his books and, in

	particular, beyond Education as a Practice of Liberty (1967) and Pedagogy of the Oppressed 

	(1969), two of his most famous books, and where many, admirers and critics, left him virtually

	suspended.  The Paulo Freire of the last two decades, he who died last 2 May, 1997, is just as

	or even more alive than that of the 60s and 70s, although unfortunately unknown by the majority

	of the people.

	 

	Followers and detractors have often coincided in reducing Freire to a caricature of himself,

	locking up his thought in a single field (generally, that of adult literacy), reducing it to a

	number of cliches, and even to a method and a set of related techniques.  Around the world,

	Freire evokes terms such as literacy, adult education, conscientization, dialogue, banking

	approach to education, circle of culture, generative word and generative theme, thematic

	universe, action-reflection-action, praxis, coding and decoding, participatory research,

	critical knowledge and critical reflection, dialectical relationship, speaking the word,

	transforming reality, pedagogy of the oppressed, culture of silence, cultural invasion, cultural

	liberation.

	 

	Some refer to Paulo Freire's method (or methodology), others to Paulo Freire's theory, others to

	Paulo Freire's pedagogy, others to Paulo Freire's philosophy (and philosophical anthropology),

	others to Paulo Freire's program, others to Paulo Freire's system.  I asked him once which of

	those denominations he felt most comfortable with.  "None of them", he answered. "I didn't 

	invent a method, or a theory, or a program, or a system, or a pedagogy, or a philosophy.  It is

	people who put names to things."

	 

	A citizen of the world, the name of Freire remained closely linked to Latin America.  In Europe,

	North America, Africa and Asia many educators identify Latin America with Paulo Freire just as

	many others associate it with the salsa, the guerrilla, the revolution, Che Guevara, Fidel

	Castro, Pel or Maradona.  And yet, it is probably in Latin America, and particularly in Brazil,

	his own country, where Freire has been the object of both the warmest reception and the hardest

	criticism.  In life and in death, his ideas and positions generated and will continue to

	generate strong sentiments, passionate adherents and rejecters, very different and even

	diametrically opposed interpretations.  For some, a subversive, a revolutionary, thus confronted

	to prison and exile, and associated by many to marxism, socialism and even communism.  For

	others, a romantic and an idealist, a lukewarm "humanist and culturalist," an ideologue of

	conscientization without a clear political base and proposal for

	 social transformation.  For some, a complex and advanced educational philosophy, theory and

	praxis.  For others, an incomplete thinking, lacking scientific rigor, and in need of further

	theoretical elaboration.

	 

	Inside and outside of Latin America, many admirers credit Freire insights and developments that

	form part of the historic legacy of democratic and progressive educational thinking worldwide,

	and in which Freire himself found sources of inspiration.  There are thus those who believe to

	be original Freirean contributions issues such as the respect for the learner and his/her

	knowledge, the acknowledgment of the learner's reality as the starting point for the

	teaching-learning process , the importance of dialogue as a pedagogical tool, and even the

	invention of terms such as praxis or conscientization.  Others, on the other extreme, deny him

	all originality, or else have long claimed to have "surpassed" Freire, either on theoretical,

	political-ideological or pedagogical grounds, particularly in the field of literacy and adult

	education.  Thus, from the early 70s and up to now many have proclaimed they have surpassed

	Freire's literacy method, a method seen by some simply as a set of t

	echniques (generative word, dialogue between teachers and learners, coding and decoding of

	pictures, etc.) and by others as a broad philosophical-ideological framework (conscientization,

	critical thinking, unity of theory and practice, social transformation, liberation project,

	etc.).  Also, while most people see Freire as the main initiator and inspirator of the Latin

	American movement of educacion popular [popular education], many within the movement see it

	rooted in a critical approach to Freire's work.

	 

	The generalized perception of Freire is that of somebody linked to adult education; somebody who

	created an adult literacy method (known indistinctively as Paulo Freire's method, pyschosocial

	method or reflection-criticism method) that teaches adults to read in a relatively short time

	not only from the primer but also from reality; who proposed dialogue and horizontal

	relationship between teachers and learners, and encouraged active learning; who defended

	education as conscientization and conscientization for the liberation of the illiterate and of

	the poor.

	 

	However, Freire rejected many of those perceptions as false readings of his ideas.  Probably

	surprising for many, Freire never claimed to have created a method -- a literacy method or an

	educational method in general -- much less elaborated a pedagogy, a theory of teaching and

	learning.  He reiterated that his analysis and his criticism of what he termed 'banking

	education' did not refer only to adult education but to education as a whole.  Adult literacy --

	he always repeated -- was only an entry point that allowed him to look critically at the

	totality of education.  ("Many people think I have developed some of these issues because I am a

	specialist in adult literacy.  No, no, no.  It is not.  Of course, adult literacy is something

	which I studied deeply, but I studied it because of a social necessity in my country, as a

	challenge.  Secondly, I studied adult literacy in the frame of reference of education and in the

	frame of reference of the theory of knowledge, not as something

	 in itself, because it does not exist as such," 1979).  He distanced himself from those who,

	often quoting his work, understand as equivalent popular education and adult education,

	educational change and non-formal education. ("Popular education cannot be confused with or

	restricted to adults.  What defines popular education is not the learners' age but the political

	option," 1985).  He emphatically denied to have promoted the idea of non-directive education,

	where teachers and learners are considered equal and where the role of the teacher is

	eliminated.  ("The educator who says that he or she is equal to his or her learners is either a

	demagogue, lies or is incompetent.  Education is always directive, and this is already said in

	the 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed'," 1985).

	 

	Freire has been analyzed in the framework of, and compared to, the great pedagogues and thinkers

	linked to education.  Many associated him to the "active school" movement and to some of its

	most prominent promoters (Dewey, Decroly, Montessori, Claparde, Freinet).  Others put Illich's

	and Freire's names together around Illich's de-schooling.  In both cases, Freire responded

	differentiating himself both from the "active school" ("The 'active school' brought many

	important contributions at the methodological level.  It criticized the relationship between

	teachers and learners, and also criticized the fragmentation of traditional schooling, but did

	not go beyond that criticism.  I criticize also the capitalist production mode," 1985) and from

	the de-schooling approach, since Freire's proposal was never to deny or eliminate the school but

	rather to transform it ("The impression one gets when one studies Illich is that the school, as

	an institution, appears as possessing a demoniac esse

	nce, what would mean that it is immutable.  It is only when we analyze the ideological force

	that is behind the school as an institution that we can understand what it is but may be

	otherwise," 1985).

	 

	Freire was sensitive to both criticism and self-criticism around his work.  In numerous

	opportunities he acknowledged naivete, subjectivity, ambiguity, and lack of

	political-ideological clarity in his early writings, and a margin of personal responsibility in

	what he perceived as "appropriations" or false interpretations of his ideas.  In particular, he

	referred many times to the naivete of his initial notion of conscientization.  ("I was

	ideologized as an intellectual petite bourgeois," he admitted in 1973.  "I started to worry

	about the use of the term 'conscientization'.  The corruption that word suffered in Latin

	America and in Europe was such, that I have not used it for the last five years," he said in

	1974.  "A less naive reading of the world does not yet imply a commitment with its

	transformation, much less transformation as such, as idealist thinking might pretend," he

	insisted in 1986, when he received UNESCO's Education for Peace award in Paris).

	 

	The Validity (or Not) of Freire

	 

	The validity (or not) of Freire´s ideas is an issue that has been debated for a while.  In the

	case of Latin America, the field is again divided between those who view Freire's thought as

	surpassed and tied to a definite context and historical moment, and those who, on the other

	side, defend the contemporary relevance of his work.  A glance at Latin American educational

	production and development over the past three decades throws some light on this issue.

	 

	With regards to the specific field of adult literacy and adult education, during the 70s and

	until the mid 80s, most of the programs and campaigns mentioned Freire and said to be somehow

	inspired in his ideas.  Within the 'educacion popular' movement, Freire was an inevitable

	reference, whether to adopt him, to adapt him, or to reject him.  Within the framework of the

	acknowledged current "crisis" of this movement and the efforts to "re-found" it, some have

	proposed to leave Freire behind while others have called for a critical re-reading of Freire's

	work, with a contemporary mind.

	 

	The increasing impulse gained by child literacy in the region, fueled by renovated theories,

	approaches and methodologies within the school system and the classroom, reactivated the mention

	and debate around Freire, and the comparison of Freire's ideas with authors such as Piaget,

	Vigotski, or Ferreiro.  From this encounter between adult literacy and child literacy, some

	assertions have started to emerge regarding the proximity of some of Freire's ideas and those

	from constructivism around issues such as the respect for the world and the experience of the

	learner, literacy acquisition as a creative process that involves the appropriation of knowledge

	and not only of reading and writing techniques, and the learning of the written language as

	inseparable from context.

	 

	With respect to education in general, a glance at the intellectual production linked to Latin

	American education over the last three decades shows that the mention of Freire, abundant in the

	70s and until the mid 80s, has sensibly diminished and even disappeared.  This degrade coincides

	with that of the ideas that oriented Latin America's education at that time, namely around

	objectives of development, democratization and social transformation.  In this context, not only

	Freire has disappeared but many other thinkers of education -- from fields as varied as

	Philosophy, Sociology, History, Political Science, Anthropology, or Linguistics -- who have been

	gradually substituted by the thinking of economists, administrators and policy-makers,

	multinational literature reviews, macrostudies focused on quantitative research and information,

	and new actors at the educational international scenario such as the World Bank.

	 

	Nevertheless, Freire -- his presence, his ideas, his influence on the ideas of others -- never

	ceased to be in force.  Despite those who froze him in the 70s and walled him within the walls

	of adult literacy , over these last three decades Freire remained alive, learning and advancing;

	he left -- obliged -- his natal Brazil in 1964 and came back in 1990, after getting to know the

	world, ready "to re-learn everything", as he then said.  Between 1989 and 1992 he was Secretary

	of Education in the Municipality of Sao Paulo, the most populous city in Brazil (30 million

	people).  He lost his first wife -- Elza -- and re-married -- "Nita brought me to life again,"

	he told me once -- produced many books, participated in numerous associations, groups and

	committees, and received countless international awards and honors, including the Comenius

	Medal, awarded by UNESCO, in 1994.

	 

	Adult literacy and adult education -- in which most of his followers and critics remained

	trapped, and to which everyone seemed to push him back inexorably -- remained in the background.

	 His readings, worries and reflections widened and penetrated the most varied fields, always

	amassed with his previous work, but in continuous dialogue with the new times and realities. 

	The Freire of the 80s and, especially, that of the 90s, is a Freire that deals with issues of

	education policy and with diverse aspects of school reform -- finance, curriculum, pedagogy,

	teacher education, administration -- within a search that always aimed at capturing the totality

	of the education phenomenon, beyond sectoral or fragmented approaches.  Teachers became a

	central theme in his thoughts and work during the last few years: his last books -- in

	particular Profesora si, tia no: Cartas a quien pretende ensenar [Letters To Those Who Teach]

	(1993) and Pedagogia de la autonomia [Pedagogy of Autonomy] (1997)

	 -- were devoted to school teachers and teacher issues.  Freire convinced the editor to publish

	30,000 copies of this last book, his last book, and to sell it at 3 reales (3 US dollars) so

	that teachers could massively access it.  The edition, in fact, was sold out in a few days.

	 

	As he rectified me during our 1985 interview, we are not faced to a schizophrenic Freire,

	divided in two: the first Freire, and the latter Freire.  It is one single Freire in movement,

	in permanent state of learning and in continuous reflection over his own work.  Mystified and

	demonized when he was just beginning, too easily and too rapidly converted into a theory and

	into a method, apologists and critics denied him in the end the right to err and to rectify, to

	advance and to perfect, to continue developing his thoughts, as must be allowed to any person,

	as is required by any serious and honest intellectual.

	 

	In fact, re-reading Freire is always finding something new.  But to find something new, one must

	have advanced oneself since the last reading.

	 

	The Many Paulo Freires

	 

	During a conversation at the airport in Bombay, India, a young Pakistani man reveals me that he

	decided to become a teacher after reading a book by Paulo Freire.

	 

	An account of a literacy program conducted in a prison in St. Lucia, in the English-speaking

	Caribbean, states: "We discovered that the Paulo Freire method is nurtured by difficulty,

	because difficulties were an integral part of the process.  Rather than insurmountable

	obstacles, difficulties were problems to be solved in a situation of dialogue and to be

	converted as such into inputs for the learning process."

	 

	A book on educational decentralization in Argentina mentions that School Councils, created in

	1988, were inspired in some principles set up by popular education and by Paulo Freire, inasmuch

	as co-management between parents, students and teachers implies "returning the people spaces of

	intervention and decision that were taken away from them when formal school systems were

	established by national states."

	 

	A man in a train going from Williamsburg to New York City reads the Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 

	The controller, on passing, asks him whether the author of this book is really a communist.  The

	man explains her that this has been said only to discredit him, that all Freire advocates for is

	justice and people.

	 

	A first grade teacher in Ecuador explains that she uses Paulo Freire's method, which -- she says

	-- consists of "having the children speak when they want to and write in their own words."

	 

	At a panel on adult literacy in Africa it is discussed whether "Paulo Freire's method" is or not

	adequate for Botswana.  A panelist argues it is adequate since "it contributes to

	conscientization inasmuch as it operates through dialogue".  The other panelist disagrees,

	because, as he sees it, "Freire proposes to change the entire society, and people in rural

	communities have a limited scope in both thought and action."

	 

	At an international seminar on education, a European woman says that her 8-year-old daughter has

	learned to doubt about what is written in books and what she is taught in school.  Without

	knowing it, she says, her daughter is a disciple of Paulo Freire.

	 

	In a visit to a literacy center in a marginal neighborhood of El Cairo, one of the literacy

	coordinators asks me whether I can send her a book from Paulo Freire, of whom she has heard.

	 

	During a meeting on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a US academic mentions that a

	colleague of his is developing a program for adolescents at risk in a public school of the US,

	inspired in the "method of Paulo Freire".

	 

	The headmaster of a rural school in Nepal tells me that he once read a book by Paulo Freire (he

	does not remember the title) and that he learned there that "illiterates are not ignorant and

	deserve respect."

	 

	In South Africa, in 1993, at a national congress on adult education, many people were surprised

	to know that Paulo Freire was alive and continued to write.  The apartheid regime, which had

	forbidden his writings over many years, had thus achieved its real goal: eradicate not only his

	books but Freire himself.

	 

	An in-service teacher training program in Madhya Pradesh, India, says that the principles of

	participation and teacher empowerment that are at the base of the program have been inspired,

	among others, by Paulo Freire and his philosophy on the oppressed.

	 

	A Japanese couple, both medical doctors, that assist me with the menu at a downtown restaurant

	in Tokyo tell me they have read and enjoyed two books of Latin American writers: Pedagogy of the

	Oppressed by Paulo Freire, and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

	 

	Across the world, in the most diverse places and cultures, each person found in Freire

	essentially what he or she needed and wanted.  And here is probably part of the explanation for

	the multiplicity of interpretations of his message.  Nobody can and will agree on what Freire

	said or did not say.  Freire himself could not have assumed -- maybe even imagined -- the

	innumerable tailor-made Freires people have been inventing all over the world.

	 

	 From this perspective, it is irrelevant whether some understood Freire's thoughts better than

	others.  Maybe the greatest contribution of Paulo Freire is having been able to communicate and

	connect with the most amorous and genuine fibers of so many people -- Babel of ages, races,

	religious beliefs, economic positions, ideologies, educational backgrounds and professions --

	and to help them see that there is something called education and something called poverty and

	oppression, that there is a relationship between the two, and that this can be one to liberate

	or one to further oppress.  Paulo, the great communicator, the great inspirer, helped millions

	of people discover and bring to the surface the best of themselves: their human, generous,

	compassionate side, the inner drive to become a volunteer, an inventor, a hero, a revolutionary.

	 In a world where both wealth and poverty grow uncontrollably, where individualism annihilates

	common sense and the most basic human solidarity, 

	where it is proclaimed not only the end of ideologies but the end of work, Freire continued to

	speak, to the very last minute, about hope, liberation and utopia, terms that many have archived

	as antiquated and obsolete.

	 

	This is definitely what crosses his life and the grandness of his work: his message of hope, of

	struggle, of perseverance, of non-resignation.  In life and in death Paulo Freire leaves us a

	legacy that is much greater, much more important and lasting than any educational theory or any

	literacy method.

 

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