Assignment 1B

Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator. While born to middle class parents in 1921, Freire soon developed an empathy with poor people through his experience in the Great Depression. He went to law college and studied philosophy (specifically phenomenology- the idea of how people consciously perceive/interpret events in human history are how they actually are) and psychology of language. He was admitted to the legal bar but never ended up practicing law. He later married a teacher named Elza Maria Costa de Oliveira and had five children with her.

Freire's educational philosophy was similar to that of Plato and Modern Marxists. One idea he is best know for is his attack on the "banking" concept of education, which states that students are basically "filled" or "deposited" with information by their teachers. Freire felt, along with past philosophers, that students should be actively learning instead of being filled with ideas. His work with this laid the way for critical pedagogy, which is an approach to teaching that encourages students to question the status qou and think critically. He didn't approve of the traditional student/teacher relationship, feeling that both student and teacher should learn from each other. This is referred to as democratic education.

Paulo Freire tended to take a holistic approach with teaching and knowledge. He felt that before we read people's stories, we must understand the incredible range of things that were happening during that time period- what was going on in the world, how did it effect this person's views? He believed that research should be incorporated into everyone's life, and that accepting the truth of what is and what has come to pass is to generate real change in the world around us.


Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire
http://www.answers.com/topic/phenomenology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy
http://www3.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/resources/paulofreire.cfm