Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was one of the greatest educators in the world, known as the Patron of Brazilian Education.
For him, education involves reading the world, aiming to raise awareness among students so that they can transform it.
Biography of Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglu Neves Freire was born in Recife, in the state of Pernambuco, on September 19, 1921. His parents were called Joaquim Temístocles Freire and Edeltrudes Neves Freire.
With the death of her father, captain of the Military Police, it was difficult for her mother to ensure conditions for her children, such as keeping Paulo Freire in school. Paulo Freire was only 13 years old.
That was when his mother asked for help and the director of Colégio Oswaldo Cruz made him a discipline assistant, in addition to giving him free tuition. Later, Paulo Freire became a Portuguese language teacher at the same school.
At University he studied law. He got married, had 5 children and taught Philosophy, until he won the position of director of the Education and Culture sector of the Social Service of Industry.
After being persecuted by the military regime, due to his literacy method considered threatening, he was arrested after the military coup of 1964. It all started when João Goulart, then president of Brazil, invited him to coordinate the National Literacy Program.
After being imprisoned for a few months, he was exiled, remaining for 16 years outside the country, first in Chile, then in Switzerland.
He taught in the United States, at Harvard in 1969, and in Switzerland served as a special adviser to the Education Department of the City Council of Churches.
In so many underdeveloped countries, he also worked in educational consultancy until he returned to Brazil in the 1980s.
After exile in 1989, Paulo Freire became secretary of education in the city of São Paulo. But before that, he taught at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) and at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP).
On May 2, 1997, Paulo Freire died in the city of São Paulo, as a result of a heart attack.
Awards and titles received
Paulo Freire received several awards, among which:
- King Baldwin Award for Development (Belgium, 1980)
- UNESCO Education for Peace Prize (1986)
- Andres Bello Award from the Organization of American States, as an Educator of the Continents (1992).
Internationally recognized, the celebrated educator has also received around 40 Doctor Honoris Causa degrees.
Paulo Freire's Literacy Method
Paulo Freire's literacy method, known as an innovative method in teaching literacy, was first adopted in Rio Grande do Norte, in 1962.
At the time, he taught 300 agricultural workers to read and write under the project he called “Forty hours of Angicos”.
For the educator, the booklets did not benefit learning, because they distanced themselves from the students' reality. Thus, in the case of adults, literacy should refer to their daily lives in terms of work and beyond.
Paulo Freire's method arose from his concern with the excluded, especially the illiterate in rural areas. It involved politics, in the sense of promoting people's criticism and actions in society.
While in exile, he developed his adult literacy work at the Chilean Institute for Agrarian Reform.
The main works of Paulo Freire
- Education as a practice of freedom (1967)
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968)
- Letters to Guinea-Bissau (1975)
- Education and Change (1981)
- The importance of the act of reading in three complementary articles (1982)
- Pedagogy of Hope (1992)
- Politics and Education (1993)
- In the shadow of this hose (1995)
- Autonomy Pedagogy (1997)
10 quotes by Paulo Freire
- "There is no knowing more or knowing less: there is different knowledge."
- "If education alone does not transform society, without it, neither does society change.."
- "Education, whatever it may be, is always a theory of knowledge put into practice."
- "You can't talk about education without love."
- "When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to be the oppressor."
- "Wherever there are women and men, there is always something to do, there is always something to teach, there is always something to learn."
- "Education is an act of love, therefore, an act of courage. You can not fear the debate. The analysis of reality. It cannot escape the creative discussion, otherwise it will be a farce."
- "Nobody ignores everything. Nobody knows everything. We all know something. We all ignore something. That's why we always learn."
- "Nobody educates anybody, nobody educates themselves, men educate each other, mediated by the world."
- "Joy does not come only in finding the finding, but it is part of the search process. And teaching and learning cannot take place out of search, out of beauty and joy."
Interested? Read more at:
- education in Brazil.
- School Inclusion: Concept and Challenges
