Heroes for a Better World

Paulo Freire
(1921-1997)

Brazilian Writer, Educator
1986 UNESCO Prize for Peace Education

birthdate: September 19
birthplace:
Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

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.


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