Book Review

BOOK REVIEW 

Review by Stephen Wilson

EDUCATION FOR A CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

By Paulo Freire

 

Published by Bloomsbury Academic, London, New York, 2013

 

'Radicalization involves increased commitment to the position one has chosen. It is predominantly critical, loving, humble, and communicative and therefore a positive stance. The man who has made a radical option does not deny another man's right to choose, nor does he try to impose his own choice. He can discuss their respective positions. He is convinced he is right, but respects another man's prerogative to judge himself correct. He tries to convince and convert, not to crush his opponent. The radical does, however, have the duty, imposed by love itself, to react against the violence of those who try to silence him- of those who, in the name of freedom, kill his freedom and their own,' {page nine of Education for a Critical Consciousness '} declares the great and legendary Educator Paulo Freire. The quote concisely and clearly sums up the underlying philosophy of Paulo Freire. Freire attempted to develop and practice a new pedagogy of love which not only taught students to read and write, but to fully affirm their dignity and acknowledge their rights. Such an education would empower rather than enslave them.

 

Freire's book 'Education for Critical Consciousness' represents a gem. The work emphasizes how Freire's work was not momentarily inspired instantly, but came after exploring many options and often adopting approaches that did not work. His ideas had to be constantly tested and revised in relation to practice. The book is blessed with an Appendix with drawings by Brazilian artist Vicente de Abreu which were used by educators in cultural circles to discuss the differences between how animals and people hunt and thus encourage peasants to discuss and use new words in a real context.

 

Paulo Freire claims that he does not see education as a panacea for all social ills. He warns that we can easily overestimate as well as underestimate the power of education.

In Chapter Four we can learn about the terrible predicament Brazil faced in the 1960's and what largely motivated Freire to help launch a literacy program before the military coup of 1964 thwarted his project. He wrote 'My concern for the democratization of culture, within the context of fundamental democratization, required special attention to the quantitative and qualitative deficits in our education. In 1964, approximately four million school age children lacked schools: there were sixteen million illiterates of fourteen years and older. These truly alarming deficits constituted obstacles to the development of the country and to the creation of a democratic mentality.{page 39}

 

It is fair to say that Freire must be one of the most misconstrued authors. People put words into his mouth. Freire had to endure an avalanche of cheap insults as well as ludicrous claims about his work. Some people called him 'ignorant', 'illiterate' and claimed he had 'plagiarized European or North American educators'. Freire answers, 'None of these accusations wounded me. What does leave me perplexed is to hear or read that I intended to 'Bolshevize the country' with my method. In fact, my actual crime was that I treated literacy as more than a mechanical problem, and linked it to conscientizacao, which was "dangerous". It was that I viewed education as an effort to liberate men, not as yet another instrument to dominate them'.{page 54}.

 

Many conservatives have claimed he sought to use education to 'brainwash' or 'indoctrinate' students by seeking to impose his views on them. But if you read this book you will learn that on the contrary, he actually encouraged his students to discover for themselves what is the role of propaganda, mass advertising and the role of the media. He opposed a notion that a revolutionary vanguard had all the answers in contrast to peasants who supposedly were ignorant with a 'false consciousness'. He sought an open-ended dialogue where both the teacher and student actively listened to each other with respect. Any condescending and patronizing attitude from the teacher would alienate potential students. He understood from his experience that learning could be a very hard feat for some and that there existed deep distrust between the peasants and potential teachers. He sought to transcend this rift and win the trust of the peasants and he managed to do this. This was no small achievement. He could easily have failed. For example, the well-intentioned 'Going to the people ' movement in Russia before the 1917 revolution largely, though not wholly, failed.

 

Freire's works on pedagogy ought to be in the library of any school or institute. He would agree that the first axiom of a teacher is to love his or her students. Without this motivation, nothing much can be achieved. He quotes the revolutionary Che Guevara that love must be the main motivator of a radical or a teacher. When I hear school students tell me some of their teachers in Russia walk into a class room and shout "You are all animals' or a teacher denounce her student to the authorities for their political views, I shudder at the thought. That is why Freire should not only be read by adult educators, but also school teachers.

 

Freire would be the first to admit that he never claimed his work was original. My teacher at Glasgow University said that, "Freire was something of a magpie. He went around taking the best works of other authors and weaving them into his thought". For instance, he read Dewey, Karl Mannheim and Enrich Fromm. A lot of his works echo the thoughts of Erich Fromm's 'The Art of Loving' which articulately defines love as being characterized by freedom, care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. Love is not just an emotional state or passion, but an active concern where the teacher practically demonstrates his care. Freire states, 'Dialogue cannot imprison itself in any antagonistic relationship. Dialogue is the loving encounter of people, who, mediated by the world, 'proclaim' that world. They transform that world and in transforming it, humanize it for all people. This encounter in love cannot be an encounter of irreconcilables'. {page 102}.

 

The book might also be of interest to not only educators in the field of Adult Literacy, but to linguists who might be interested in how he draws out the wider meaning of a single word. But Freire keeps returning to that same old theme which was also addressed by Erich Fromm, which is: "Why are so many  people willing to submit to unjust authority?' In this regard, he offers some subtle insights.