Almost all American graduate schools of education have a battered copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed on their shelves. After reading it once, the majority of students underline a few passages before moving on. That could be one of the more serious errors made in today’s academic environment.
Paulo Freire was born in Recife, in the arid and harsh northeastern region of Brazil, in 1921. He didn’t think about theory when he was younger. He was keeping an eye on hunger. He was taking in the silence of those who had been told, in a hundred subtle ways, that they were incapable of comprehending their surroundings. His early interactions with laborers and peasants influenced not only his ideas but also their entire architecture. Reading his biography makes it difficult to ignore how infrequently his work feels abstract. Because it was, it feels intimate.
When Freire created his literacy method in the early 1960s, it seemed incredibly straightforward: start with what people already knew, discuss actual issues, and turn learning into a conversation rather than a lecture. The government took notice. Freire was asked to oversee Brazil’s National Literacy Plan in 1963 by then-Minister of Education Darcy Ribeiro. The 1964 military takeover followed. After being detained and charged with being an international subversive, Freire was forced into exile. You can learn a lot about the kind of power Freire was dealing with from the notion that teaching people to read critically could endanger a government.
When American education reformers discuss evidence-based instruction, data dashboards, and standardized benchmarks, they frequently omit this point. Education is never neutral, according to Freire’s main claim, which has never really been disputed. Every choice made in the classroom, curriculum, and grading system either subtly challenges or strengthens the power that already exists.
There isn’t a third choice. According to his description, conservative educational practice teaches material in a way that conceals the social circumstances that lead to inequality. Conversely, progressive practice makes students uneasy by encouraging them to believe that since the world was constructed, it can be rebuilt. In a system that frequently rewards compliance, that is an unsettling notion.
Observing the current American education reform cycle, which includes discussions about curriculum, book bans, teacher authority, and standardized testing, it seems as though the majority of the most influential voices are operating without a solid theory explaining why schools carry out the actions they do. Without considering the purpose, they are fighting over tools. Freire persisted in posing the more difficult queries: Why know? Whose interest? For whom? They are not rhetorical devices. These are the diagnostic questions that establish whether a reform merely rearranges furniture or makes any real changes.
Freire eventually rose to the position of Secretary of Education in São Paulo, one of the world’s biggest cities, after returning to Brazil in 1980. He changed the curriculum, raised teacher pay, and proved that his theories could withstand interaction with real governance—something that detractors had long questioned. He referred to it as democratic public education. It wasn’t flawless. However, it was based on the idea that schools could be places of real thought rather than controlled compliance.
A few weeks after giving an interview at the University of São Paulo in which he was still arguing and refusing to soften the edges of his convictions, Freire passed away in 1997. His unfinished book, Pedagogy of Indignation, was later published by his widow. In it, he openly criticized neoliberalism and its detrimental impact on education. He continued to be inconveniently consistent until the very end.
Whether American education reform as a movement is ready for that level of consistency is still up for debate. Paulo Freire’s theory card is uncomfortable to carry. It requires the person in possession of it to inquire as to who the system is genuinely serving and then ponder the response long enough for it to have significance.⁖※
