Thinker · TH-0324
Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who developed adult literacy programmes in north-eastern Brazil and, after the 1964 coup, worked in exile…
Also known as Paulo Reglus Neves Freire
1921 – 1997 · Recife, Santiago (Chile), Geneva, São Paulo
Traditions: Latin American
Schools: Philosophy of liberation
Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who developed adult literacy programmes in north-eastern Brazil and, after the 1964 coup, worked in exile in Chile and Geneva before returning to São Paulo. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed he criticised the 'banking' model of education and proposed a dialogical pedagogy through which learners become critically conscious of their situation and able to transform it.
Key ideas
- The banking model treats students as empty containers into which teachers deposit knowledge, which serves domination.
- Education should be dialogical: teacher and students learn together through problem-posing.
- Conscientização: learners develop a critical awareness of the social conditions that shape their lives.
- Education is never neutral; it either domesticates people or helps free them.
Major works
- Education as the Practice of Freedom (Educação como prática da liberdade, 1967)
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Pedagogia do oprimido, 1968)
- Pedagogy of Hope (Pedagogia da esperança, 1992)
- Pedagogy of Freedom (Pedagogia da autonomia, 1996)
In the conversation
- Discussion Freire’s “banking” model, seen from inside a capoeira roda
- Debate Freire’s banking model is unfair to the lecture, and to the teachers who give good ones
In the Coordinates
The questions of philosophy where Paulo Freire takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.
- 6.3 Philosophy of Education Is education filling someone up, or drawing something out?