Paulo Freire
(1921-1997)

Brazilian Writer, Educator
1986 UNESCO Prize for Peace Education

birthdate: September 19
birthplace:
Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

QUOTES

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.

I cannot be a teacher without exposing who I am.

the oppressed must not in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.

It is absolutely essential that the oppressed participate in the revolutionary process with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as subjects of the transformation.

The trust of the people in the leaders reflects the confidence of the leaders in the people.

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

When we live our lives with the authenticity demanded by the practice of teaching that is also learning and learning that is also teaching, we are participating in a total experience…. In this experience the beautiful, the decent, and the serious form a circle with hands joined."

"The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is him/herself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow."

"Although the teachers or the students are not the same, the person in charge of education is being formed or re-formed as he/she teaches, and the person who is being taught forms him/herself in the process. …There is, in fact, no teaching without learning."

"To teach is part of the very fabric of learning."

"… there is no valid teaching from which there does not emerge something learned and through which the learner does not become capable of recreating and remaking what has been taught."

Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.

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