Assignment 1b

Paulo Freire was an amazing educator of his time. He had a lot of knowledge in many different areas of education. He grew up in the poverty during the time of the Great Depression. This shaped his concerns for the poor and helped construct his specific educational viewpoint. His first experiement with literacy worked when 300 sugarcane workers were able to read in just 45 days. I cam across a quote by him that I feel explains his approach to education. Freire stated "The future isn't something hidden in a corner. The future is something that we build in the present." This quote works with his literacy experiemnt and explains his work ethic and how he goes about educating. He has bright ideas about education and understands many different ways of learning.
One of his most important aspects of education was dialogue. This was good with informal education which was his style of teaching. It was conversation rather than curricula which included working with eachother. It deepened understanding and was cooperative activity involving respect. This included his theory of "banking which is one of his most important teachings as well.
He came up with two more theories of teaching that I thought were interesting also. He had the idea that the system of education that emphasizes learning as act of culture and freedom. One of his theories was the "Culture of Silence". This was dominated by individuals who lose the means by which to critically respond to the culture that is forced on them by the dominant culture. This led him to take an active role in social reform. He thought that to have education is one of your freedoms. Another theory he had was "Conscientization" which is the process by which the learner advances towards critical consciousness.

Sources:
www.infed.org/thinkers/etfreir.htm
www.education.miami.edu/ep/contemporaryed/Paulo_Freire/paulo_freire.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire