For Those Who Dare to Read: Freire Unwrapped

Paulo Freire, the Brazilian philosopher and educator, can be extremely hard to unpack sometimes. But, guys and gals, the man is worth it—and I say that not just because he inspired the teaching methods that our current job uses but because reading him and learning about him will COMPLETELY change the way that YOU think about education, specifically your own education.

So with my shoddy BA philosophy training, I’m going to try to break down Freire here as best I can in a series of blog posts. Though Pedagogy of the Oppressed is his most famous, I want to start out with some of the practice behind his theory which he details in Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to those who Dare to Teach, as I think it puts the theory in better context as we start to learn about it, and also applies directly to our jobs, fancy that!

Freire makes 10 main points in his series of letters:
1. A teacher is also a learner
2. “It is impossible to teach without a forged, invented, and well-thought-out capacity to love (23)”
3. Teaching cannot be identified with parenting because it undermines the capacity of the teacher to protest, and as a legitimate, valuable, and absolutely necessary profession
4. Reading is intrinsically linked with writing and vice versa
5. Teaching is not a last resort profession, but rather must be considered a profession of the highest calling and most significance
6. Teachers must practice humility (or 'armed love' p.74) paired with tolerance, as Freire defines tolerance--- “Tolerance does not mean acquiescing to the intolerable; it does not mean covering up disrespect; it does not mean coddling the aggressor or disguising aggression. Tolerance is the virtue that teaches us to live with the different. It teaches us to learn from and respect the different (76).”
7. Good teachers who are true to their calling must have the ability to admit when they are scared and wrong to their students—namely that they are human.
8. The relationship between the educator and learner must be of respect and mutual learning, never authoritarianism—in its most basic sense this means listening to each other
9. Discipline must be a conversation between students and teachers about what is acceptable to both for the best learning environment possible
10. Teachers must recognize that students have ‘unschooled’ skills and knowledge that they learn from practice rather than theory (i.e. skills that they've learned in their community, on the streets, by observing daily life in their home)
11. Respect for the cultural identity of both the students and teacher is paramount

I’d be very interested what your responses are to these theories---for me they were a revelation. Freire made me realize why I endlessly battled with my high school English teacher (her discipline was never a conversation but rather a feigned superiority) and why Teach for America teachers that I know do and do not enjoy the experience. Mainly though it makes me so very thankful for the teachers (including my parents who are English professors, and my most influential teachers) that I have had, good and bad because they truly taking on a profession of the highest challenge and most difficulty.

On that note, shame on you Obama (and your administration) for cutting government spending on education when we need it the most and making teachers jobs across America even harder.