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Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/a> The educator (center, in a white jacket<\/em>) with a graduating class from the SESI Education and Culture DivisionPaulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Around that same time, Freire was asked to work in the Education and Culture Division of the recently-established Industry Social Services (SESI), where\u2014alongside a team of educators\u2014he developed a project was aimed at learning more about individuals living in extreme poverty. \u201cFreire realized that these people needed to expand their understanding of the world and themselves in order to comprehend situations of oppression,\u201d shares the UFPE researcher. In parallel with his work at SESI, Freire and his wife Elza Maria Costa de Oliveira (1921\u20131986), a teacher and mother of his five children, joined Christian groups that would develop projects on the emancipation of workers and adult individuals from marginalized communities.<\/p>\n In 1959, he defended a thesis as part of a competition to become a full professor of philosophy of education at the University of Recife (now UFPE). While he did not get the job, he was eventually appointed professor of history and philosophy of education at the School of Philosophy, Sciences, and Languages and Literature, at that same institution. Titled \u201cEducation and Brazil\u2019s current situation,\u201d his thesis defended that Brazil was experiencing a unique moment, when the masses were gaining the opportunity to participate in the national development movement. \u201cIt was during these formative years\u2014with his work at SESI, his activities with Catholic organizations, and his work at the University of Recife\u2014that Freire laid the foundations of his thoughts on education and philosophy,\u201d says Albuquerque.<\/p>\n Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/a> Right, training educators in Angicos, Rio Grande do NortePaulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Brazil had, up until that point, been unsuccessful at reducing rates of illiteracy\u2014especially in adult populations. Data from Brazil\u2019s Ministry of Education (MEC) show that, in the 1960s, 15.9 million people over the age of 15, or 39.6% of the population, could not read and write. “Traditionally, Brazil\u2019s adult literacy campaigns were identical to those aimed at children. Freire adapted them for adults,\u201d explains Haddad. His method was based on associating images to words, incorporating the students\u2019 life experience in the process of learning to read and write, and prioritizing topics of interest to them. From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Freire and his team at SESI applied his method to projects developed in towns in the states of Rio Grande do Norte and Para\u00edba.<\/p>\n Around that same time, Catholic organizations such as the Episcopal Conference of Brazil (CNBB), were also developing literacy and education campaigns for the lower classes. \u201cFreire\u2019s methodology, which included approaching the reality and the language of the adults he wanted to teach, was perfect for other organizations that were also implementing educational projects focused on vulnerable populations,\u201d says Haddad. Haddad also points out Freire\u2019s closeness with groups linked to liberation theology, a movement within Catholicism that emerged in Latin America in the 1960s for the liberation of the poor.<\/p>\n Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/a> A student holding his daughter points out syllables during a literacy course, in 1963Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Biologist Juliana Rezende Torres, a member of the Paulo Freire Study Group at the Federal University of S\u00e3o Carlos (UFSCar), explains that Freire believed young people and adults already had a kind of reading of the world, despite not knowing how to literally read and write. \u201cFreire argued that, in acquiring literacy, the reading of reality comes before the writing of words,\u201d she says. Thus, he would identify the most significant words for each group, which he called \u201cgenerating words\u201d\u2014such as brick or wall for construction workers\u2014and then developed the process of acquiring literacy from those words. \u201cHe developed a concept of liberating education, which is opposed to the traditional concept of education, where the teacher holds all the knowledge and pours it into the student,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n In 1963, based on his pioneering experiments, Freire created a 40-hour project, alongside a University of Recife team, to teach 300 agricultural workers in Angicos to read and write\u2014an effort promoted by the state government and the University Cultural Outreach Service. \u201cThe initiative had the goal not only to teach them how to read and write, but also to make them aware of their rights as citizens and help them develop a critical view of the world,\u201d says Albuquerque. Haddad shares that, at the end of the course, all students knew how to write their own names. Educator Marcela Gajardo, from the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Chile, points out there was some criticism to Freire\u2019s method. \u201cSome researchers rightly maintain that Freire\u2019s method was more effective at teaching people how to vote than how to read and write. At that time, most Latin American countries required literacy in order to vote,\u201d says Gajardo.<\/p>\n Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/a> In 1963, while accompanied by Paulo de Tarso Santos (light-colored jacket<\/em>), then Minister of Education, Freire (wearing glasses<\/em>) listens to a student during a classPaulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Historian Fl\u00e1vio Henrique Albert Brayner, a retired UFPE professor, believes there is some ambiguity in the adult literacy projects that rely on Freire\u2019s method. \u201cAt face value, the generator words have no critical meaning for the communities. It is Freire\u2019s methodology that gives them such meaning. In their effort to liberate the oppressed, he and his staff also ended up assuming a position of authority over them. That is why I say that, behind a pedagogy for liberation, lurks a desire for power.\u201d In Brayner\u2019s assessment, Freire\u2019s work echoes a question formulated in the 1920s by modernist intellectuals, such as M\u00e1rio de Andrade (1893\u20131945), about the search for the genuine Brazilian identity. \u201cThis search was at the heart of Brazil\u2019s intellectual history until the mid-1950s, when it was believed that a national project should include the people, not just the elite,\u201d he explains. The historian believes Freire incorporates these discussions by proposing an educational method for the nation\u2019s development that included the lower classes.<\/p>\n Similarly, anthropologist Eduardo Dullo, of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), believes that Freire\u2019s goal was to use literacy to transform the mentalities of these communities. \u201cHis approach results from a diagnosis of Brazil\u2019s situation at that time, when it was believed that the people did not have the mental capacity to exert their rights in a democracy,\u201d he says, explaining why Freire\u2019s methodology emphasized the development of critical thinking and notions of citizenship beyond the issue of literacy. While he acknowledges the importance of this effort, Dullo also points out the dynamics of authority between Freire and his team and the communities they taught. \u201cTheir goal was teaching students to read and acquire autonomy to think about their situation, but this took place through a vertical relationship between student and teacher using political concepts. This is a kind of pressure that cannot be resolved,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/a> Returning from exile, in 1980Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Dullo believes that the idea of studying the communities prior to teaching them, to identify the generating words, is related to Freire\u2019s readings of the work of Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884\u20131942). \u201cHowever, in anthropology, we seek to learn from the worldview of a given population and change our way of thinking, unlike the approach to literacy developed by Freire, whose ultimate goal was to transform those individuals,\u201d compares Dullo. For his PhD, obtained in 2013 from the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Dullo developed research on Freire\u2019s career to discuss how Brazilian society changed from 1920 onwards.<\/p>\n In 1964, as part of the National Literacy Program (PNA), Freire was asked by then Minister of Education and Culture Paulo de Tarso Santos (1926\u20132019) to expand his literacy project to include the whole country. Their initial goal was teaching five million people how to read and write. However, that same year saw a military coup and the extinction of the PNA; Freire was then forced to leave the country. He went into exile in Bolivia, at first, and then in Chile, where he remained until 1969.<\/p>\n Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/a> Arriving in Guinea-Bissau, where he developed an adult literacy project in the 1970sPaulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Gajardo, from FLACSO, who was Freire\u2019s student and partner in several projects, says that by the time Freire arrived in Chile in November of 1964, the nation\u2019s government was in the process of instating an agrarian reform and transforming its educational system, adopting policies to educate young people and adults. Freire began working at the Agricultural Development Institute (INDAP), linked to the Ministry of Agriculture, on a project whose goal was teaching small growers to read, write, and do basic math. \u201cReading and calculus were fundamental skills to help these individuals develop new forms of production and coexistence. Freire then adapted his methodology to the situation in Chile,\u201d shares Gajardo, who authored a book in 2019 on the educator\u2019s career in Chile. In her view, it was at that moment, when Freire was exposed to theories by Marxist thinkers, that he transformed his initial approach\u2014to help young people and adults achieve literacy and develop a critical view of reality\u2014into a different one: encouraging the development of political groups, such as student federations, institutes for informal education of workers, and strategies for training and research on agrarian reform. \u201cIn 1966, I was a student movement leader at the Catholic University of Chile. I was exposed to Freire\u2019s ideas when looking for methodologies that could improve the education of marginalized urban populations,\u201d she shares, pointing out his active participation in public conferences and seminars in different parts of the country.<\/p>\n Freire went on to collaborate with the student federation in Chile and advised Gajardo on her master\u2019s dissertation. In 1967, through a contract with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), he was asked to become an international consultant at a Chilean institute that was developing training strategies as part of the agrarian reform. He worked there until the following year when UNESCO announced that the partnership would be discontinued. According to Gajardo, this was a huge blow for Freire\u2014who, by that point, had made several friends and settled into the country with his family. \u201cThe contract was not renewed because the Chilean government believed his method caused rural and urban marginalized populations to become radicalized,\u201d she explains, pointing out that Freire recounts this event in his book Pedagogy of Hope<\/em> (Paz e Terra, 1992). Although he was unsuccessful in his work there, Gajardo believes Freire\u2019s experience in Chile made his views more globalized. This was when he wrote the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed<\/em>, first published by Herder and Herder in 1970 in the United States.<\/p>\n Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/a> Receiving honorary PhDs: left, at the University of Geneva, in 1979…Paulo Freire Institute<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n In 1968, Freire was asked to join Harvard University as a visiting professor, where he remained for a year and was able to present his ideas to academics who were interested in innovating and experimenting in the field of pedagogy. \u201cThroughout his career, he found many favorable circumstances for the development of his pedagogical and philosophical thinking, born from his experience as an educator,\u201d says Gajardo. In 1970, Freire joined the WCC Department of Education in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1975, he began working in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, recently freed from the Portuguese colonial regime; he would develop projects that focused on recovering African traditions, as well as literacy and schooling programs. Despite his encouragement of the autonomy of these nations, Maurilane de Souza Biccas\u2014from the University of S\u00e3o Paulo School of Education (FE-USP)\u2014explains that Freire was criticized for developing literacy projects in Portuguese, the colonizer\u2019s language, and not in local languages.<\/p>\n Freire finally returned to Brazil in 1980, after 16 years in exile. In 1989, during Luiza Erundina\u2019s mayoral administration, he became Secretary of Education in the city of S\u00e3o Paulo. \u201cFreire implemented a project that went beyond a method for teaching literacy: it incorporated the principles of his pedagogical thinking into the city\u2019s education policy,\u201d according to biologist Antonio Fernando Gouv\u00eaa da Silva, from UFSCar, who has been studying Freire\u2019s work for over 20 years and is also a member of the Paulo Freire Study Group at UFSCar. Thus, ideas such as the decentralization of the teaching-learning process, the communication between teachers and the school community, and the appreciation for the student\u2019s culture were central to his administration and the development of the Youth and Adult Literacy Movement (MOVA)\u2014his effort to fight illiteracy among young adults and adults throughout the city.<\/p>\n