About the Author

This library was created to advocate for technological freedom, equal access and transformative social justice. The creator is a designer, developer and information scientist who was shaped by open-source technologies.

Positionality
Intersectionality

Teaching Objectives

Never a failure, always a lesson.
Education as the practice of freedom

Philosophy

^{Freire's intended audience is radicals—people who see the world as changing and fluid—and he admits that his argument will most likely be missing necessary elements to construct pedagogies in given material realities.^[1]^: 37–39 Basing his method of finding freedom on the poor and middle class's experience with education, Freire states that his ideas are rooted in reality—not purely theoretical.^[1]^: 37}
We learn facts out of context of application in school. How will this history, science, math show up in our lives, in the work of growing community and home?
We learn as children to swallow our tears and any other inconvenient emotions, and as adults that translates into working through red flags, value differences, pain, and exhaustion.
We learn that tests and deadlines are the reasons to take action. This puts those with good short-term memories and a positive response to pressure in leadership positions, leading to urgency-based thinking, regardless of the circumstance.
We learn that the natural world is to be manicured, controlled, or pillaged to support our consumerist lives. Even the natural lives of our bodies get medicated, pathologized, shaved or improved upon with cosmetic adjustments.
To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin (hooks 1994: 13)
In the book, Freire calls traditional pedagogy the "banking model of education" because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge, like a piggy bank. He argues that pedagogy should instead treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge.^[1]
any radical pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged. That insistence cannot be simply stated. It has to be demonstrated through pedagogical practices. To begin, the professor must genuinely value everyone’s presence.
Progressive, holistic education, “engaged pedagogy” is more demanding that conventional critical or feminist pedagogy. For, unlike these two teaching practices, it emphasizes well-being. That means that teachers must be actively involved committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students. (hooks 1994: 15)
^{^{Freire's idea of dialogue. He first explains the importance of words, and that they must reflect both action and reflection. Dialogue is an understanding between different people, and it is an act of love, humility, and faith. It provides others with the complete independence to experience the world and name it how they see it. Freire explains that educators shape how students see the world and history. They must use language with the point of view of the students in mind. They must allow "thematic investigation": the discovery of different relevant problems (limited situations) and ideas for different periods.^[1]}}
“teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own wellbeing if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students.”
“The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions… What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change and fight it – at no matter what risk. This is the only hope that society has. This is the only way societies change.”

— James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers,” 1963
No level of individual self-actualization alone can sustain the marginalized and oppressed. We must be linked to collective struggle, to communities of resistance that move us outward, into the world.
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. —James Baldwin
^{^{It is easy for the oppressed to fight their oppressors, only to become the opposites of what they currently are. In other words, this just makes them the oppressors and starts the cycle all over again. To be fully human again, they must identify the oppressors. They must identify them and work together to seek liberation. The next step in liberation is to understand what the goal of the oppressors is.^[1]: 58}}
The professors present at the first meeting were disturbed by our overt political standpoints. Again and again, it was necessary to remind everyone that no education is politically neutral. Emphasizing that a white male professor in an English department who teaches only work by “great white men” is making a political decision, [they] had to work consistently against and through the overwhelming will on the part of folks to deny the politics of racism, sexism, and so forth that inform how we teach.
During this time, he noticed that his students had an unconscious fear of freedom, or rather: a fear of changing the way the world is.^[1]^: 35 Freire then outlines the likely criticisms he believes his book will face.^[1]^: 37
Escape from Freedom is a book by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, first published under that title in the United States by Farrar & Rinehart^[1] in 1941 and a year later as The Fear of Freedom in the UK by Routledge & Kegan Paul. It was translated into German and first published in 1952 under the title Die Angst vor der Freiheit (The Fear of Freedom). In the book, Fromm explores humanity's shifting relationship with freedom, how individual freedom can cause fear, anxiety and alienation, and how many people seek relief by relinquishing freedom. He describes how authoritarianism can be a mechanism of escape for such people, with special emphasis on the psychosocial conditions that enabled the rise of Nazism.