Paulo Freire and Transformative Education

Changing Lives and Transforming Communities

Alethea Melling, Ruth Pilkington, Alethea Melling, Ruth Pilkington, Alethea Melling, Ruth Pilkington

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781137542502
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

This book brings together a range of global and local themes inspired by the work of Paulo Freire. Freire believed in the possibility of change, rejecting the neoliberal discourse that presents poverty as inevitable: his core principle emphasised the prerogative of transforming the world, rather than adapting to an unethical world order. This responsibility to intervene in reality as educators is explored in detail in this edited collection. Including such diverse themes as pedagogical approaches to globalisation, social mobility, empowerment and valuing diversity within communities, the volume is highly relevant to pedagogical practice. Sharing the transformative power of 'being' through popular education and the solidarity economy, this innovative book will be of interest to scholars of Paulo Freire, transformative education and diversity in education.

Part 1Freire on the International Stage

© The Author(s) 2018

Alethea Melling and Ruth Pilkington (eds.)Paulo Freire and Transformative Educationhttps://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54250-2_2

Begin Abstract

Chapter 1.1: The Relevance of Freire for the Post-2015 International Debate on Development and Education and the Role of Popular Education

Timothy D. Ireland¹

(1)

UNESCO Chair in Youth and Adult Education, Federal University of Paraiba, João Pessoa, Brazil

Timothy D. Ireland

End Abstract

Introduction

It is now over 50 years since Freire’s ground-breaking literacy experience in the Brazilian town of Angicos, Rio Grande do Norte, in 1963, known as the 40 hours of Angicos. In Angicos, Freire not only invented a new methodology for adult literacy but at the same time created a new vision of education and a new epistemology constituting a rethinking, in Torres’¹ words, “of the mission of the ‘public’ and of public education as a contribution to the constitution of democracy and citizenship”.

The educational and literacy proposal on which the Angicos experience was founded gave rise to a different pedagogy, which surpassed traditional models with its emphasis on dialogue – understood as an horizontal relationship between persons nourished according to Freire “by love, humility, hope, faith and trust” (1976: 45) – between educator and student and between scientific and popular knowledge. The students were perceived and treated as protagonists and subjects of the educational process, since the literacy operation was based on their life experiences and vocabulary. Inverting the logic of the great majority of previous pedagogical proposals, in the case of Angicos, great value and respect were afforded to the world, culture and knowledge of the educatees. This represented a new understanding of education in which popular culture, as a counter-hegemonic project, and popular education became the corner stones of a new educational system, with a strong political dimension capable of contributing to the transformation of society.

The 40 hours of Angicos project which the then President of Brazil, João Goulart, visited in 1963, led to Freire being invited to direct a National Literacy Plan whose goal was to make five million adult Brazilians literate in a period of two years involving the creation of more than 60,000 circles of culture. Freire’s literacy method became the official method and part of a system of popular education introduced by the Goulart Government,² the only time, until 2014, that popular education was formally recognised by a Brazilian government. Tragically, the National Literacy Programme was aborted when the military seized power on 1st April 1964. Upon assuming control of the destiny of the country, one of the first acts of the civil-military government was to extinguish the National Literacy Plan and arrest and imprison Freire, accused of being ‘subversive and ignorant’. He later went into exile from where he returned more than a decade later in 1979 with the general amnesty granted to political exiles.

Fifty years later, in an equally turbulent period of Brazilian history, Freire’s presence, influence and ethos continue to be prevalent and disputed in social and educational policy. In 2012, Freire was named as the patron of Brazilian education by the National Congress. Subsequently, in May 2014, the Brazilian federal government launched two innovative proposals: a National Policy of Social Participation (PNPS), which includes a National System of Social Participation understood as a method of government, and a Framework of Reference as precursor to a National Policy of Popular Education. The latter, with strong echoes of the pre-coup period, intended to consolidate popular education as an inter-sectorial and transversal public policy for citizen participation and for the democratization of the Brazilian state.

In Angicos, Freire had set out to contribute, among other objectives, to the formation of the citizen for a new democratic and participative society, recognising the fundamental role of a novel type of education in this process – popular education, of which literacy was a part. Although the praxis of popular education has continued to develop and evolve during the intervening 50 years, it retains the strong influence of the Freirean ethos. At the heart of the PNPS is the intention to consolidate social participation as a method of government. Reaction has been ferocious. The Freirean influence lives on but represents a political-educational posture, which is in no way consensual.

Despite its deep roots in Brazilian reality, Freire’s thinking has gained universal recognition and his conception of the transformative power of education continues to influence practice whether it be education in general, adult education, literacy or popular education in Brazil, Latin America and globally. Long before being officially recognized in Brazil, international tribute was paid to Freire as, for example, during UNESCO’s Fifth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V) held in Hamburg in 1997: “The Conference welcomes the initiative for a literacy decade in honour of Paulo Freire, to begin in 1998”.³

During the last three years, the international community has been discussing the global future for education and development with the official conclusion of the Education for All initiative and the Millennium Development goals at the end of 2015. This debate took place to the backdrop of a world in which:

1. 1.
   the spirit of community and participation have steadily been eroded by the growing spirit of neoliberalism which has come to dominate not only economic policy but also social, ethical and human values;
2. 2.
   the international community has been rocked since 2008 by a series of crises and conflicts terminating with the continuing economic and financial crisis and the growing flux of immigrants;
3. 3.
   a world-wide series of popular protests expressing a broad range of demands including those for greater democratic participation and dissatisfaction with the growing inequality which current models of development have exacerbated, has met with a vitriolic reaction in many countries resulting in an anti-democratic backlash.

Whilst this debate reached a broad degree of consensus on some of the wider concerns which fundament the post-2015 agenda:

• The planetary demands for sustainability: according to Luiz Eduardo Cheide “Humanity is at a civilizational crossroads. Our model of civilization seems to have exhausted the chances of maintaining the planet environmentally equilibrated”.
• Recognition of the unquestionable interdependence which knits all countries of the world into an intricate and seamless fabric.
• The underlying importance of some broad concept of lifelong learning for all.

there was little consensus neither on the shape or format of the future world we want nor on how to attain it.

Despite the international influence of Freire and of paradigms of popular education the post-2015 global debate largely ignored paradigms of development and education fashioned in the global south, and tended to be dominated by paradigms produced in the global north or under the dominance of the global north in which the tension between a more progressive liberalism and a classical neoliberalism is evident. Moosung and Friedrich (2011) argue that international stakeholders should recognize that the ideological field informing lifelong learning policy should not be reduced to the solely European derivative and that in order to enlarge or democratize “the world’s educational terrain, the future of international lifelong learning must exceed European liberalism [and] (…) Western paternalism”. Alternative paradigms of development with their own specific interpretations of sustainability and of the relations between human and natural environments have found little space. Hence, I would like to argue for:

1. 1.
   the continuing relevance of much of Freire’s conception of education – starting with the example of the Angicos experience 50 years ago;
2. 2.
   the need to re-read Freire or in his own words reinvent rather than copy Freire;
3. 3.
   the critical importance of the broad paradigm of popular education for the global debate on the world we want and the education we want.

The Post-2015 International Debate on Development and Education

The combined result of the multiple crises, which have dominated the international scene from 2008 onwards, has been to create a climate indifferent if not hostile to the demands of the broader development and education agendas. For poorer countries, the cost of the crises was translated into less disposable income to invest in education and for the richer nations a weaker commitment to contribute to overseas development through ‘official development assistance (ODA)’.

The conjunction of the implementation of the Dakar (EFA) and Millennium Development goals (MDG) with the global economic context, dominated by neoliberal policies in which the outcomes of strategies have been measured more by their short-term results and their economic impact than by their long-term contribution to a renewed comprehension of development, both reduces the focus on development and education as rights and instils a distinctly instrumental perspective to the agenda. At the end of the day, the traditional GNP and GDP tend to carry more weight in deciding what development embraces than any other alternative metrics.

Whilst the Belem Framework for Action embodied the consensus possible at CONFINTEA VI (2009), in subscribing to the goals established by Dakar, the Millennium Development Initiative, the UN Literacy Decade and others, it tended to reinforce the negative interpretation of the role of adult education for the international education and development agendas. Although Elfert (2013) contends that UNESCO and the UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning – UIL represent the humanist “first generation of lifelong learning” in opposition to the competing economistic and utilitarian approach put forward by other international organizations, such as the World Bank, OECD, IMF and the European Union, it would appear that in practice the neoliberal approach has maintained the upper hand. Consequently, the adult lifelong education agenda has become reactive and defensive rather than proactive and progressive as discussions concerning the international development and education agendas post-2015 were brought to a conclusion first during the Global Education for All Meeting organised by UNESCO in Muscat (Oman) in May 2014 and then in May 2015 at the World Education Forum in Incheon, Republic of Korea.

The Synthesis Report of the Global Public Consultation, − part of the Global Thematic Consultation on the Post-2015 Development Agenda – entitled Addressing Inequalities (2013: 22), is categorical in affirming that there can be little doubt that the set of policy prescriptions known as the Washington Consensus, has favoured a strongly market-based approach, whilst undermining some of the key functions of the state and overlooking the human cost of this strategy, particularly for people living in poverty. The elimination of subsidies on basic commodities, trade liberalisation, privatisation of state enterprises and deregulation have, in particular, resulted in down-side costs to the populations of developing countries.

The new global goal and targets for the post-2015 education agenda were initially agreed at the Global Education for All Meeting in Muscat (2014). The so-called Muscat Agreement comprised seven education goals of which three are directly related with youth and adult learning and education (Targets 3, 4 and 5). This new proposal for the education agenda was then further discussed during the World Education Forum, which convened in Incheon, Republic of Korea. There it was agreed that the new global goal for education should be “Ensure equitable and inclusive quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030”. Central to th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Introduction
• Part 1. Freire on the International Stage
• Part 2. Transforming Communities
• Part 3. Pedagogies
• Part 4. Conclusions