Hello Mehtap - I wrote a paper reflecting upon the practical implications of applying Freire's ideas in the context of citizenship education. I hope some of the material in this helps with your research.

Hello Mehtap - I wrote a paper reflecting upon the practical implications of applying Freire's ideas in the context of citizenship education. I hope some of the material in this helps with your research.

I appreciate your feedback Dr. Brett. Thank you.

Freire's texts, his anthropology, and the concept of his pedagogy came to Europe in the early seventies. As a young docent at a teacher training college I gave seminars about Freire. It was on the one hand a time when suddenly traditional schools with their traditional methods were criticized - with shouts like: "Get rid of the schools! On the other hand it was a time of critical consciesnes, neomarxistic thinking and anti-colonizing tendencies in the movements of young generation. Since Freire was a representative of socially committed alternative education, he was gladly seen as a positive response of this movement. That's why I find the question interesting. Because I don't know whether the great hopes that were placed in literacy campaigns with his method in the favelas not only in Brazil, Chile, Mexco, at that time, today after many decades lasting successes to register, or whether it was a flash in the pan, which remained closely tied to the personality of Freire, so that today essentially the spiritual heritage of his philosophy in individual institutes in America and in Europe manages - with some successors, who don't hide that Freire has become historically today. Or what?

Indirectly, this question is my research question for my doctoral dissertation. I focus on "progressivism" but it cuts close to the bone of what you are asking here. Also, you talk about citizenship education and my own focus is on history. I am not certain that social justice/critical theory is best for this type of lesson. I have come to believe that each educational paradigm (western traditional and progressive) are useful in their own sphere. Friere was much more into teaching the oppressed to resist and overcome their oppressors. In the United States, where things are already very volatile, I wonder if this is the best "citizenship" education we can find. It is an area I would tread carefully. Friere raised many important issues. I have found with progressives that there is a lot of good but the paradigm fails in the execution. The base ideas are often good and useful, it is the implementation that comes up short.

Thanks to the comments, I am including/excluding some theories and approaches to research more deeply about this issue. However, I also agree that some great theories are difficult to implement or not practical at all. So, I was wondering to what extent it is practical (if it is so) and in what ways Freire's work might impact the current condition of teaching/learning for more socially just classroom environments. These comments widen my perspective to better reflect on between my thoughts and findings.

Thank you for your valuable and informative feedback.

John Sneed

dear John thank you for your remark, I think your research work is highly welcomed in pedagogics worldwide, we have in these times no validated knowledge about the state of Freire's legacy. It would be interesting to hear from you some results of your research on RG.

Best, Hein

In the United States, Freire is considered to be one of the major authors in adult education.

Gregg W. Etter

That is fully understandable, because Freire worked primarily with illiterate adults.

Thanks for information! H. Retter

Freire was one of our major sources when developing an action pedagogy for the UNESCO decade of Education for Sustainable Development (superseded by the Global Action Programme for ESD). We realised that we needed to take his work a step further: with ESD, the teacher is of necessity also on a constant learning journey. Students need to identify and carry out their own actions for sustainable development, and monitor the results. So even more importantly than with Freire's original, ground-breaking work, the teacher's prime role is that of coach.

We documented our experience and conclusions in a book, ESD Dialogues (Mehlmann and Pometun, in English and Russian) - sorry I can't offer it freely, but it's readily available.

As a sad footnote, I understand the new Brazilian regime is highly hostile to Freire and all his works.

The global Campaign for a global curriculum of the social solidarity economy was inspired by Paulo Freire according to its charter of principles-La Campaña mundial por un Currículum global de la economía social solidaria nace inspirada en Paulo Freire según su carta de principios

http://curriculumglobaleconomiasolidaria.com/english/letter-of-principles/

H. Retter,

Thank you for your response to my post. Being a doctoral student, it is nice to be taken seriously. Because of our interaction, I have incorporated more reading about Friere into my other projects. I was able to some material from his "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" in my last research paper for the class I am in right now. Best of luck with your future work.

John