Cultural Action for Freedom: 2000 Edition Book

"All education practice implies a theoretical stance on the educator's part." p.21

In this, his lesser known book, Paulo Freire writes about adult literacy education in terms of its potential to be 'cultural action for freedom'. Literacy is not, clearly, a purely technical skill. "Such a naive approach would be incapable of perceiving that technique itself as an instrument of men in their orientation in the world is not neutral." p.22
The freedom he refer to is from the imposition of paradigms of western thought and oppression. How those outside of the western literary class can learn to use writing to forward their own interests, to express their own independent thinking. He is talking about ex-colonial situations but for me it became easy to see his ideas as relevant to any people outside of the literary scene, as most people are, in Western countries. Most people may be able to write but the way they have been taught writing is by imitating and revering the western literary canon. Working class people with a 'good' Humanist education are often unable to think critically about their actual lived situations I have found.

It struck me how much Freire's book preceded the similar ideas of Ranciere in Ignorant Schoolmaster by some ten years.

I'll expand on this in my blog soon...