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Paulo Freire and Peace Education Lesley Bartlett, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of International & Transcultural Studies Teachers College, Columbia University WHO WAS PAULO FRIERE? Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was one of the best known and most influential radical education theorists in the 20th century; his impact upon peace education, adult education, non-formal education, and critical literacy has been incalculable. Born in 1921 in Recife, in the Brazilian Northeast, Freire was raised in a middle class family that hit hard times during the Great Depression. As a result, Freire directly experienced the impact of poverty on educational opportunities in a way that marked his entire career. Freire’s participation in Recife’s Movement for Popular Culture and his work for the University of Recife’s Cultural Extension department greatly influenced his critique of educational inequalities and his remarkable approach to pedagogy. Freire’s early career was strongly influenced by the extraordinary political and cultural changes occurring in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Cuban Revolution (1959-1961) inspired socialist movements throughout the region; further, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1965), the Catholic Church increasingly embraced Liberation Theology and a commitment to the poor. Freire’s formative period coincided with a general effervescence of radical politics in the Brazilian Northeast: peasant leagues demanded labor rights for rural workers; the Catholic Church formed “base communities” at the local level to involve lay people in interpretations of the Bible and the conduct of the Church’s work; cultural circles focused on promoting popular culture and social critique formed throughout the region; and leftist leaders were elected at municipal, state, and federal levels. Because literacy was a requirement to vote at that time (and, indeed, until 1988 in Brazil), the Left focused energy on teaching literacy in order to build a populist political base. In this context, Freire rose to prominence for his radical humanist pedagogy. In 1963, Freire was hired by the federal Ministry of Education to work for SUDENE, the Northeast Development Board, to develop educational projects. Upon invitation from local politicians, Freire and his colleagues conducted a “dialogical” literacy campaign in Angicos. Soon afterward, President João Goulart’s populist national administration invited Freire to coordinate a national literacy campaign. This plan was aborted by the military coup in 1964. When the coup leaders exiled Freire, they ironically set up the conditions for his ideas to gain international attention. After a period in Chile and a shorter stint at Harvard University’s School of Education, Freire joined the Department of Education at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. From that position, he actively participated in projects in Latin America and Africa. When, after fifteen years of exile, the military dictatorship began gradually to give way to redemocratization, Freire returned to his beloved Brazil. He joined the Workers Party, a new effort to invigorate and institutionalize the Left’s involvement with formal politics. Freire wrote and taught actively during this period. With his characteristic determination to join theory and practice, Freire took on the daunting task of serving as Minister of Education for the city of São Paulo from 1988 to 1991. At the time of his death in 1997, Freire had authored or co-authored over a period of thirty years more than twenty books whose content significantly reshaped the way that educators think about the purpose and promise of schooling.