Paulo Freire's Intellectual Roots: Toward Historicity in Praxis

Description

Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy has had a profound influence on contemporary progressive educators around the globe as they endeavor to rethink education for liberation and the creation of more humane global society. For Freire, maintaining a sense of historicity, that is, the origins from which our thinking and practice emerges, is essential to understanding and practicing education as a means for liberation. Too often, however, critical pedagogy is presented as a monolithic philosophy, and the historical and intellectual roots of critical pedagogy are submerged. Through a compilation of essays written by leading and emerging scholars of critical pedagogy, this text brings history into the present and keeps Paulo's intellectual roots alive in all of us as we develop our praxis today.

Dr. Robert Lake is an Associate Professor at Georgia Southern University, US and teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in multicultural education from both a local and global perspective. Dr. Tricia M. Kress is an Assistant Professor in the Leadership in Urban Schools doctoral program at the University of Massachusetts Boston, US. She received her Ph.D. in Urban Education from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

This set of essays by well-known and influential educationalists is a timely and important contribution to Freire scholarship, and a welcome commentary on the implications of Freire's thinking for the field of critical pedagogy. -- Peter McLaren, Professor and author of Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution * Endorsement * Paulo Freire's Intellectual Roots: Toward Historicity in Praxis not only captures, but it also confirms the centrality of Freire's leading ideas in the development of critical pedagogy throughout the world. By inserting Freire in history, the authors of this insightful edited volume convincingly adhere to Freire's insistence for an unabashed language of critique that denounces the cynical neoliberal educational discourse of privatization, accountability, and market solutions to school reforms that, more often than not, deform. The authors brilliantly re-invent Freire by moving beyond a language of critique and embracing his conviction of viewing history as possibility and not determinism-a language of possibility which is invariably anchored in hope-a hope that shows that changing the world may be steeped in formidable obstacles but history has always shown that it is possible. -- Donaldo Macedo, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts, University of Massachusetts Boston * Endorsement * This impressive collection establishes Freire as part of philosophical, psychological, educational, and spiritual history leading back to the German philosopher Hegel. Commitment to social justice is the common thread of this complex and lively book. In situating Freire in this rich context they make his contribution poignantly relevant in today's world. -- Vera John-Steiner, PhD, author of Notebooks of the Mind and Creative Collaboration and Regents' Professor of Linguistics and Education (emerita), University of New Mexico, US * Endorsement *