Paulo Freire And The Brazilian Education Reform Essay

Paulo Freire and the Brazilian Education Reform

The Brazilian school system has encountered many complications throughout its history with illiteracy in the middle, and lower classes being the most prominent with a rate of forty percent in 1960. However, in 1968 Paulo Freire introduced the idea of equalizing the relationship between teachers and students in order to stop the cycle of illiteracy by presenting his Pedagogical Theory. Although not everyone agrees with Freire ideas of education, for example in Liam Kane’s essay titled “So you think you’re a Freirean?” she explains the major flaw in Freire’s ideal of critical consciousness, which is the main basis for his theory. After much consideration, I find that Paulo Freire’s theory of reforming the education system in Brazil was the right thing to do, and in this essay I will explain why his theory was the best course of action.

In Paulo Freire’s book titled “The “Banking” Concept of Education” he explains the insufficiency of the current education system in Brazil. Freire begins by scrutinizing the teacher - student relationship, and how the students are mere empty vessels that must take in and hold everything the teacher tells them. This is made more obvious when Freire states “The student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means, or realizing the true significance of “capital” in the affirmation” the capital of Para is Belem,”(61). Basically what Freire is saying is that without truly understanding the meaning of things it becomes impossible to increase upon your knowledge since the information was only memorized, and hence the foundation of understanding never existed.

Freire further explains that the current form of teaching is similar to slavery, with the teachers being the oppressors and the students being the oppressed. This form of teaching is incredibly flawed according to Freire for the simple fact that in order for people to truly...