Paulo Freire's Concept Of Education For Empowerment

Critically discuss Paulo Freire’s concept of Education for Empowerment.

In this essay I will explore and discuss the educator and philosopher, Paulo Freire, and his concept, that he explores greatly, of Education for Empowerment.

Paulo Freire, born in 1921, was one of the most influential figures of the 20th century in the field of sociology of education. A native of Brazil and born to a middle-class family in Pernambuco, he taught Portuguese in a secondary school before publishing (as one of the foremost founders of critical pedagogy1) his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This book is a study of education in the Third World, particularly Latin-America2. It illustrates a liberatory and revolutionary theory that identifies current deficiencies in teaching methods under the umbrella term ‘banking education’, and describes a philosophy that would liberate and empower – through the cultivation of critical thinking - those victimised by such methods. He views educational philosophy in a greater sense than merely the oppressor and the oppressed.

He looks at educational philosophy in a wider sense of oppressor and the oppressed. In 1946, Freire was appointed director of the Department of Education and Culture of the Social Service in the state of Pernambuco, working with the destitute and illiterate, and it was here that he was first able properly to exercise his theories. After he was appointed director of the Department of Cultural Extension of Recife University, his first project (in Brazil) resulted in the teaching of 300 illiterate sugarcane workers to read and write after only an astonishing forty-five days.

His critical pedagogy as a whole reflects an approach almost Marxist, but there are also elements of the french ...

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...on, and discover for themselves what is right and wrong, and then apply this self-obtained knowledge to a reality, utilizing the potential of education and transforming society for the better.

It is evident that after discussing Paulo Freire’s concept of Education for Empowerment that it is a philosophy and social policy that is relevant to modern society and to us as educators. Particularly in Music Education. It is essential, as mentioned by Lucy Green and Keith Swanwick, that the learning at all times should be inclusive of the student and teacher. In this manner the music teacher never ceases to learn like the student. I believe this is so important in Music as music is a subject that the learning can never cease. There is a perpetual scope for improvement. In Ireland Freire’s concept of Education for Empowerment could soar through Music Education.