Paulo Freire's Impact On Education

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“No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.” This quote is from the Brazilian philosopher and educator Paulo Freire. Freire changed the way we teach and how we connect with our students. In this paper we will discover who Freire was, what he taught, and how his teaching impact educators today.
Freire was born on September 21, 1921 in Recife Brazil. As a young boy, Freire lived through the Great Depression. At the age of 10, his father passed away. This caused a lot of stress on the family and one of the consequences was that Freire ended up four grades behind in his schooling. He spent much of childhood socializing with other poor and hungry children. These experiences shaped his life …show more content…

Freire believed that it was not enough for people to come together in conversation to gain knowledge of their social reality. Students must act upon their environment to be able to truly reflect on their reality and to be able to transform their reality. This will help them to understand their social construct more. According to Freire a period in time or a period in someone’s life “is characterized by a complex of ideas, concepts, hopes, doubts, values and challenges in dialectical interaction with their opposites striving towards their fulfilment”. This allows students to understand the reality of the world that they live in by understanding the themes of life. Students can break down the world around them into themes that they can more readily understand and comprehend. By an Easter experience, Freire understands that a student must be converted and committed to education. “Those who undergo it must take on a new form of existence; they can no longer remain as they were.” There must be a rebirth for the students; they must be changed by what they learn. Freire also encouraged that there should be equality between participation of the dialogue from teacher to student. Both the teacher and the student need to be open to new questions and understand that existing thoughts can and will change, that there will be a new knowledge created. The teacher must understand that sometimes they as the student and that truth must be learned not taught. Considering social reality Freire believed that one should develop a critical awareness. He believed in conscientization. Students have learned social myths and must be taught how to use a critical process to undercover real problems and actual social needs of the people. Students should be able to analyze social situations and come up with their

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