I found this little book on Yvonne’s bookshelf. I have heard about Friere from Shreya, in my mind he is someone from Latin America that was influential on topics related to education and struggles.
Notes by chapter
Introductory reflections
I felt surprised that in the author’s voice, he sounds very personal. In contrast, the foreword by someone else speaks of him as someone engaging with specific problems like, the error of teachers thinking that dinner conversations with family is what makes one student more likely to score high on exams, without considering the socioeconomic and race conditions of the student. Friere himself talks of being curious as a person. I was delighted at that because Maya just described me as mainly curiosity driven. (like a dog.) From what I understand, Friere is saying that first of all, history is not finished. there is a role that we humans now can still take in determining how the future is like. There are preconditions, yes, like the past. But not everything is set. If history is not finished, then humans are subjects not objects, as in we have some place to choose. Which means that we have some responsibility to our action, in terms of ethics and other virtues. So in this world, the act of learning is not just for coping with what you cannot change therefore must change you. The act of learning can be also for making the new world in a direction of your agency.