Quotes from Paulo Freire

Thematic investigation is only justified to the extent that it returns to the people what truly belongs to them; to the extent that it represents, not an attempt to learn about the people, but to come to know with them the reality which challenges them.

Were it not possible to dialogue with the people before power is taken, because they have no experience with dialogue, neither would it be possible for the people to come to power, for they are equally inexperienced in the use of power.

A reflexividade é a raiz da objetivação

no entiendo la existencia humana y la necesaria lucha por mejorarla sin la esperanza y sin el sueño.

The restraints imposed by the former oppressed on their oppressors, so that the latter cannot resume their former position, do not constitute oppression . An act is oppressive only when it prevents men from from being more fully human... Behaviour which prevents the restoration of the oppressive regime cannot be compared with the acts by which few men deny the majority their right to be human.

E que, quase sempre, num primeiro momento deste descobrimento, os oprimidos, em vez de buscar a libertação na luta e por ela, tendem a ser opressores também, ou subopressores. A estrutura do seu pensar se encontra condicionada pela contradição vivida na situação concreta, existencial, em que se "formam".

Testemunhando objetivamente sua história, mesmo a consciência ingênua acaba por despertar criticamente, para identificar-se como personagem que se ignorava e é chamada a assumir seu papel.

Both education and the investigation designed to support it must be "sympathetic" activities, in the etymological sense of the word. That is, they must consist of communication and of the common experience of a reality perceived in the complexity of its constant "becoming.

The parent-child relationship in the home usually reflects the objective cultural conditions of the surrounding social structure. If the conditions which penetrate the home are authoritarian, rigid, and dominating, the home will increase the climate of oppression.30 As these authoritarian relations between parents and children intensify, children in their infancy increasingly internalize the paternal authority.

In order to present for the consideration of the oppressed and subjugated a world of deceit designed to increase their alienation and passivity, the oppressors develop a series of methods precluding any presentation of the world as a problem and showing it rather as a fixed entity, as something given--something to which people, as mere spectators must adapt.

Ninguém nasce feito. Vamos nos fazendo aos poucos na prática social de que tornamos parte

Internalizing paternal authority through the rigid relationship structure emphasized by the school, these young people tend when they become professionals (because of the very fear of freedom instilled by these relationships) to repeat the rigid patterns in which they were miseducated. This phenomenon, in addition to their class position, perhaps explains why so many professionals adhere to antidialogical action

The man or woman who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people, whom he or she continues to regard as totally ignorant, is grievously self-deceived.

Individuals who were submerged in reality, merely feeling their needs, emerge from reality and perceive the causes of their needs. In this way, they can go beyond the level of real consciousness to that of potential consciousness much more rapidly.

Cito um exemplo de um estudioso de meu marido, que inadvertida e ingenuamente, asseverou que empoderamento é "Conceito central teórico e prático de Freire, presente pela primeira vez em Medo e ousadia, escrito em parceria com Ira Shor (1986)1.

The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.

The shadow of their former oppressor is still cast over them.

Sólo existe saber en la invención, en la reinvención, en la búsqueda inquieta, impaciente, permanente que los hombres realizan en el mundo, con el mundo y con otros.

Verbalistic lessons, reading requirements,3 the methods for evaluating "knowledge," the distance between the teacher and the taught, the criteria for promotion: everything in this ready-to-wear approach serves to obviate thinking.

Along the same lines, it is indispensable to analyze the contents of newspaper editorials following any given event: "Why do different newspapers have such different interpretations of the same fact?" This practice helps develop a sense of criticism, so that people will react to newspapers or news broadcasts not as passive objects of the "communiqués" directed at them, but rather as consciousnesses seeking to be free.

Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.

Revolutionary leaders cannot think without the people, or for the people, but only with the people.

It is essential not to confuse modernization with development.

O diálogo é o encontro dos homens para Ser Mais