The 45 best phrases of Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire (1921 - 1997) was an influential pedagogue, educator and activist for the rights of the most disadvantaged. Born in Recife, Brazil, he is considered one of the most important theorists in the field of education of the 20th century.

Paulo Freire had to deal with poverty from his birth. This personal baggage helped him build what would become his adulthood. theory about education. He studied law, psychology and philosophy at the University of Recife. He worked with poor communities to whom he introduced literacy with a method created by himself, which is considered a variant of the liberation theology, since knowing how to read and write were essential requirements to be able to vote in the Brazil of that epoch.

• Related article: "100 famous phrases and quotes about education"

Famous phrases and quotes by Paulo Freire

His legacy as a pedagogue goes beyond the borders of education. Paulo Freire was a global thinker, committed to his people and who took an active part in the literacy of excluded minorities.

In today's article we are going to know the best phrases of Paulo Freire.

1. What is important, however, is that the working classes continue to learn in practice from their struggle to to set the limits for their concessions, that is, to teach the ruling classes the limits to which they can move.

Education should promote that social and labor rights are respected.

2. The teacher's gesture was worth more than the grade of ten that he gave to my writing. The teacher's gesture gave me an even obviously distrustful confidence that it was possible to work and produce. That it was possible to trust me, but that it would be as wrong to trust beyond limits as it was at that wrong moment not to trust.

On the importance of positive reinforcement.

3. Education is an act of love, therefore, an act of courage.

Beautiful phrase by Paulo Freire about teaching.

4. Accepting and respecting the difference is one of those virtues without which listening cannot be given.

Ultimately, empathy must govern our communication.

5. The Pedagogy of the oppressed, ceases to be of the oppressed and becomes the pedagogy of men in the process of permanent liberation.

On his pedagogical proposal.

6. His ideal (of the oppressed) is, really, to be men, but for them, to be men, in the contradiction in which they have always been and whose overcoming is not clear to them, is equivalent to being oppressors. These are the testimonies of his humanity.

Famous quote to reflect on the relations of domination.

7. My vision of literacy goes beyond ba, be, bi, bo, bu. Because it implies a critical understanding of the social, political and economic reality in which the literate is.

The depth of his philosophy is reflected in this reflection.

8. No one has the freedom to be free, but by not being free he struggles to get his freedom.

Paradox to take into account. Free is who struggles to be.

9. The oppressed must be the example of themselves, in the fight for their redemption.

Very in line with the previous sentence.

10. In the "banking" vision of education, "knowing", knowledge, is a donation from those who judge themselves wise to those who judge ignorant.

On the commodification in certain educational practices.

11. Education, as a practice of domination that we have been criticizing, maintaining the naivete of the students what it intends, within its ideological framework, is to indoctrinate them in the sense of their accommodation to the world of oppression.

Education without redemption is simple indoctrination.

12. Education as a practice of freedom, contrary to that which is a practice of domination, implies the denial of freedom. abstract man, isolated, loose, detached from the world, as well as the denial of the world as a reality absent from mens.

Gregariousness is part of the consumer culture imposed by capitalism.

13. Education is constantly remade itself in praxis. To be, it has to be being.

An essential feature of teaching practice.

14. True education is praxis, reflection and action of man on the world to transform it.

The reasons for the educational event.

15. Sectarianism creates nothing because it does not love.

Dogmatic people do not know how to contribute valid ideas or debate, according to Freire.

16. The more critical a human group is, the more democratic and permeable it is.

Reflection against democratic centralism.

17. Our presence in the world, which implies choice and decision, is not a neutral presence.

Everything we do is infused with a certain political vision.

18. Children need to be assured of the right to learn to decide, which is only done by deciding.

Children must be respected, and so the decisions of children, regardless of their financial resources.

19. Education is always a kind of theory of knowledge put into practice, it is naturally politics, has to do with purity, never puritanism, and is itself an experience of beauty.

Masterful philosophical phrase by Paulo Freire.

20. Existence is life that is known to be such, that it is recognized as finite, unfinished; that moves in time-space subjected to the intervention of what exists.

21. As a presence in history and in the world, I hopefully fight for dreams, for utopia, for hope, with a view to a critical pedagogy. And my fight is not in vain.

An ethical struggle through praxis.

22. Education is freedom.

Perhaps, the most remembered phrase of the Brazilian pedagogue.

23. Only the power that arises from the weakness of the oppressed will be strong enough to liberate everyone.

On the power of the oppressed masses.

24. Freedom is acquired through conquest, not as a gift. It must be carried out consistently and responsibly.

No civil conquest was made out of deference to the oppressors.

25. Jaspers said: "I am to the extent that others are also." Man is not an island, he is communication. So there is a close relationship between fellowship and seeking.

Philosophical reflection about our personality based on interpersonal relationships.

26. Looking at the past should only be a means to understand more clearly what and who we are, to be able to build the future more intelligently.

Phrase about time.

27. Language is never neutral.

It always has ideological and political overtones, according to Freire.

28. The people's trust in the leaders reflects the leaders' trust in the people.

About good politicians.

29. It is not the unloved one who initiates the disaffection, but the one he cannot love because he only loves himself.

Narcissism leads to unhappiness.

30. Men are not formed in silence, they are formed in words, in work, in action, in reflection.

On the contextual variables of each individual's learning.

31. The narration, whose subject is the teacher, directs the students towards the mechanical memorization of the content that is narrated… the narration turns them into containers that the teacher must fill.

A critique of the rote teaching system.

32. There is no dialogue if there is no humility, nor if there is no strong and unshakable faith in human beings.

A sample of his philanthropy.

33. There is no life without correction, without rectification.

Knowing how to forgive and forgive yourself is absolutely essential.

34. No person ignores everything. Nobody knows everything. We all know something. We are all ignorant of something. That is why we always learn.

We are all capable and good in some facets of life.

35. The reading of the world precedes the reading of the word.

Know and then reflect.

36. The more we are able to become children again, to remain childish, the more we can understand why we love the world and are open to understanding, to understanding; when we kill our inner child, we are no more.

The vitality of childhood is irreplaceable.

37. Only by abolishing the situation of oppression is it possible to restore the love that this situation made impossible. If I don't live off the world, if I don't love life, if I don't like people, I can't enter into dialogue.

Phrase to apply to our day to day.

38. To educate is to impregnate everything we do at all times with meaning.

Nothing has pedagogical value if it does not explain or convey an emotion.

39. I looked at a farmer and asked him how many children do you have? Three - he answered. Would you sacrifice two of your children by subjecting them to sufferings, so that the third could study? No - he answered... then is it really God who does these things?... No. It is not God who does them. He is the boss.

A little story that should make us reflect.

40. Sectarianization represents an obstacle to the emancipation of human beings.

Having a free and permeable thought allows a greater integration of knowledge and knowledge.

41. Any relationship of domination, exploitation, oppression, is itself violence. It doesn't matter if it is done through drastic means or not.

On the implicit forms of violence.

42. The revolution is born as a social entity within the oppressive society.

In the line of thinkers like Lenin, Paulo Freire establishes this characterization of social revolutions.

43. As long as the oppressed remain unaware of the causes of their fatalistic condition, they accept their exploitation.

A kind of slave complacency.

44. Reading is not walking in words; is to take the soul of them.

Reflection that gives meaning to the knowledge acquired.

45. Men and women seldom admit their fear of freedom openly, yet they tend rather to camouflage it by presenting themselves as defenders of freedom.

On the prevailing hypocrisy.