“Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Brazilian Educator Paulo Freire Profiled in Film, “Reading the World”

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We end today’s program with an amazing brand-new documentary about Paulo Freire, the well-known Brazilian teacher whose innovative method to mentor linked literacy to important thinking and democratic involvement. In the early ’60s, Freire led an experiment in adult education in the northeastern Brazilian town of Angicos that assisted numerous rural grownups discover to check out and compose in simply 40 hours. Freire turned down rote memorization, rather preferring culture circles, where trainees and teachers made use of their own lives to discover vocabulary and establish vital awareness.

The experiment was quickly stopped in 1965, when Brazil’s military toppled President João Goulart in a U.S.-backed coup. The literacy project was taken apart. Trainees burned their books out of worry of persecution. Paulo Freire himself was put behind bars and pushed into exile 16 years.

The brand-new documentary, Checking out the Worldmakes use of unusual archival video of the ’60s Brazil and weaves together the memories of farmers, trainees, teachers who participated in the culture circles. This is the movie’s trailer.

NEWSREEL: [translated] In Angicos, a village of Rio Grande do Norte, beside an old train station, a transformation has actually started.

MARIA MIRANDA GOMES: [translated] Before the school came, I didn’t even understand how to sign my name, due to the fact that I had actually never ever gone to school.

LUZIA DE ANDRADE: [translated] Nobody appreciates bad individuals who do not understand anything. They taught us that if we studied, we might be residents.

PAULO ALVES DE SOUZA: [translated] Paulo Freire, for us, was a sign of compassion in our lives. I had the seeds of education planted in my chest straight by him.

MARCOS GUERRA: [translated] At the time, Brazil was enduring a duration of excellent political eagerness. There was a desire to alter things, a desire to change the nation.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is another clip from Checking out the World that functions Paulo Freire himself, speaking in 1975.

PAULO FREIRE: [translated] At that minute, the literacy trainees understand that changing truth through their work, actions and reflections is a method to develop and recreate the world. And they handle the function of a transformer, not of a things.

AMY GOODMAN: The movie Checking out the Worldor Lendo o Mundoconcentrates on a time in Paulo Freire’s life before he composed the well-known book Pedagogy of the OppressedIt comes as Brazil gets ready for its basic election next month. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is up for reelection. His oppositions consist of Flávio Bolsonaro, the boy of Brazil’s previous President Jair Bolsonaro, who is now in jail for his function in the 2022 coup effort. Lula and Paulo Freire were long time allies.

For more, we’re signed up with by Catherine Murphy, co-director of Checking out the Worldwhich just recently premiered here in New York and will air on PBS WORLD Channel October 9th. And we’re signed up with by Maria Luisa Mendonça, a consulting manufacturer on the documentary, director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil.

We invite you both to Democracy Now! President Lula simply satisfied with the New York mayor, Mamdani, the other day here in New York. Inform us about Lendo o MundoInform us about this remarkable documentary, Checking out the World

CATHERINE MURPHY: Well, thank you a lot for having us.

You understand, Paulo Freire was among the most prominent teachers of the previous century and is still extensively studied all around the world. The research studies typically focus on his concepts, his viewpoints, his books, and much less is understood about his initial praxis, the start, those early on-the-ground, in-the-trenches, grassroots-level experiences that Paulo Freire had in the years leading up to composing Pedagogy of the Oppressed and his other very first books. Which’s precisely what we ask in this movie. We check out these years leading up to composing his very first books. And we ask: Who were his closest partners? What was that cumulative that he was dealing with? And significantly, we ask: Who were the trainees? And how can we take a look at this experience through their eyes and through their words, their voices, and sort of see them as co-creators of this method that continues to make effects around the globe?

Brazil at the time was extremely feudal and colonial. One percent of the population owned the large bulk of the arable land. In the northeast, 70% of individuals were illiterate, might not check out and compose. And if you could not check out and compose, you might not vote. It was likewise restricted to do any kind of rural union arranging. These were these institutionalised, converging methods to keep the bulk of individuals outside of any individual and political empowerment. And this was the Brazil that Freire and his partners were looking for to alter.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Maria Luisa, could you talk– what was– what was advanced or uncommon about Paulo Freire’s approaches, his pedagogical approaches?

MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA: Yes, I believe among the most crucial points of his approach is that everybody has understanding. When he began this group, mentor farmers, farmworkers that in some cases didn’t even were paid with cash– often they simply worked for food– in an extremely bad location, extremely remote location in the countryside in the northeast of Brazil, when they collected together, they felt that they had understanding. The essential point about Paulo Freire’s viewpoint is that everybody has understanding. And mentor has to do with exchanging understanding, and it has to do with seeing the world around you. Mentor has– requires to have significance, and finding out requirements to make sense for individuals from the concrete truth where they live. And I believe this is something that is really required in all levels of education all over the world.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Catherine, as Brazil gets ready for its elections in this year, what does your movie program so strongly in the lessons of Paulo Freire that could– that are essential to keep alive today?

CATHERINE MURPHY: Well, I believe it’s crucial to comprehend that the needs of the grassroots motions in the early ’60s, when Paulo Freire was working, stay the needs of grassroots motions in Brazil today: for a more democratic and more simply Brazil, with higher access to quality education, with broadened ballot rights, with political representation through individuals and sectors of the society that have actually been traditionally left out– ladies, Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous individuals– representing themselves and the nation, the genuine Brazil, likewise advancing labor rights and labor relations, and, significantly, this land justice and land period concern, which is still such a big issue in Brazil today. These problems which were the core of the early 1960 motions are specifying, at the core of the governmental dispute now and what will be the future vision of the country.

AMY GOODMAN: 1964 coup, what takes place to Paulo Freire?

CATHERINE MURPHY: Paulo Freire was jailed quickly after the coup. He was required to prison for 70 days and pushed into exile, throughout which time he lived all over the world and began composing his books, and composed his very first books, Pedagogy of the Oppressed and others.

AMY GOODMAN: And describe Pedagogy of the Oppressedthis influential work.

CATHERINE MURPHY: Yes. Paulo Freire’s critical work, Pedagogy of the Oppressedwas actually mostly based upon this Angicos experience and his very first experiences in Brazil, taking a look at how to equalize education, to equalize the whole society. And as soon as he– after he left Brazil, Pedagogy of the Oppressed distributed clandestinely in Brazil throughout the years of the dictatorship and flowed honestly around the remainder of the world. Then, Paulo Freire likewise engaged with a number of adult education jobs around the world throughout those 2 years that he was out of Brazil, especially in Guinea-Bissau working with Mário Cabral, in Nicaragua working with Fernando Cardenal, and working with grassroots social justice teachers all over the world, consisting of in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: I wish to end with Paulo Freire in his own words from the movie Checking out the World

PAULO FREIRE: [translated] I stated that we needed to challenge the illiterate grownups and the groups of illiterate grownups, challenge them with particular representations of the concrete truth they experienced.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Paulo Freire. Catherine Murphy, co-director of Checking out the Worldthe movie has to do with him. Maria Luisa Mendonça, seeking advice from manufacturer. The documentary will air on PBS WORLD Channel on October 9th.

Pleased birthday to Jackie Sam! That does it for our program. I’ll remain in London, in Copenhagen and Berlin, Germany in this next week. Go to democracynow.org for additional information. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

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