Paulo Freire

Over the weekend, I finished reading two essays by Paulo Freire, the educational philosopher from Brazil who died in 1997. He wrote about critical consciousness and argued that when we see education as being the transmission of information from one brain (in most cases the educator's brain that is thought to be knowledgeable) into another brain (the student's brain that is though to be ignorant), then we can hope for (at best) students who behave as if they are "smart," but who have very little knowledge.

His ideas seem particularly timely today, as we are dealing with a world that seems rich with contradictions, and increasingly complex technology and information, and space and time have been annihilated, and everyone has a soapbox, and there is a day's worth of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.

For educators, Freire's work makes the point that we need to move from practice (blindly following whatever the latest educational fad happens to recommend) to praxis (evaluating and designing practice that is based on sound understanding of theory and evidence). He makes me think of those educators (we all know them as colleagues, principals, curriculum leaders, etc.) who practice sound-bite research or who take whatever a vendor or pundit claims about a practice. Deep understanding of human learning and pedagogy and society are necessary for education that is relevant in the 21st century.