Marta, a girl from Brazil with middle-class parents, was 14 as Paulo Freire started his campaign to alphabetize people across the country in 1961. He said things like: “Reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world.” Although she did not understand what he meant at that time she was fascinated by his passion and will to move the society. She had the privilege to go to school but disliked many of her teachers as they did not want to understand her thoughts and always stopped her from drawing in class.

10 years later, Marta found herself in a school in the slum area of Rio de Janeiro. She was the new teacher in Art and Brazil. Seeing the children “with no comforts, who do not eat well, who do not “dress nicely,” who do not “speak correctly,”” (Freire 2005: 128), made her heart cry. It was so difficult to not think of them as less capable, poor beings that were mistreated by society. Often, she found herself taking extra time to explain things to them, but she felt the pressure of the school to move on with the curriculum. Sometimes the work tore her apart.

After only two years, Marta was transferred to a school in a very rich neighborhood. The kids dressed better than she ever had, most were brought by cars, that she would never be able to buy, and some of them spoke in a way that even she had to concentrate to not make herself look stupid. She couldn’t help but to feel a certain anger and had thoughts “of simply taking revenge” (ibid.: 128) on them. In her class, Marta did everything she was supposed to do and used quite an authoritarian style of teaching. But they seemed happy with it as the parents and students believed that success comes through hard effort and punishment. But Marta had lost the joy for her work.

It was in the year 1976 that Marta rediscovered Paulo Freire. In a dusty bookstore that smelled of old paper she stumbled across his work “Teachers as Cultural Workers” (2005). Marta was immediately drawn into the book. He spoke of both, the teachers and the learners, as listeners and as speakers (2005: 115). That the learners can only learn if they connect the theory to their concrete context and to their prior experiences (ibid.) and that every learner had in many objects of learning already experiences that the whole class could use to understand the object. She was almost moved to tears by the story of Freire about a young boy with a kite that was met by a physicist. The physicist asked the boy how he knew the distance of the kite to the ground. The boy answered that he had made knots in the rope every two meters and that he counted the knots when releasing the kite. (Ibid.: 130f.)

Marta had always thought that she as a teacher had the knowledge and transferred it to the students but now, she understood what Freire meant, when he said: “Only insofar as learners become thinking subjects, and recognize that they are as much thinking subjects as are the teachers, is it possible for the learners to become productive subjects of the meaning or knowledge of the object.” (Ibid.: 160)

Her thoughts were racing. The school is the place where educators and learners practice to talk with and to listen to each other. (Ibid.: 111) Yes, Marta thought, she wanted to hear them and to be heard by them. (Ibid.: 121) Suddenly she felt an excitement rising in her body. By taking interest in the learners, she would give them the possibility to experience that they are thinking and intelligent beings and that they are able to contribute something in class. And, is not this practice of speaking and being heard, of expressing yourself, of questioning each other and forcing each other to look closely at what is being said and done the very practice of citizenship in itself? Marta had always thought that the fight for democracy was a fight for the poor, the unprivileged and the discriminated – and it was – but even more it was the fight to view each other as equal “thinking subjects” (ibid.: 160) in the classroom as well as in society.

The first step of the process of democratization of education was to establish equal access to education across gendered, class and religious divides. The second step needs to happen in the discourse, the curriculum and eventually in the classroom. The second step is to show interest in the different knowledges, experiences and ways of life that come together in the school and to practice discipline, the production of knowledge and the act of subjectification as democratic citizens together.

Marta closed the book. Her hands were sweating. Freire had said: “Brazil’s salvation will happen because of the democratic school” (ibid.: 115). A smile spread across her face and her body was tensed with energy. In that moment, Marta knew she had chosen the right profession. Tomorrow she would call the school in the slums to ask if they needed a teacher.

Literature:

Freire, P. (2005). Teachers as Cultural Workers. Letters to Those Who Dare Teach, Colorado:

Westview Press.