TC is co-hosting an event on November 18 with NORRAG on the occasion of the 100 year centenary of Paulo Freire. Paulo Blikstein, TC faculty, is one of the speakers. The event will be in English and Portuguese.
Speakers
Leon P. Tikly: Freire in Africa
Freire had an intimate connection with liberation struggles in Africa. In this presentation, discussion will focus on how Freire’s work including Pedagogy of the Oppressed was profoundly influenced by African intellectuals including Franz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral. The talk will critically consider the contribution that Freire’s work made to national liberation struggles in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent as well as to the development of mass literacy programmes. The presentation will conclude with a consideration of the relevance of Freire’s ideas today and in the context of regional agendas such as Agenda 2063.
Paulo Blikstein (TC faculty): Can technology be an agent for Freirean emancipation?
Case studies from Brazil and Thailand Digital technologies are often (and rightfully so) associated with surveillance, exploitation, compliance, and control, used in education to strengthen oppressive approaches to schooling. Such uses are even more present now with artificial intelligence, the ubiquity of smartphones and social media, and the partnerships being established between large technology companies and public school systems. In this talk, I will present experiences that tell a different story: how technologies can be used in subversive ways to challenge current classroom practices and public policy, à la Paulo Freire. Instead of being controlled by technology, children are given the control; instead of using technologies for curriculum compliance, they use it to create projects connected to their lives and communities.
Joao Abilio Lazaro: Repositioning Freire in a society that rejects critical rationality in Mozambique
As a politically and economically dependent element of our human existence, education, particularly in the Mozambican context, has mainly been confined to a utilitarian perspective for people to be trained in view of meeting the demands of the labour market as a way to promote economic productivity within society. This type of education, however, ignores the need for people to develop the Freirean understanding of critical rationality which is supposed to promote a democratic consciousness, the values of human dignity and the moral and intellectual advancement of the human person. This paper firstly presents the Mozambican education scenario in order to reposition Paulo Freire’s conception of education to the situation of African education systems, particularly in Mozambique. The paper then challenges African political leaderships to embrace a Freirean critical consciousnessbased education for the growth of their countries and citizens.
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NORRAG is an Associate Programme of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) and is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF).
To request disability-related accommodations, contact OASID at oasid@tc.edu, (212) 678-3689, as early as possible.
