The teacher was the Brazilian educator and thinker Paulo Freire. The worker described his own living conditions: his kids were “dirty, crying, making a noise… And people have to get up at four in the morning the next day and start all over again… If people hit their kids, sir, it’s because life is so hard they don’t have much choice.” Well spoken… do you know where people live, sir? Have you been in our houses, sir?” “We have just heard some nice words,” the man said, politely but pointedly addressing the teacher as “Doctor.” Then a worker raised his hand to ask some questions. He was pleased with his lecture as he delivered it-a pretty lucid and engaging explication, if he did say so himself. Hired by the Brazilian government to set up a workers’ literacy program, he waxed progressive to an audience of fisherman, peasants, and urban workers on why, according to the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, they should not beat their children. “Freire viewed the purpose of education as the liberation of the oppressed.” Even as many more people around the world have access to education, schooling everywhere remains intertwined with systems of oppression, including racism and capitalism.
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