pedagogy of possible dreams

What does it mean to teach today? Can schools shape individuals who are open to change, dialogical, democratic? And what does it mean to be democratic at this moment in history? In Pedagogy of Possible Dreams, Paulo Freire confronts these questions with the certainty that a school that does not reinvent itself, that does not embrace its task as a political act, merely reproduces the social order and condemns both teachers and students to repetition. Against fatalistic or deterministic views, he conceives of history as possibility, and to that end, he champions dreams as a driving force for transformation, and liberating education as a tool to make even a part of the impossible, possible. This book, which presents the author's most personal texts for the first time in Spanish, addresses basic issues such as strategies to prevent reading and writing from being reduced to a mere bureaucratic practice, or how dialogue and orality can be excellent ways to work with content but also to build, between teachers and students, an essentially plural thought, that is, non-linear and non-individualistic. Likewise, Freire focuses on the challenges of public education, the importance of teacher training, the role of technology, the role of unions, and the problem of rebellion and discipline in adolescence. The economic, cultural, historical, and political conditions of each context present new methodological and tactical demands. That is why there are no recipes in Paulo Freire's words. In these essays, letters, and interviews, theory and experience (childhood, activism, early teaching practices, exile) intertwine to point out, with vital wisdom, the paths of the struggle against racism, sexism, environmental destruction, or any other form of oppression.

What does it mean to teach today? Can schools shape individuals who are open to change, dialogical, democratic? And what does it mean to be democratic at this moment in history? In Pedagogy of Possible Dreams, Paulo Freire confronts these questions with the certainty that a school that does not reinvent itself, that does not embrace its task as a political act, merely reproduces the social order and condemns both teachers and students to repetition. Against fatalistic or deterministic views, he conceives of history as possibility, and to that end, he champions dreams as a driving force for transformation, and liberating education as a tool to make even a part of the impossible, possible. This book, which presents the author's most personal texts for the first time in Spanish, addresses basic issues such as strategies to prevent reading and writing from being reduced to a mere bureaucratic practice, or how dialogue and orality can be excellent ways to work with content but also to build, between teachers and students, an essentially plural thought, that is, non-linear and non-individualistic. Likewise, Freire focuses on the challenges of public education, the importance of teacher training, the role of technology, the role of unions, and the problem of rebellion and discipline in adolescence. The economic, cultural, historical, and political conditions of each context present new methodological and tactical demands. That is why there are no recipes in Paulo Freire's words. In these essays, letters, and interviews, theory and experience (childhood, activism, early teaching practices, exile) intertwine to point out, with vital wisdom, the paths of the struggle against racism, sexism, environmental destruction, or any other form of oppression.