Un/Taming Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed

By now, it goes without discussion that very few in the commercialized scene of contemporary academia can make a greater claim to political, pedagogical, and spiritual efficacy than the late Brazilian teacher and intellectual, Paulo Freire. A decade after his death, all his books are still in print, some of them among the best-selling titles for educators, in more than 60 languages; a simple web-based search gives significantly more references than any other author in the field of education (“Paulo Freire” has 1, 800, 000 pages and “John Dewey” 1, 600, 000, for example); and his name has been used to identify public and private schools, research centers, NGOs, and pre-schools in more than 45 countries.