6th
Aronowitz on Freire
Aronowitz’s analysis of Freire’s work on literacy and critical pedagogy:
Thus, for Freire literacy was not a means to prepare students for the world of subordinated labor or “careers,” but a preparation for a self-managed life. And self-management could only occur when people have fulfilled three goals of education: self-reflection, that is, realizing the famous poetic phrase, “know thyself,” which is an understanding of the world in which they live, in its economic, political and, equally important, its psychological dimensions. Specifically “critical” pedagogy helps the learner become aware of the forces that have hitherto ruled their lives and especially shaped their consciousness. The third goal is to help set the conditions for producing a new life, a new set of arrangements where power has been, at least in tendency, transferred to those who literally make the social world by transforming nature and themselves.
Stanley Aronowitz, “Forward,” “Critical Pedagogy in Uncertain Times: Hope and Possibilities,” ed. Sheila L. Macrine, (New York, New York, Palgrave MacMillan, 2009) pp. ix.
