Who is Paulo Freire?

Named for the Brazilian educational philosopher, Freire Charter School is an innovative, college-preparatory high school in Center City Philadelphia. The school is known for academic excellence and its distinctly Freirian emphasis on individual freedom, critical thinking, and experiential learning. Programs such as the PEACE Project provide students with individualized, self-designed curriculums. But in Freire Charter’s seventh year, some PEACE students realized that few at Freire knew much about the school’s namesake. Who is Paulo Freire? is the result of a collaboration between 7 students and 2 adults who set out to understand Freire, a radical educator and a Marxist who wrote the influential book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and figure out how his contributions to education philosophy and social justice apply to their own lives. Field trips and Freire’s writings guide students on a journey into the social dimensions of their own education. With their characteristic analysis of oppression and focus on student-teacher dynamics, Freire’s ideas are challenging for students and teachers alike. “It really is frightening for an educator to really truly implement a Freirian method in the classroom,” says Brian Lundberg, a Freirian scholar working with the school, “because it upsets the balance of power.”