Pedagogy of the oppressed / Paulo Freire.

Years before Paulo Freire was "invited" by the Brazilian government to leave his homeland after the military coup of 1964, he had begun devoting his life to the advancement of the fortunes of the impoverished people of Brazil. After his exile he moved first to Chile, then emigrated to the United States. In the course of his work and travels in the Third World and as a result of his studies in the philosophy of education, he evolved a theory for the education of illiterates, especially adults, based on the conviction that every human being, no matter how "ignorant" or submerged in the "culture of silence," is capable of looking critically at his world in a dialogical encounter with others, and that provided with the proper tools for such an encounter he can gradually perceive his personal and social reality and deal critically with it. When an illiterate peasant participates in this sort of educational experience he comes to a new awareness of self, a new sense of dignity; he is stirred by new hope. "I now realize I am a man, an educated man." "We were blind, now our eyes have been opened." "Before this, words meant nothing to me; now they speak to me and I can make them speak." "I work, and working I transform the world."
As the illiterate learns and is able to make such statements, his world becomes radically transformed and he is no longer willing to be a mere object responding to changes occurring around him. He is more likely to decide to take upon himself, with his fellow men, the struggle to change the structures of society that until now have served to oppress him. This radical self-awareness, however, is not only the task of workers in the Third World, but of persons in this country as well, including those who in our advanced technological society have been or are being programmed into conformity and thus are essentially part of the "culture of silence."