This paper is a discussion of one of the more radical and influential theories of education, Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and its relationship and applicability to the proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the guidelines used by public schools throughout America to determine the effectiveness and purposes of elementary and secondary school education. Freire, a Brazilian educator and theorist, was driven from his native Brazil by a military coup, an act that allowed him to bring his revolutionary approach to pedagogy directly to other educational systems. Although conceived as a response to adult illiteracy within oppressive Third World regimes, Freire's unique way of looking at education in general has strongly influenced educational philosophy in many other settings. This paper considers whether his radical approach, which argues that truly effective education can only be achieved as a participatory process, without which it perpetuates the destructive roles of oppressor and oppressed, can have any relevance within the traditional American academic process. Looking at ESEA guidelines from a Freirean perspective allows the educational scholar to reconsider the effectiveness of this traditional approach and contemplate the philosophical underpinnings that inform it.
Education in the United States is built on the fundamental premise that all American children should achieve a certain level of literacy, mastery of basic skills, and a grasp of essential knowledge, in order to be able to participate in their society as informed, educated workers and citizens. Such education should be available to all, regardless of personal circumstance. From this belief has arisen a system of mandatory education for grades one through twelve that, however imperfectly, tries to provide a universal grounding in fundamental skills.
Precisely what these skills should be continues to be the ob...