Paulo Freire: Google Doodle celebrates Brazilian educator and philosopher’s 100th birthday

Google Doodle celebrates the 100th birthday of Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, who is one of the most influential philosophers of education and best known for his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed in the 20th century, on September 19, 2021.

Who was Paulo Freire?

Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was born on 19 September 1921 to a middle class family in Recife, the capital of the northeastern Brazilian territory of Pernambuco. He was a Brazilian teacher and professor who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy.

Paulo Freire is most popular for his powerful work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is generally considered to be one of the foundational texts of the basic critical pedagogy movement, and is the third most refered to book in the social sciences.

He became familiar with poverty and hunger since the beginning because of the Great Depression. In 1931 his family moved to the more moderate city of Jaboatão dos Guararapes, 18 km west of Recife. His dad died on 31 October 1934.

In 1947, Paulo Freire started decade-long position offering social services to the Brazilian working class, which was foundational to the production of his universal educational model一conscientização (the development of critical consciousness).

This groundbreaking methodology calls for the cultural exchange between teacher and student through the perspective of their socio-historical conditions fully intent on making a democratic society free of illiteracy.

In 1962, Paulo Freire applied conscientização with extremist achievement—teaching 300 farmworkers to read and write in just 45 days! Notwithstanding, these standards demonstrated excessively extremist for the recently settled Brazilian government in 1964 and he was constrained into exile until 1979.

During this period, Freire published his acclaimed 1968 book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” which carried his revolutionary teaching philosophy to a international audience.

Paulo Freire proceeded with his educational journey abroad prior to getting back to Brazil in 1980 to lead an adult literacy project. In 1988, Freire started serving as São Paulo’s Minister of Education, carrying out innovative literary programs.

Paulo Freire’s ideas created from his experience teaching Brazil’s laborers to read. His intelligent strategies, which urged students to question the educator, frequently prompted proficiency in just 30 hours of instruction. In 1963 he was designated director of the Brazilian National Literacy Program, however he was jailed following a military coup in 1964. He went into banish, returning in 1979 to help discovered the Workers Party. His seminal work was Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).

Since the publication of the English-language edition in 1970, Pedagogy of the Oppressed has had a huge effect in education and pedagogy around the world, particularly as a defining work of critical pedagogy.

Paulo Freire wrote and co-wrote more than 20 books on education, pedagogy and related themes.

Freire died of heart failure on 2 May 1997, in São Paulo.

Paulo Freire has made a significant mark on thinking about progressive practice. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed is presently one of the most quoted educational texts (especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia).

Today, Paulo Freire’s work lives on at the Freire Institute, an international association dedicated to educational progression and societal transformation through his teachings.

On September 19, 2021, Google featured Doodle on its homepage for celebrating Paulo Freire’s 100th Birthday.