Excerpts from Mentoring the Mentor
Donaldo Macedo|Peter
C. Murrell, Jr.|Gloria
Ladson-Billings|James
W. Fraser|William
T. Stokes| Asgedet
Stefanos|Tim
Sieber|Ron
Scapp|Freire's
Response
Tim Sieber
Pedagogy, Power, and the
City: Paulo Freire as Urban School Superintendent
"It is clear that something historically
unique and path-breaking occurred in Sao Paulo when Freire was
in charge of public schools, and that because of his clear vision
of transformative practice he has valuable lessons to offer all
progressives on the responsibilities and challenges of assuming
power, in educational as well as other arenas of struggle"(Sieber,
1997, p.280)
Sieber's article looks at Freire's work as the
secretary of education for Sao Paulo from 1989 to 1991. He describes
the efforts that Freire led during his tenure in office to transform
the school system in Sao Paulo. Reforms and changes included:
- expansion of student retention through reducing failure, retention
in grade, and dropouts.
- institution of quadruple sessions to put idle classrooms to
use throughout the day.
- building repair, and use of off-campus sites for classes (factories,
churches, government offices, for example).
- transformation of the fixed 'scope and sequence' curriculum
into an interdisciplinary 'process' curriculum with a perspective
of liberating education built on dialogue with students' own
lives and aspirations, and oriented toward critical learning.
- implementation of a permanent system of teacher in-service
education that provided time and support for teachers to reflect
critically and collaboratively on their own practice (p.277-278).
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Ron Scapp
The Subject of Education:
Paulo Freire, Postmodernism, and Multiculturalism
Scapp argues that "postmodernism and multiculturalism
have theoretical strategies to push Freire's work to even greater
critical importance"(Scapp, 1997, p.289)
Scapp finds Freire's work more profound when
understood within the context of postmodernism and multiculturalism.
He believes that the three theories should "come
together as a theoretico-practical alliance, forming a unity(solidarity)
that joins a valuable and powerful pedagogy with contemporary
reflections on the problems of subjectivity conceived within the
context of the legacy of the enlightenment"(p.289).
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Donaldo Macedo|Peter
C. Murrell, Jr.|Gloria
Ladson-Billings|James
W. Fraser|William
T. Stokes| Asgedet
Stefanos|Tim
Sieber|Ron
Scapp|Freire's
Response
