PROFILE: Paulo Freire.

Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator, perhaps best known for his influential text Pedagogy of the Oppressed, was born on September 19, 1921 in Recife, a port city on Brazil's northeastern coast. Although he was born into a middle class household, his family was severely impacted by the Great Depression, ushering him into the ranks of those who know what it's like to go hungry. Freire recalled that poverty and hunger severely affected his ability to learn and ultimately influenced his decision to dedicate his life to improving the lives of the poor: "I didn't understand anything because of my hunger. I wasn't dumb. It wasn't lack of interest. My social condition didn't allow me to have an education. Experience showed me once again the relationship between social class and knowledge" (Moacir Gadotti, Reading Paulo Freire: His Life and Work).

Freire's family's financial situation eventually improved enough for him to enroll at the University of Recife, where he earned a law degree. However, he soon abandoned the legal profession, choosing to teach Portuguese in secondary schools. He later shifted from secondary school to adult education and training, working as the director of education at SESI (1946), an employee's institution designed to help workers and their families. Freire also completed a Ph.D. during this time, finishing his dissertation "Present Day Education in Brazil" in 1959. From 1961-64 he served as the first Director of the Department of Cultural Extension at the University of Recife, bringing literary programs to the poor.

Freire's literacy programs brought him to the attention of Goulart's populist government, which appointed him President of the National Commission on Popular Culture in 1963. Shortly thereafter, in April of 1964, a military coup brought all progressive movements to a halt, and Freire himself was imprisoned for 70 days and then exiled for his "subversive" activities. During his prison time, Freire began his first major educational work, Education as the Practice of Freedom, a text he finished while in exile in Chile. Freire spent 5 years in Chile before coming to the United States at the invitation of Harvard University, where he taught as a visiting professor at the Center for Studies in Education and Development. During this period, Freire wrote his most famous work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which argues against the "banking concept of education" in favor of a liberatory, dialogical pedagogy designed to raise individuals' consciousness of oppression and to in turn transform oppressive social structures through "praxis."

In 1970, Freire left Harvard upon receiving an invitation to Geneva, where he worked for ten years as Assistant Secretary of Education for the World Council of Churches in Switzerland. In this capacity, Freire traveled around the world helping countries develop literacy reforms. His book Pedagogy in Process: The Letters to Guinea-Bissau, documents one of his most influential projects during this period.

The Brazilian government ultimately invited Freire to return from his 15 years of exile. From 1980-86, Freire supervised an adult literacy project in Sao Paulo and was later appointed Minister of Education for the City of Sao Paulo in 1988. In 1991, at Freire's request, the Paulo Freire Institute was created to bring scholars and critics of his pedagogy into "a permanent dialogue that would foster the advancement of new educational theories and concrete interventions in reality" (Gadotti, "Paulo Freire: A Homage"). The institute is made up of "21 scholarly nuclei located in 18 countries" and is dedicated to maintaining the "legacy of Paulo Freire, primarily through a critical and systematic study of his work, through research and professional development, and in dialogue with other authors" (Gadotti).

Paulo Freire died of heart failure on May 2, 1997 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, leaving behind him a legacy of hopeful texts that continue to have a profound impact on educational theory and practice today.