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"A teacher is no longer merely the one who teaches; but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach."

(Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire)

The first reseach in my career, was about the man who now present. Finding out about his work, his books, his passion for effecting change in education, was a big motivation for me for to continue studying with great enthusiasm.

His name is Paulo Freire, was born September 19, 1921 to a middle class family in Recife, Brazil.

He became a teacher of Portuguese and under the influence of his mother, got involved in church organisations as a means of addressing the injustices he saw around him. However, he rapidly became aware of the limits of charitable work and the need to move from working "for the people" to working "with the people".

In 1959 Freire wrote a doctoral thesis on his experiences of teaching literacy which was so well received that he was appointed Chair of the Philosophy of Education in Recife University. In 1962 he became coordinator of a large literacy programme in Recife and the next year was appointed head of the Brazilian National Literacy Programme. He planned to establish 20,000 literacy groups known as "culture circles".

In the following years, whilst working on adult education with the Institute of Agrarian Reform in Chile, Freire's ideas matured and he started writing what would become his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970). Through this radical pedagogy, he hoped, adults would learn to perceive social, political and economic contradictions and would take action against the opressive elements of reality (a process that Freire called "conscientisation").

In March 1996, as Guest of Honour at the World Conference on Literacy in Philadelphia, Freire was as charismatic, absorbing and radical as ever. He succeeded in reaching a new generation of educationists who, with his inspiration, continue to work for an empowering and liberating approach to education around the world.

Finally paulo Freire, died Sao Paulo 2 May 1997.

I admire deeply this teacher, and one of my dreams is to continue moving forward on the basis of their work. So I share with him that education is built between all actors involved in it, and an educator who teaches also learns who educates.