PRAXIS - Paulo Freire Institute

Praxis Spring/Summer 2010: Volume 3, Issue 1
Loving
Paulo Freire (1973) stated simply yet profoundly in Education for Critical
Consciousness that, “Education is an act of love, and thus an act of courage” (p. 38).
Love was a sentiment about which Freire spoke and wrote often. It was the critical and
necessary component of his struggle for liberation. As his wife and lifelong friend, Ana
Maria Araujo Freire, put it, “he lived for love and to love” (Freire, A., 1998, p. 3).
The reasons for which individuals choose to become educators vary significantly.
However, the truly progressive teacher becomes an educator out of love—love not for the
financial rewards, love not for the school facilities, love not for the administration or
other teachers, love not for school policies, love not for the job stability of tenure, but
love for the students and love for the processes and ideals of teaching. Loving students
means wanting to collaboratively create a world in which they can experience freedom. A
teacher’s love must transcend the fears and challenges she or he faces in the struggles for
that freedom.
The initial and ultimate act of this love and courage and vision of a better future is
simply to become an educator. In order to become agents of change we must first get
beyond talking about change and move towards active participation in the educational
process. When I chose to leave my high-paying and “prestigious” position as a manager
in a satellite manufacturing company to teach in an inner-city school, my decision was
not based on a desire to obtain personal wealth or to teach programmed standards
developed by some political operatives who have no connection with the cultures,
languages, dreams, or challenges of the students for whom the curricula were produced.
On the contrary, I chose to become a teacher specifically because I did not want students
to be blindly subjected to the mind-numbing onslaught of meaningless “facts” as directed
by the neo-conservative ideologies behind such education policies as the No Child Life
Behind legislation. I chose to become a teacher out of a profound love for students and
for my belief that education can be an instrument of transformation.
Transforming
“The progressive educator rejects the dominant values imposed on the school
because he or she has a different dream, because he or she wants to transform the status
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