What is the influence of Paulo Freire?
Paulo Freire is the patron saint of positive peace, he has had a revolutionary influence on education, and thus on the vision of education we have as Human Rights workers. Paulo Freire’s work has had much more influence over informal education than in formal education sectors. Why is that? As it is formal education tends to de-politicize knowledge. We are directly involved in the other direction, we want to see human beings develop empathy, love, and the ability to self-mobilize, to be critical and to solve problems. It is about seeing the glass half full. The New York labor unions, for example, use Paulo Freire in their courses developed for recent immigrants to the city. They are imbued with Paulo Freire’s transformative spirit. So can you give me a sense of how a curriculum for peace works? When I think of education and curriculum I need more than merely informing or raising awareness. Suppose I have a film about child workers in Bangladesh, if it runs in the conventional movie circ
