Pedagogy in Process presents a first-hand account of the most comprehensive attempt yet to put into practice Paulo Freire's theory of education within a real societal setting. When Guinea Bissau on the West African coast declared independence in 1973 the rate of illiteracy in its adult population was ninety percent. The new government faced the enormous task of educating its citizens. With Freire as collaborator and advisor the government launched a huge grass-roots literacy campaign and this book is Freire's memoir of that campaign. Those familiar with Freire's work will identify his ongoing insistence on the unity between theory and practice, mental and manual work, and past and present experience. This is essential reading for anyone interested Freire's revolutionary ideas on education and the transformative power they hold when applied to society and the classroom. This edition includes a substantive introduction by Michael Apple who is Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
The book, for which these letters provide both core and rationale, will not only broaden the already substantial audience for Freire's work. It will also clarify his views and humanize the man himself ... apart from all else, the book provides the best, most idiomatic English version of his writing to date ... The conversational tone made possible by an exchange of correspondence provides, for the first time, an appropriate metaphor for the man who has made 'dialogue' almost a synonym for 'education'. Pedagogy in Process is, therefore - while not his classic work - unquestionably his most accessible. By my own taste, it is also his most powerful - and human.