ENG 446/500 Topics in Rhetoric: Freire- Dialogue, Praxis, Education

Catalog Description
Prerequisite: written inquiry. An opportunity for in-depth study, this course may focus on a single theme, historical period, or group of rhetoricians. Dependent upon its emphasis, this course might be used to satisfy one of the distribution requirements for English majors. May be repeated for credit with different emphasis. 

Freire: Dialogue, Praxis, Education
This course will engage with the work and theory of Paulo Freire. His work probes psychological and cultural barriers to personal liberation and has influenced progressive education all over the world. Freire presented development as freedom, questioning the “scientific” methods of analysis and objectivity that informs education. He challenged the mechanization of intellectual work which can lead to a reductionist view of the act of knowing. Freire contends that teaching and learning 

• require recognition that education is ideological 
• involve ethics 
• require a capacity to be critical 
• require recognition of our conditioning 
• require humility,
  each absolutely necessary for a critical “reading of the world.” We will attempt to read the word and read the world, without participating in the diluted, domesticated marginalization of Freire’s ideas and methods. 

Course Objectives: 

• To create space for exploration of the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire 
• To study the concept of critical pedagogy 
• To conduct an exegesis of Freire’s major works 
• To relate Freire’s ideas to the social and historical context from which they emerged 
• To consider the relevance of Freire’s ideas and methods to today’s social context, particularly for people living in poverty, and the issues of oppression and societal change