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The following is part of an ongoing dialogue that Donaldo Macedo and Paulo Freire have been having since 1983. As it attempts to address the current criticisms of Freire's work along the the lines of gender and race, this dialogue not only challenges the frequent misinterpretations of his leading philosophical ideas by conservative and some liberal educators, but will also embrace contemporary educational issues and discuss what it means to educate for critical citizenry in the ever-increasing multiracial and multicultural world of the twenty-first century.
MACEDO: In their attempt to cut the chains of oppressive educational practices, many North American educators blindly advocate the dialogical model, creating, in turn, a new form of methodological rigidity laced with benevolent oppression--all done under the guise of democracy with the sole excuse that it is for the students' own good. As educators, many of us have witnessed pedagogical contexts in which we are implicitly or explicitly required to speak, to talk about our experiences, as an act of liberation. We all have been at conferences where speakers have been chastised because they failed to locate themselves in history. In other words, the speakers failed to give primacy to their experiences in addressing issues of critical democracy. It does not matter that the speakers had important and insightful things to say. This is tantamount to dismissing Marx because he did not entrance us with his personal, lived experiences. Another form of rigidity manifested in these educational practices modeled on your leading ideas is the process in which teachers relinquish their authority to become what is called a facilitator. Becoming a facilitator signals, in the view of many educators, a democratization of power in the classroom. Can you speak about these issues and perhaps clarify them?
FREIRE: Donaldo, let me begin responding by categorically saying that I consider myself a teacher and always a teacher. I have never pretended to be a facilitator. What I want to make clear also is in being a teacher, I always teach to facilitate. I cannot accept the notion of a facilitator who facilitates so as not to teach.
The true comprehension of dialogue must differentiate the role that only facilitates from the role that teaches. When teachers call themselves facilitators and not teachers,...