Classic texts : no. 13. signposts for a politically engaged pedagogy

Abstract

In 1980, I was concluding my studies to become a teacher. I recall having participated in a course-unit in which groups of students gave presentations on different authors whose views influenced educational thinking. My choice fell on Jean Jacques Rousseau. I do recall, however, having listened to one presentation which focused on excerpts from a very intriguing text written by a Brazilian whose name remained etched in my memory. Whatever was being presented somehow captured my imagination. After graduation, I was posted at a school situated in a particular district of my home city, Valletta, and I found the going tough. Looking back I wonder whether my teaching would have been better served had the title Pedagogy of the Oppressed not remained simply an intriguing one and had the book not been earmarked as a ‘must read’ for the future, since my reading had then and in subsequent years been taken up by literary classics.