I came to him with enthusiasm, this Christian Marxist who was already an icon. I warmed to such themes as the need for critical dialogue between teacher and student; the emphasis on "concientizacao" (the changing of political consciousness); the criticism of "banking education"; and the necessity of revolution.
Alas, fancying myself as a Leninist, I found him an idealist, implying change could simply be willed to happen. Freire simplified, I would intone, the complexity of social reality. He didn't have his feet on the ground.
His "oppressed" seemed to be everybody and nobody. Feminists, in particular, gave him a hard time. I didn't become a convert. I followed other gurus before slowly understanding that I wanted to be nobody's disciple.
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