The power not yet in power: Paulo Freire, critical pedagogy and the war on public education - an interview with Ira Shor

Ira Shor is a professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Center (Programa Phd em Ingles) and at the English Department at the College of Staten Island (CSI). Dr. Shor has been dedicated to teaching undergraduate students and graduate students from the perspective of critical education. The work of Shor with Freire began in 1980 and lasted until 1997. Both are co-authors of the first talking book by Paulo Freire, called in Brazil Fear and boldness: the teacher's daily life. In this interview, with Professors Alexandre Saul and Ana Maria Saul, Professor Shor discusses the importance of critical pedagogy on teacher education, in the face of a global setting of increasing conservatism and adoption of educational public policies of a neo-technicist character, which contribute to hinder the autonomy of schools and teachers. He highlights the pertinence and timeliness of the thought of Paulo Freire as a feasible possibility of building public and democratic education in the midst of which teacher education has to be done with dialogue, respect for different types of knowledge and ways of knowing, horizontality in human relations and inseparability between theory and practice. Ira Shor points out that, for Paulo Freire, the construction of a more equal world for all, would need a kind of utopia that has well planted roots in history. He emphasizes the impossibility of education neutrality and the need of awareness to transform reality.