Assignment 1b

Paulo Freire was born and raised in Brazil. It is in Brazil where his theories were first developed. He was born to middle class parents just before The Great Depression. Due to the global impact of The Great Depression, his family learned first hand what it was like to be impoverished. His family eventually was able to recover from the depression. Paulo enrolled in law school at the University of Recife. After passing the bar and beginning a short career, he decided to quit. He wanted to be an educator. He taught Portuguese in secondary schools.

In 1961 Paulo was appointed the director of the Department of Cultural Extension of the University of Recife. Soon after, by using Paulo's theories, 300 sugarcane workers were taught to read in 45 days. After this experiment the Brazilian government approved thousands of cultural circles throughout the world. He brought literacy programs to thousands in the northeast. This new found education also brought along with it, liberation. At this time literacy was a requirement for voting in a presidential election. He was briefly exiled to Bolivia. It was during his time in exile that he started on his writings that were soon to be published. He published two books, Education as the Practice of Freedom, and Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Paulo always denied that his familiarity with Marxism distanced him from his religion, which was catholicism. "I never understood how to reconcile fellowship with Christ with the exploitation of other human beings, or to reconcile a love for Christ with racial, gender and class discrimination. By the same token, I could never reconcile the Left's liberating discourse with the Left's discriminatory practice along the lines of race, gender, and class. What a shocking contradiction: to be, at the same time, a leftist and a racist.



http://www3.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/resources/paulofreire.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/Facundo/section1.html
http://dmnierweber.iweb.bsu.edu/teachingguide/Freire%20bio.html

Assignment 1a

1. What is your first name only (NOT last name)
Kendra
2. Why are you taking this class and what do you hope to learn
I am taking this class because I need one more humanities class to transfer to a UC, but I do like humanities classes. In my experience they have forced me to choose books and films that I probably wouldn't choose on my own. I want to learn as much as possible from each assignment this semester.
3. How far do you live from SRJC main campus (go to google, maps to get the SPECIFIC answer; for this you type in your address and 1501 Mendocino Ave, Santa Rosa, CA to find the exact mileage. EXAMPLE: 2.6 miles from campus. The goal here is to use new tools available to us. You can always come back to edit this)
According to google maps I live 52.9 miles away from the main SRJC campus.
4. What do you think of when you think "California"? Does this differ from what non-Californians think and if so, how?
When I think of California I think of mild weather, the beach, and orchards and farmland in the central valley. I think that a lot of non-Californians think of year round warm weather, beaches, and movie stars when they think of California.
5. Have you created a blog or webpage in the past?
I have a page of facebook, that counts right?
6. Regarding computers, are you on a mac or a pc?
I am on a mac computer. I LOVE Apple products!
7. What was your January 20th, 2009 like, or what do you remember of this day?
I don't remember to many details about January 20th, 2009. I took my older kids to school. When I came home I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama on t.v. most of the morning and afternoon. I also remember that we had some beautiful winter weather! It was just over 70F at my house that day.