ABSTRACT:
This text considers Paulo Freire’s contributions to the subject of childhood. Aware that childhood was not one of Freire’s central preoccupations, this study features Freire, the master from Pernambuco, on a “minor” topic of his oeuvre. To this end, this article studies Freire’s consideration of his own childhood in Letters to Cristina — an autobiographical text where Freire is in public dialogue with himself — to highlight the image of childhood presented there. This is accompanied by references to other works (e.g., The Importance of the Act of Reading, This School Called Life, On Education: Some Dialogues, Towards a Pedagogy of the Question, Under the Shade of this Mango Tree; Pedagogy of Hope, and Pedagogy of Indignation) where Freire, the educator from Pernambuco, presents his notion of childhood. As the text will show, Freire’s notion goes beyond the traditional idea of childhood as a chronological stage to establish an idea of childhood as a vital force even and, above all, in the case of revolution.
Keywords:
Paulo Freire; Childhood; Revolution; Time