Paulo Freire’s work is often characterized and used in terms that seek to produce widespread political and economic changes across societies. Peter Roberts, however, in his book Paulo Freire in the twenty-first Century, offers readers a much different way of approaching Freire’s work. Throughout his book, Roberts presents Freire as recognizing the limitations of educational initiatives, as not seeking specific macro-political objectives, and as emphasizing openness to alternative discourses. These themes weave throughout each chapter of the book, in which Roberts (...) examines a wide range of topics, from Freire and Dostoevsky to reason and emotion to political correctness to Freire and the Tao Te Ching. In this review essay, I engage a number of purposes. I elucidate and trace these three themes as they weave throughout and support the various topics that Roberts examines in his book. I illustrate how Roberts’s treatment of these themes challenges many of the interpretations of Freire’s work found within the critical literature, and, through this critique, it offers readers new ways of thinking about Freire’s thinking. Lastly, I discuss how Roberts’s thoughts suggest new ways that Freire’s work, and critical education in general, might begin to make more meaningful and practical inroads into public education and might develop new avenues of scholarship on Freire’s work. (shrink)

Critical pedagogy has often been linked in the literature to faith traditions such as liberation theology, usually with the intent of improving or redirecting it. While recognizing and drawing from those previous linkages, Jacob Neumann goes further in this essay and develops the thesis that critical pedagogy can not just benefit from a connection with faith traditions, but is actually, in and of itself, a practice of faith. In this analysis, he juxtaposes critical pedagogy against three conceptualizations of faith: John (...) Caputo's blurring of the modernist division between faith and reason, Paul Tillich's argument that faith is “ultimate concern,” and Paulo Freire's theology and early Christian influences. Using this three-pronged approach, Neumann argues that regardless of how it is seen, critical pedagogy manifests as a practice of faith “all the way down.”. (shrink)

Emotions can either help or hinder students’ learning. This is especially true in early childhood education. This article analyzes data on how two early childhood teachers account for students’ emo...