The Power of Awareness

When a government fears a teacher more than an army… something is very wrong.

In 1964, Brazil’s military coup didn’t fear armies or foreign powers—they feared

classrooms. Freire had trained 300 culture circles, teaching thousands of rural workers

to read not just words but their own oppression. A literate electorate could vote.

And a conscious electorate could resist. So the regime arrested him,

interrogated him, called him a “subversive international agent,” and forced him into exile.

But exile didn’t stop him. His ideas spread across Chile, then Harvard,

then the world—translated, smuggled, photocopied, taught in secret where dictatorships