Will Brehm  0:55
Alma Flor Ada, welcome to FreshEd.

Alma Flor Ada  1:11
Thank you. I’m delighted to be here.

Will Brehm  1:14
It’s so wonderful to have you join us to celebrate Paulo Freire and his 100th birthday. So, when did you first encounter Paulo Freire’s work?

Alma Flor Ada  1:23
I encountered his work when I was a university student in Lima, Peru. And it was through very humble ways. Students were smuggling mimeograph copies -I hope everyone listening to this has an idea of what a mimeograph is. And it’s printed copies of his classes from Chile. We were living in very repressive times in Peru at the time. It was a supposedly elected president, but he really was just a continuation of a previous dictatorship. So, Freire’s name was taboo.

Will Brehm  1:58
Why was Freire’s name taboo in that time? Why did they have to be smuggled in?

Alma Flor Ada  2:02
He was considered to be a revolutionary and someone who would steer people into understanding their place in the world and their rights in the world. Then I was able, a couple of years later, I guess, to find a very small paper that I think, pirated copy of The Pedagogy of the Oppressed in a bookstore in Lima, and, and I read it, and I began trying to learn all I could about Freire. And at the time I was studying but I was also teaching, and I taught my students everything I knew about Freire -they were high school kids. And they were very excited about it. And this was a very wonderful German school that is trilingual (German, Spanish, English), Alexander Von Humboldt. And the school itself was very fancy although many of the students that were there came from working families. And the students were very moved with the idea of what Freire was doing. And in that area, it was a new development area in Lima, very elegant. But on the highway there, that was a wall to this side that was really hidden from everyone’s sight, a Barriada. Barriada is one of these make-up barrios of Indigenous people who would come from the countryside to the capital. And then build their huts with whatever materials they possibly could, and live there with no running water, no sewage, I mean, really very difficult conditions. And the students said, “Well, we can do something like Freire did with these persons. And so, we started going to this small community. The first thing that happened is, of course, they were coming ready to alphabetize. Well, these people didn’t speak Spanish, there were only a couple of the students who spoke Quechua because their families have land in the mountains, and they, from visiting there had learned the language from the peasants. So, alphabetizing didn’t seem to be the easiest thing to do. But furthermore, we learned the most important lesson: it wasn’t about what we wanted to teach the people. It was what did they need? Well, these people have a very clear need. They were selling things on the street. They were selling fruits and vegetables that other people would bring to them, and tell them to sell it for whatever price. And then once they sold them, they’re supposed to pay back for the merchandise. But they didn’t understand the money. They didn’t really know how to make change. So, they were being ripped off all over because they will put their hand and the people will pay whatever they want to pay them. Or they would put their hand for the people to take the change. And some people were honest, but many were not. And so, they knew they had the great necessity of learning how to handle money. So, we began doing that with them.

And then right after that, we tried to find out more things they needed. Well, the next thing they needed was, food was not a nice thing to sell. Because they didn’t have any way to store it. They didn’t have refrigerators or anything. So, part of their merchandise would go bad if they didn’t sell it on time. So, they knew that their women knew how to sew. And if they could get materials on a sewing machine, they would be able to make clothes to sell and that would be more permanent. So, the students went back to the parents, and they were able to get three donated, used sewing machines, which we would bring. Then the thing was, who would use them? How would they use them? Well, they were very community-oriented. So, with the help of some of the parents that were willing to donate some of the materials, and the men from there, they built a community area. Just a big community hall. Very simple but open, roofing and floor. And the sewing machines were installed there. They were not electric, they were just a pedal. And the women would take turns on using the machines. And meanwhile, there would be others that were not sewing would guard everybody’s children. So, in that big area, they had a place for the little babies and toddlers, the smaller children and some of the mothers who take care of them while the others were sewing and then they would take turns this way. And it was amazing how they could organize this with no discord, with no difficulty. And for the students, it was such a big learning experience to see how these people were capable. Then they came up with a request for us. And the request was, they wanted paint because they wanted to paint numbers in the houses. The houses were made of straw mats, of cardboard, of old pieces of wood. They were very humble houses but they wanted numbers because all the houses in the city when they went out there to sell, had numbers. So, we tried to make up a map of this -there were about 50 families there- a map of these crooked streets and where the houses were to try to make sense of the numbers we were going to put. But then no! They didn’t want the numbers in any order. They wanted to put the number they like. So, everybody could choose their favorite number. But this was such a learning for us. Of how you can’t just walk into a community and think you can help them out with your preconceived notions. For them, numbers were magical. And they want a good magical number that would be important for the house, not numbers that meant something for other people. So, it was Freire in action in a very interesting way. And of course, some of them did want to learn many other things and they would express whatever they wanted to learn. And the students would create practical and visual ways to teach them whatever they wanted, like the areas of the city, the most important streets, and the buses, where they run and all kinds of different things.

Will Brehm  8:19
Was it ever dangerous to be teaching your students such sort of community activism? Because if the very books that Paulo Freire was writing were censored and had to be smuggled in, and here you are teaching students how to, sort of, enact a lot of these ideas and embrace Paulo Freire’s teachings, was it ever dangerous in that context at that time?

Alma Flor Ada  8:42
By the time, to be very sincere about this, a president had been elected, a new president and sort of the situation from that respect was a little less complex. This doesn’t mean that my ways were very esoteric, if you want, with regards to the curriculum and the other. One big benefit that I had to be able to do this is that the daughter of the principal of the school was my student. And he really appreciated what was going on. He actually saved me, probably, from being expelled from this school at another moment, not related necessarily with Freire but the most extraordinary writer of Peru, Jose Maria Arguedas, who wrote novels about the life in the mountains in these small towns. He knew the Indigenous people very, very closely. And he wrote in Spanish but in a way that reflected the syntax, the language, the imagery of the characters that he wrote about. Very sensitive man and he committed suicide after a couple of days died. And it was his burial and my students had been studying his work with me and I said, you know, they’re burying him right now. And they say, why are we not there? And so, I took off with my 42 students in my class, got on a public bus, didn’t tell anybody where we were going, didn’t ask for permission. We just in all our emotion, went to that cemetery. It was extraordinary and is something I will never forget. Because he’d been dying for two days many Indigenous people came from all over Peru. And I don’t know if you’ve seen cemeteries in Spanish speaking countries, they tend to have monuments and raised homes and things. And these people climbed on all of those. And from there, they were singing for him. And they were playing the Indian harp, they were, really it was so, so moving. And my students felt that it was the only place they were supposed to be at the time was that. And we return back to school and of course, all the other professors were in arms. This was so against the norms of a German school. But the principal stood up for me, and he said he was happy that his daughter had had that opportunity. And all of these other things that Paulo had in a way given us permission to do.

Will Brehm  11:06
What about your own scholarship, as well as all of the children’s books? I mean, you have created countless children’s books. How do you see Paulo Freire’s, sort of, influence in your scholarship and in your children book creations?

Alma Flor Ada  11:23
It’s interesting, but there was a book published by Libraries Unlimited about my work, and it has a preface by two professors from Kent State University in Ohio, and they found the Paulo Freire presence in my books.

Will Brehm  11:38
And do you agree with them?

Alma Flor Ada  11:40
Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ll tell you something else, a personal presence of Freire. My daughter has always been my most important critic. And from the time at three years old, she told me that she was writing books because mine were too ugly -high school books- And she was three years old. She’s always been a critic. And when she was about 12, one day, she said, I hear you talking about this Paulo Freire and I’m very impressed. And I have even been reading a little of his Pedagogy of the Oppressed but what I don’t see is Paulo Freire in the way we live in this family. You make all the decisions. It was deep. It was profound. She was the oldest of four. And from that day on, we dialogued. So, my relationship with my children has been very much more on a very equal terms of respect, and value of everyone’s views.

Will Brehm  12:35
So, you really embody and live a lot of his ideas. I mean, it makes sense since you’ve studied him, and you’ve taught him for so long.

Alma Flor Ada  12:44
And my daughter was wonderful on that end. By the way, she names her work ‘dia-praxis’.

Will Brehm  12:50
Did you ever meet Paulo Freire?

Alma Flor Ada  12:52
Oh, yes, yes, absolutely. Yes, of course, I met him.

Will Brehm  12:55
When did you first meet him?

Alma Flor Ada  12:57
I first met him in Sacramento at the home of a professor. This was at the time that he still wasn’t coming under the auspices of Carnoy nor doing public things. But this was just a small gathering that some people had put together. And I went with my daughter. It was a small circle in this living room. There weren’t that many seats, and I sat on the floor next to him. It’s not like I purposely did that. But I did it. I mean, it was the right thing, right. And then after that, there was a break and he wanted to know who I was. When I told him my name, we recognized that we had a very dear common friend, someone that had recently passed away and had spoke to Paulo about me. And so, he knew about me before. This was Augusto Salazar Bondy, the Peruvian philosopher, who was a dear friend of mine and he became a good friend to Paulo. And for some reason he talked to him about me. So, Paulo immediately embraced me from that moment on.

Will Brehm  13:59
How nice. What was he like as a person -Paulo Freire?

Alma Flor Ada  14:02
He was very simple, very human, very unassuming, very modest in reality, extraordinarily kind. He really embodied everything he ever wrote. He was a listener, and he knew how to listen. He also knew how to engage and how to offer others the possibility of dialogue. You know, there are always those little anecdotes that somehow stay with one, and one of them happened in one of the times that I brought him to USF. By then the university had opened to him and the dean suggested that we would go to lunch, and Paulo, and the dean, and I went to lunch, just the three of us. And we took him to a Peruvian restaurant -a real good restaurant in San Francisco- thinking that he would enjoy the food. In this restaurant they had this way of serving, where they would bring the food in a big platter loaded with food. And Paulo looked at the food and he was pensive. And then he became so sad and he said, “In my country, this would be food for a whole family. There is no way I can eat this”. You can think in retrospect, there were things that could have been done like, like asking for a plate serving but that wasn’t the issue. I mean, he got so deeply into this, feeling physically the inadequacy, the inequity, and the real inequality. I mean, so the dean just stood there witnessing this experience. I did too. And after a little while, the three of us got up and left because this was such a solemn and powerful moment. But it was totally authentic. It was something that happened in that moment. And I can tell you that for years, I could not cross the dean in the hall that he wouldn’t say, do you remember Paulo’s face that day? That he humanized that thing quite a bit.

Will Brehm  16:05
That seems like Paulo Freire had that ability on a lot of people. To humanize people and then they themselves learn how to be human as well going forward. What would you say some of Paulo Freire’s biggest ideas are, that have had the most impact? Because we’re thinking about his legacy today. So, when looking at his legacy, what ideas stick out the most in your mind?

Alma Flor Ada  16:29
For me, now at this present moment, but always. One -and I’m putting this in my words – but he spoke about freedom. Explaining what freedom really was. And see, I’m adding, freedom is something that most people would want, would desire, and some people feel they deserve, and it’s their inalienable right to have freedom to do what they do, come what may. And we’re seeing it all over at this moment in this country. But Paulo explained so clearly that freedom was not something that you can grab and have for the rest of your life. Freedom is a praxis. Every action that you make can be free or not. You can’t say, I’m a free person. I’m a person, which always tried to add freedom in every action of my life. That would be the way I describe what I learned from him. So, what is freedom then? Well, to really act freely, you need first of all, to reflect on what has created the circumstances that you are trying to make a decision about? And then you have to reflect about what are the consequences, or what are the different alternatives that there are? What are the different things that can happen now? And of those things that can happen? What would the consequences of each of them? Not just for me, but for me and others. Now there is a moment there where one needs to do some inner reflection about how are my own biases, how are my own desires, my own selfishness coming into play into the decision that I’m going to make, and at that point, knowing exactly what the consequences are, not only for you, but for the things you hold meaningful -for justice, or equality, for attitudes that will lead to peace- then you can choose. And if you choose at that time, you truly are choosing with freedom. I’m not saying you might always choose right. You might even not have understood part of the process. But you have to go through that process in order to say I’m acting freely. I’m not acting through imitation. I’m not acting through following a crowd. I’m not acting by prejudice. I’m not acting by pressures. I’m acting because as a human being, I have the potential to go through this reflective process. And that, to me, that was very valuable. And also very valuable is this idea of praxis, as you act and then you reflect on your action, and then that leads to new action. So, it’s not like, Oh, I’m sorry, I made a mistake. I did the wrong thing. It’s what am I learning from this thing that I’ve done, and how I am going to modify my next action in order that it would move in a different direction. I mean, in that sense, to me, praxis is such a powerful word. Because we tend to act, and oh I did it right or I did it wrong. No. I’m acting in order to now reflect about how I am acting, and that’s the process of evolution, of thinking, and personality, and attitude that I so much value having received from Paulo.

Will Brehm  19:37
And it seems like there’s a real connection between praxis and freedom. Because, as you were saying, freedom is this ongoing process. And there’s an interior sort of dialogue that has to go on with yourself when choosing how to act in this world. And then reflecting and seeing how your actions might have impacted the world. And making new actions in the future that hopefully go towards freedom or embody some notion of freedom. So, I want to sort of historicize Paulo Freire. So, where did his idea, in a sense, of freedom and praxis even come from? In other words, what context was Paulo Freire developing these ideas in Brazil when he did? What was happening around him?

Alma Flor Ada  20:29
Will, what was happening around him is the tremendous distance that exists in most of Latin America ―between those that have the power, and those that are completely oppressed. And he was seeing that and living that and wanting to change that. And he felt that the oppressed had to liberate themselves. That the oppressor was not going to come and say, “Hey, now I realize that I have been unjust to you. And then we’re going to bring some justice about”. That was never going to happen. You know, it’s interesting, when you asked about his impact, I didn’t talk about the issue of oppression and liberation. And that is also one of the most important things learned from Paulo. Learn that oppression oppresses both those who are oppressed and those who oppress them because it dehumanizes the oppressor. And so, the art of liberation is of great generosity for everyone. And that’s what the opponents of Paulo Freire, or the opponents of any liberating attitude would say. “Oh, you are imposing on me, you are attacking me, you’re trying to take my privileges” without understanding we are trying to humanize you. We’re trying to let you be free of the internal oppression that you have without knowing it. You might not be oppressed in actions, in your livelihood, in your economics but you are oppressed by having become an oppressor. And I think that was probably the one thing that made Freire become a global, important figure because it goes beyond the education field. It goes to all of life. And it’s something real in the whole world. I mean, I don’t believe any area of the world where there are not some people that are oppressed. It might be a few small places where that is less painful but for most of the world, there is a tremendous division between those who have and those who are not allowed to have. That having is not only economic. It’s having really freedom of choice, it’s really having freedom of recognition of who they are. It goes in so many aspects of life.

Will Brehm  22:41
We’re celebrating his 100th birthday today. And his ideas obviously have had a huge impact over the last half century and more. Do you see him continuing to have an impact going forward in the next 100 years, for instance?

Alma Flor Ada  22:58
Well, I wish it wasn’t as needed as it is. I am convinced that it will continue to be needed for still sometime, and that his voice will still be there guiding many people. I don’t see him being silenced.

Will Brehm  23:13
Alma Flor Ada, thank you so much for joining FreshEd. It really was a pleasure to talk today.

Alma Flor Ada  23:18
I’m absolutely delighted.

Want to help translate this show? Please contact info@freshedpodcast.com

Related Guest Project/Publications
Alma Flor Ada website
Participatory research: Paulo Freire and Alma Flor Ada
Authors in the classroom: A transformative education process

Mentioned

Paulo Freire in Chile, 1964-1969

Jose Maria Arguedas

Augusto Salazar Bondy

Related Resources
Yawar Fiesta -Novel by Jose Maria Arguedas

Is there a philosophy of our America? – by Augusto Salazar Bondy

Social panorama in Latin America 2020

The inequality crisis: Latin America and the Caribbean at a crossroads

The philosophical influences on the work of Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire’s intellectual roots: Toward historicity in praxis

Paulo Freire’s philosophy of education: Origins, development, impacts and legacies
Paulo Freire Institute

Selected Freire’s Works
Education as the practice of freedom
The adult literacy process as action for freedom
Cultural action for freedom
Cultural action and conscientization
Conscientisation
The banking concept of education
Education for critical consciousness
The politics of education: Culture, power, and liberation
Pedagogy of the oppressed
Pedagogy of hope
Pedagogy of Freedom

Multimedia Resources

The heart of Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire: An incredible conversation

Have any useful resources related to this show? Please send them to info@freshedpodcast.com