In this era of high-stakes testing, standards, highly qualified teachers, No Child Left Behind, and other attacks on public education, one might question whether social justice plays a role in classroom teaching.  As educators, we have a responsibility to work to dismantle systems of oppression in our work within the classroom.  The book, Che Guevara, Paulo Friere, and the Pedagogy of Revolution, written by UCLA Professor Peter McLaren, suggests that the lives and works of Che Guevara and Paulo Friere would make a good starting point for the development of a revolutionary critical pedagogy; a critical approach to teaching that addresses issues of race, class, gender, and imperialism. 

 

Friere's work primarily involved adult literacy.  In particular, he developed a process of literacy education by which "reading and writing… became grounded in the lived experiences of peasants and workers and resulted in a process of ideological struggle and revolutionary praxis" (p.143).  Che's was trained as a medical doctor, but eventually found himself working primarily with armed revolution, and on the possibilities that political revolution had for extending and enhancing human potential.  He taught through "personal example, what teachers often call 'modeling ethically and practically' what is to be taught" (p.79).

 

What do Che and Freire have to offer us in our work as educators?  Peter McClaren writes, "A revolutionary pedagogy informed by Guevarian- and Freirean-inspired leadership qualities would place the liberation from race, class, and gender oppression as the key goal for education for the new millennium.  Education—as well as imperialist practices against other countries—so conceived would be dedicated to creating a citizenry dedicated to social justice and to the reinvention of social life based on democratic socialist ideals." (p.196)  This book sketches out what a "pedagogy grounded in the lived experiences of students" (p.102) would look like through its critical exploration of Che and Freire's lives and is definitely worth reading if you're interested in anti-oppressive education.  The first chapter of the book can be found at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/pages/mclaren/mclaren%20and%20che.pdf.