Why are we yet freireans?

Assessing “paulofreirianismo”, a “secular theology”

Abstract

Why we are yet freireans? The answer to this simple question seems no longer be pedagogic, educative and libertarian, but transformed in something else: a secular theology. This is the point of an essay from Flávio Brayner, from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), entitled “Paulofreireanismo”: a secular theology?. He calls “institutionalization” the process of metamorphosis that transformed the freirean pedagogy. In his essay, he recognizes the following constituting elements of the process: cult to the persona, doctrinaire fidelity, the creation of a methodology program, of a proper and legitimized lexicon and of an academic discipline. As the last and decisive element is the assumption of the “Paulo Freire’s method” as the basis and modus operandi of Public Policies by the promulgation of him as Patron of Brazilian Education, in 2012, and the publication of the Mark of Reference to the Popular Education, in 2014. This process, and some additions of inner questions of Paulo Freire’s pedagogy, that is, its prophetic (eschatological) and salvationist (soteriological) goals, guided Flávio Brayner to find an answer to his question in another place: in a weird mixture between secularity and theology. In this paper, I pretend to analyze his argumentation to better comprehend what he called “paulofreireanismo” e how it have complicated, refrained and distorted the fruitful critical that could emerge from the deepened study of Paulo Freire’s works.