Content:

In 1963, global icon Paulo Freire led an experimental project teaching hundreds of rural farmers to read, write and vote in Brazil, until he was arrested and forced into exile during a U.S.-backed coup d'état.

Told through the collective memories of farmers, students, and educators who participated in the “Culture Circles," where they learned to read and write in 40 hours, Reading the World contains rare archival footage of 1960s Brazil that was recently recovered after being buried for decades. The innovative teaching method used critical and creative thinking instead of memorization and repetition. By contextualizing and personalizing the lessons, educators used their surroundings to teach vocabulary and construct meaning. Hundreds of Brazilians became literate and were allowed to vote as a consequence, strengthening the blossoming democracy and social movement that was disrupting the colonial structures. After a shocking coup d’état, the farmers’ notebooks were set on fire, and Freire was eventually forced into exile for 16 years, spreading his pedagogy around the globe and impacting democracy and education until today. Today Freire is considered one of the most influential philosophers of education in the twentieth century, and revered by educators.

William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (retired). He is an engaged scholar and a peace and social justice activist who has written extensively about social justice and freedom, democracy and education, the cultural contexts of schooling, and teaching as an essentially intellectual, ethical, and political enterprise. He is a former vice-president of the curriculum division of the American Educational Research Association, and a former member of the executive committee of the Faculty Senate at UIC.

Presented in partnership with the Logan Center for the Arts and The Chicago SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) History Project

Special thanks to Peter Kuttner