Che Guevara, Paulo Freire and the Pedagogy of Revolution

Multicultural Education, Fall 2001 by Wozenski, Janet

CHE GUEVARA, PAULO FREIRE AND THE PEDAGOGY OF REVOLUTION By Peter LcLaren. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000; ISBN 0-8476-9532-8.

-Reviewed by Janet Wozenski

At the outset, I must admit que je ne me sens pas digne to write a review of this book, given the obviously illustrious cast of author Peter McLaren, forward by Ana Maria Freire, and the editors Henry A. Giroux and Joe L. Kincheloe of the Pennsylvania State University Culture and Education Series, to which this book belongs.

This book is not for the faint of heart. The erudition places it squarely at the graduate school level. Pedagogical areas which could be interested in this treatise include history, economics, education, philosophy, polyscience, journalism, theology, foreign relations, sociology. It should be a great delight for the educational elite to posture at revolution while discussing this book, but it will have to be translated down through the ranks of the undergrads, secondary school, and paysans who actually effect the revolutions of the world. Who is to translate this to the people who cannot read? I am reminded of an agricultural economic output analysis carried out to 3 decimal places based on data from farmers who had no idea how to measure the size of their fields.

The author's choice of self portrait with a right deltoid Che tatoo reflects his leanings, even if the tatoo is on the wrong arm. There are 138 pages devoted to Che analysis, notes, and documentation, 44 pages alloted to Paulo Freire, and 23 for McLaren's call to action. The lives of

Che Guevara and Paulo Freire are briefly summarized, either in bullet form or in endnotes. Anecdotes from their lives are less plentiful than McLaren's analysis of each of their messages for the United States of today. The wealth of bibliographic references to works written by and about each of the heros demonstrates that little more needs to be said about them per se. I would have liked more direct quotes from Guevara and Freire.

The tone is one of defiant bias against capitalism. Many terms are not indexed, but then this is not truly a work of history. The vocabulary used brings to mind barely literate women in a health clinic who once praised to me the intelligence of a speaker because they couldn't understand anything he said. Since he was speaking so obviously over their heads, he must have been very smart indeed.

Perhaps the United States does need such a push and shove against capitalism in this "post-history"epoch. I kept asking myself, "wither the rest of the world?" Such statements as "now is the time to brush hard against the grain of teaching until the full range of revolutionary pedagogical options are made available in the public schools of the nation, realizing that none of these options is panacean and that all of them will require susbtained theoretical and political engagement" (p.185) seemed myopic.

Who needs the revolution more, the United States, the present day country alsorans, or both? Why is only one nation addressed here? In his acknowledgements, McLaren thanks the contributions of his class in the Pedagogy of Revolution. But the names of these students seemed predominantly of Hispanic and European origin. I wonder how far McLaren's message is really spreading. [On 15 August, 2000, amazon.com the book had sold over 60,000 copies.]

"A revolutionary pedagogy fights for macroeconomic policies favoring full employment and guaranteed support in the public sector for public schools, global labor rights, sustainable development, environmental protections, and the growth of popular movements for social and economic change" (p. 199). These movements are swirling all around me here in Africa, through the NGOs, church groups, etc.-but who knows about them? Where is the real story of these movements being brought out?

Pointing out that "Che threw into critical relief the so-called untouchable virtures of capitalism and revealed how democracies such as the United States work in clandestine ways through acts of imperialsm to destabilize regimes whose resources and leaders it couldn't control" (p. 196) seemed anticlimactic. The American press and the Freedom of Information Act are fully functional. It is the editors and the deciders of what gets put on the air who are censoring the press. A comparison of CNN national and CNN international reveals astounding difference of content presented by many of the same anchorpeople. There is more unbiased reporting available to many countries outside of the United States, than there is within that country. My illiterate night guard listens to the BBC radio and compares that to the local radio broadcasts. Do most literate Americans compare news sources?

As this is written, information has been released of the involvment of Eisenhower in the elimination of Lumumba, and the popularity of "The X files," mystics, and "West Wing" continue. More people would vote for the President as portrayed in the TV series "West Wing" than for any of the recently available presidential candidates. Disillusionment with politics among American youth is obvious. They are looking for action. People demonstrated for the Cuban boy Elian, demonstrations disrupted the Seattle World Trade Conference, and the Zurich Davos Economic Conference. There is opportunity for protest in the United States.