Che Guevara,Paulo Freire,and the Politics of Hope: Reclaiming Critical Pedagogy

Abstract

Over the past several years, there has been a renewed interest in the life and teachings of Che Guevara and Paulo Freire among the revolution ary-minded. This renewed interest in Che and Freire is occurring at a time when Left educators are attempting to address the consequences of the globalization of capital and the effects of transnational capital on public education. The educational left's current enthrallment with postmodern the ory has done little to advance the cause of critical pedagogy, especially in the face of the current corporate assault on public schooling. This article argues that a renewed engagement with historical materialist analysis and revolutionary politics is urgently necessary to cut through the equivocations and revisionism of the postmodern Left and develop a critical pedagogy that is able to challenge the devastating effects brought about by the global ization of capitalism. Education workers are encouraged to move beyond mere efforts at reforming institutions of public education and to take up a dynamic new revolutionary politics in keeping with the examples offered by the life and dialectical thought of Che Guevara and Paulo Freire.