Mentoring the Mentor

Download or read book Mentoring the Mentor written by Paulo Freire and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1997 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mentoring the Mentor recreates a Freirian dialogue in a printed format. In this volume, sixteen distinguished scholars engage in a critical and thoughtful exchange with Paulo Freire. While some contributors voice appreciation for Freire's ideas and for what it means to «reinvent Freire» in a North American context, others offer sharp critiques of Freire's philosophy and, of equal importance, of the various interpretations of his work. A variety of chapters describe specific uses which have been made of Freire's ideas in diverse educational contexts, from the New York City public schools to the revolutions in Guinea Bissau and Eritrea. Finally, Paulo Freire himself responds to the major issues which are raised in the volume and invites readers to share in a continuing lively dialogue about the meaning of democratic and revolutionary education. «The fundamental task of the mentor is a liberatory task. It is not to encourage the mentor's goals and aspirations and dreams to be reproduced in the mentees, the students, but to give rise to the possibility that the students become the owners of their own history. This is how I understand the need that teachers have to transcend their merely instructive task and to assume the ethical posture of a mentor who truly believes in the total autonomy, freedom, and development of those he or she mentors.» (from Chapter Sixteen, «A Response» by Paulo Freire)