Freire, Frei and Literacy Texts in Chile, 1964 ©1970

{� Viviana Ramfrez made helpful comments on this first draft; a 
fuller version appears as Chapter 4 in Austin, R. A Critical 
History of Literacy Programs in Chile, 1964 © 1993 [forthcoming 
doctoral dissertation, University of Newcastle, 1995]}

Synopsis

As with the period of the UNESCO©backed literacy campaign in Cuba 
before it, the period 1964©1970 in
Chile is arguably one of the few great watersheds in 20th century 
history of education. Responding to
popular literacy debates reaching back to the latter decades of the 
19th century, the Frei Montalva
administration sponsored a literacy campaign which transformed the 
relationship between subject, text
and society. The links between the ideological subtext of the literacy 
campaign and popular rejection of
"democratic" capitalism in Chile were not insignificant. Indeed, there 
remain influences in global
educational discourse today of the Freire/Frei period.

This paper analyses the social and cultural context of the period, and 
locates literacy within that context.
Inter alia, it argues that the centrality accorded the early work of 
Freire in the Chilean literacy process
has tended to marginalise the significant contribution of co©workers 
[for instance, no English edition of Cultural Action for Freedom 
carries reference to its Chilean editor Marcela Gajardo]; and 
that thereremain unresolved contradictions between the stage of Freirian 
theoretical development applicable, and the textual 
representations of that theory.

I. Introductory Remarks: the historical context

Prevailing accounts of Paulo Freire's work in Chile from 1965 © 1969 
privilege
Freire's undoubted contribution to education North and South, 
derivative of his
work in that period. This paper approaches the era and its sequels with 
an
antithetical lens: the arguably under©recognised contribution made by 
Chilean
society to the development of Freirian philosophy of education. 

It may be unreasonable to characterise the post 1970 writings of Paulo 
Freire
as a series of elaborate footnotes to the complex theoretical and 
methodological
legacy of his Chilean experience. Certainly a recent engagement with
postmodernism

{2 see Paulo Freire en los 90':Di logo con Francisco V¡o
Grossi, en Chile  Video y TV Canelo, San Bernardo, Chile 1991;
and Weiler, K. `Freire and a Feminist Pedagogy of Difference'
in Harvard Educational Review Vol.61 No.4, November 1991}

 and earlier abandonment of conscientisation

{3 Freire, P. in Gajardo, M. La Concientizaci¢n en Am‚rica
Latina: Una Revisi¢n Cr¡tica CREFAL, Michoac n, 1991; p.15} 

delineate
apparently fresh stages of Freire's intellectual development. 
Sandwiched
however between embryonic work in Goulart's Brazil from 1959 © 1964 and 
his
later Guinea©Bissau and occidental experiences, the turbulent Chile of 
the
ultimately conservative Christian Democrat Frei Montalva government 
endures
as the engine room of Freirian intellectual history.
 
Mainstream analyses of the history of literacy in Chile distinguish 
three moments relative to the fluctuations in the official rate of 
illiteracy since 1865:

The first moment comprises the period 1865©1920 and is 
characterised by a slow but permanent
decrease in the rate of illiteracy from 83 per cent to 49.7 per cent, 
with a mean annual rate of
decrease of a little over 0.5 per cent.

The second moment ... extends from 1920 to 1930 ... and it is 
the period in which there occurs the
most important cultural leap in the transformation of [Chile's] 
population from an illiterate to a
literate one. The percentage of illiterates in Chile's population 
dropped abruptly from 49.7 percent
in 1920 to 25.6 percent in 1930.

The third moment is of relative stagnation. The rate of illiteracy 
climbed in 1940 to 27.3 percent ...
only to drop to 19.8 percent in 1952.

{4 Silvert, K. et al Education, Class and Nation: the
experiences of Chile and Venezuela Elsevier, New York 1976,
p.134}

Disregarding the analysis of statistics for the moment, here we add a 
fourth moment from 1964 to 1970, when the rate of illiteracy again 
declined but was
overshadowed by the significance of transformational social structures
supported during the National Literacy Campaign of the Frei Montalva
administration, Paulo Freire's work being germane to that work.    

Formal education in Chile had traditionally been an enclave for the 
central
valley economic elites, congruent with the organisation of broader 
society. The
great educational reforms of the instigated by teacher organisations 
during the
1939 © 1942 Popular Front government of Pedro Aguirre 
Cerda

{5 Martner, C. Contribuciones y Carencias del Discurso
Educacional de la Izquierda Chilena, 1938 © 1952 ECO, Santiago
de Chile 1986, p.51}

 © including an
attack on illiteracy via compulsory secular primary schooling ©  were
anaesthetised during subsequent regimes, notably those of Iba¤ez del 
Campo
[1946©52] and Alessandri [1956©64]. It was not until the advent of the 

Frei Montalva regime in 1964 that serious attention was given to 
implementing theCompulsory Basic Schooling act of 1920. 

The situation of the indentured labour [inquilinos] and 
peasants [campesinos]
upon which the vast agricultural estates were constructed, and 
depended, had
ossified since decolonisation: an observer's description of 1820s Chile 
remained
eerily appropriate one and a half centuries later:

The peasant's station in society had not been materially 
changed by the subversion of the
Spanish authority; while that of his landlord was essentially altered 
in almost every point
... while the peasant remains nearly as before, his superior has gained 
many advantages.
He has obtained political independence, he is free, and secure in his 
person and property;
for the first time in his life, he has a share in the government of his 
country; he may aspire to the highest offices of profit or 
distinction; the value of his property is enhanced by the
market which has been opened to carry off its produce; and he feels no 
reserve in displaying
his wealth, or in expressing his opinions; in short, he is in 
possession of civil liberty.

{6 cited in Lynch, J. TheSpanish © American Revolutions,
1808 © 1826 Norton, New York 1973; p.153} 

The Christian Democrat agrarian reform program responded in part to
modernisation pressures from several sources but particularly 
international
capital, and in part to increasingly©focussed agitation among the 
permanently
dispossessed peasant class amid establishment fears that it would unite 
with
the industrial working class. This it would presently do through the 
political
organisations MAPU [Movement for Unified Popular Action] and MIR [Left
Revolutionary Movement], the former soon to join the Popular Unity
government of Salvador Allende and the latter to retain influence 
within popular sectors of rural society.

{7 See for instance Garret¢n, M. The Chilean Political
Process  Unwin Hyman, Boston, 1989; p.32}

The state as embodiment of the interests of dominant elites had since 
the previous century fostered a dual system of formal education, 
primary [b sica]
being the common aspiration with secondary [media] and beyond 
the preserve
of the chosen few. State formation was interdependent along three axes 
in
education: the maintenance of the binary unevenness in the formal 
sector
mentioned above [with an added layer of rural disadvantage], dependency 
on
Herbartian and similar outmoded occidental theories as the standard 
pedagogy
of classroom activity, and an entrenched gender and racial division of
educational production. To a significant extent these mirrored the 

class
divisions of the broader society, notwithstanding the postwar emergence 
of a
substantial petit bourgeoisie or middle class to which Frei 
had broad political
appeal and was in turn to devote considerable economic and political 
energy.   
Official illiteracy rates for the Frei Montalva era hovered around the 
12©15% locus,

{8 Informaciones Estad¡sticas de la Educaci¢n y An lisis
Cuantitativo No. 25  UNESCO, Santiago de Chile, 1982}

 based on the 
UNESCO definition of literacy: the ability to write, read
and comprehend a simple sentence on the subject's everyday life. If in 
contrast
we take Letelier's critique of contemporary formal statistics and apply 
it
retrospectively, the official UNESCO estimations appear markedly 
understated.
The Letelier model of years of schooling yields an average rate of 
illiteracy for
the period of around 50%, unevenly distributed on gender lines and 
worse in rural areas.

{9 Letelier, M.E. `Contribuci¢n de la Alfabetizaci¢n en la
Construcci¢n de una Identidad Cultural: Taller de Acci¢n
Cultural de Chile' in Pic¢n, C. Alfbetizar para la Democracia
CEAAL/A¤o Internacional de la Alfabetizaci¢n, Santiago 
de Chile, 1990; p.27}

It was this chronic rural rate which first 
attracted the attention of Freire's
team in the Ministry of Agriculture, and which when coupled with 
traditional
nuances led to the program's being embedded in campaign mode, an almost
mystical tendency in a country long the focus of campaigns: from the 
liberation
campaign by O'Higgins and San Mart¡n, the Atacama Desert campaign 
against Peru and Bolivia [1879©83],

{10 This was the so©called `War of the Pacific' fought
ostensibly over a minuscule mining tax but, in reality,
ultimately ceding the massive Peruvian nitrate deposits to
Chile and severing crucial Bolivian access to the Pacific. See
Loveman, B. op.cit. pp.167©172}

the postwar choleraelimination campaign and
numerous volatile, well©funded electoral campaigns. The campaign 
tradition
has a sense of illusion around it, a veil masking unaddressed core 
realities andincomplete analyses.

The campaign ethos is here viewed as a deficit, constructing as it does 
the
sense of finality once a campaign finishes [as it duly did under Frei], 
leaving
nevertheless much unaddressed terrain. The metaphor of a virus being, 
as
Freire and Bhola have separately noted, "eradicated", is not entirely 
out of place.


{11  see Bhola, H.S. Campaigning for Literacy: Eight
national experiences of the twentieth century, with a
memorandum to decision©makers UNESCO, Geneva 1982, p.29; and
Freire, P. Cultural Action for Freedom Penguin, Middlesex
1972; p.238}

The naive construction of illiteracy confronts it as if it were 
an `absolute in itself', or a `dangerous
plant' needing to be `eradicated': hence the current expression 
`eradication of illiteracy'. This
deformed conception of illiteracy as illness we ironically call the 
`bacteriological conception' of
illiteracy, wherein illiteracy appears as a wound or leprosy 
requiring a cure.

{12 Freire, P. [ed. Gajardo, M] Sobre laAcci¢n Cultural
ICIRA, Santiago de Chile 1972; p.28 [my translation]}

Nevertheless, to claim for Freire the alerting of Chilean educators to 
the perils
of the prevailing school and social systems is to marginalise the 
centrality of
education to the social question for much of the preceding part of the 
century.
Indeed the notion that literacy implies development, and that both are
desirable, have been constants on the Chilean political landscape 
virtually from birth of the republic in 1810.

{13 Whilst critical, as opposed to functional literacy is
held to be indispensable to social development, the question
of a suitable development model is here answered by recourse
to the broad set of propositions which constitute the 
theses of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, minus the theological element.

 Various 1907 editions ofthe daily El Mercurio
in Valparaiso carried columns of letters debating the 
importance of literacy to workers in the port economy;

{14 Archives of theBiblioteca Herm¢teca, Valparaiso}

 in 1917 a public forum on literacyin the
capital featured prominent intellectuals, among them Pedro Aguirre 
Cerda, later president of the republic.

{15 See Analfabetismo y Educaci¢n Popular en Chile:
Conferencias organizadas por "El Mercurio" en Julio de 1917
Imprenta Universitaria, Santiago de Chile, 1917}

The Popular Front government led by Cerda [mentioned above] instigated 
aNational Literacy Campaign at the insistence of the Communist Party 
[PC], a member of the governing coalition.

{16 Martner, C. op.cit. p.67}

 The detailed proposal of the PC included
a Department of Literacy and Popular Culture in the Education ministry, 
anational literacy crusade, and the establishment of literacy schools 
and popular
libraries throughout Chile. There would be a vast coverage of cultural 
activity
by the ministry: mobile artistic, cultural and health expositions; 

publication of
literary works; amateur theatre; the creation of evening and night 
schools and
universities; formation of choral and instrumental groups; creation of 
fixed and
mobile libraries; art exhibitions; and educational cinema, interalia.

{17 ibid. p.735}

In 1941, by way of further example, the Chilean Teachers Union proposed 
a
new educational system which would translate in a "cultural action 
which is
truly civilising and democratic ... requiring other means of reaching 
the whole population, other institutions of the country which are connected 
with cultural diffusion."

{18 ibid. p.51; my emphasis}

Concern among Chilean intellectualsand state school teachers
over cultural autonomy in the postwar period was eloquently expressed 
in the
policies of both major teacher unions, the General Association of 
Teachers and the Chilean Teachers Union.

{19 ibid. pp.26©639}
 
Both proposed major state intervention to
democratise and universalise primary and secondary education, with 
programs
to eradicate the 27.3% official illiteracy rate of 1952, the year in 
which Iba¤ez
del Campo won the presidency with a support group of teachers 
campaigning
on his behalf on the understanding that a significant popular education 
reform
would eventuate. They were to be disappointed.     

Christian Democrat [PDC] support in the 1964 election was strongest in 
the
sectors having least to gain by social reform: the Liberal and 
Conservative parties who avidly feared Salvador Allende's Popular 
Action Front [FRAP],

{20  the coalition of socialist and communist parties which
became the electorally successful Unidad Popular in the 1970
presidential elections}

capitalists who favoured a state©capital alliance to modernise key 
industries, and significant elements of the national bourgeoisie.

{21 Stallings, B. Class Conflict and Economic Development in 
Chile, 1958©1973  Stanford University Press, Stanford 1978; p.98}

 PDC policy was
presented as a moderate version of the FRAP platform, `chilenisation' 
ofindustry supplanting FRAP's nationalisation, and a `revolution in 
liberty'
replacing a socialist revolution [the latter nevertheless through the 
electoral
rather than classical Leninist road]. The massive US funding of the PDC
campaign promoted Frei's as a showcase Alliance for Progress state, 

whilst
preparing the way for the generous terms subsequently granted to US
companies `chilenised' during the PDC government.

{22Cerro, Anaconda and Kennecott received double the book
value of their copper mines, tax breaks and remained in
administrative ascendancy; ibid. p.107}
  
Given occidental domination of Chilean educational discourse until well 
into
the present century, set against the emerging momentum of revolutionary 
and
nationalist struggle in the first postwar decade, the receptiveness of 
Chile to a
Latin American voice of liberation follows an intelligible logic. The 
two largest
teacher organisations had since the thirties decried occidentalism and 
drawn
heavily on the reforms of Mexican president L zaro C rdenas, 
responsible for a
major adult education program and literacy campaign. 

Frei Montalva successfully promoted the `neutral state' thesis for the 
first two
years of his presidency. The claim to neutrality meant in practice that 
the more
radical sectors of the PDC were in the ascendancy for a time; after a 
mid©term
re©alignment, however, the right led by Frei re©asserted its dominance 
and
began an offensive [including military attacks] on organised labour and 
left
political opposition.

II. Problems with Freirian pedagogy of the sixties

Freire and colleagues began developing the praxis of conscientisation 
in literacy
campaigns of the Brazilian states of Pernambuco and Sao Paulo in the 
early
sixties, constructing a theoretical and methodological framework 
shortly to be
that of president Goulart' National Literacy Campaign. Goulart's 
nationalist,
developmentalist, modernising but dependent capitalist government was 
viewed
by the educator as a benign laboratory for inserting radical pedagogy 
into an adult education system given Freire's concern to elaborate a 
pedagogy
consistent with broadening the demands of a docile, silent and 
dispossessed
population for a revised role in control and division of national 
wealth and power. 

Curiously, the US government appeared untroubled by Freire's work until
several months before the 1964 military coup d'‚tat, only then 
withdrawing
financial support provided through USAid. Whatever else this may 
reflect, it
tends to indicate the generally unremarkable, if not `soft' character 
of Freirian
methodology unto that point, capable of being pedagogically absorbed by 

areforming capitalist regime and mainstreamed in the name of 
intensification of that process amongst the rural population.

{23 The intensity of Alliance for Progress and USAid
activity throughout Latin America at the time is well
documented; see for instance Marchetti, V. and Marks, J. The
CIA and the Cult of Intelligence Jonathan Cape, London, 1974;
and Dunkerley, J. Power in the Isthmus Verso, London, 1988}

The situation prevailing in Chile
from 1964 resonated closely with that of Brazil until the same year, 
withunresolved social tensions.

On the one hand, since 1940 the US Import©Export bank and subsequently 
the
World Bank and International Monetary Fund had set down binding 
conditions
under which modernisation would be effected in Chile, unfavourable to 
radical
structural change. The latter bodies had been established post 1945 
specifically
to regulate the conditions under which economic development took place 
in the
developing world and their dependent capitalist economies, on behalf of 
the industrialised nations and in particular the UnitedStates.

{24 Chilcote, R. Theories of 
Development and Underdevelopment  Westview, Boulder, 1984; p.64}

On the other hand, the Charter of Punta del Este committed all Latin
American countries except Cuba to eradicate illiteracy by 1970 as part 
of an agrarian reform proposal central to Alliance for Progress 
discourse,

{25 Cuba was ironically the only country to achieve the
stated goal, and that some years in advance of 1970. See for
instance Report on the Method and Means Utilised in Cuba to
Eliminate Illiteracy UNESCO/Instituto Cubano del Libro, La
Habana, 1971; and MacDonald, T. Making a New People: Education
in Revolutionary Cuba  New Star, Vancouver, 1985, chapter 6}

hence
the embryonic Freire program could be seen officially as an essential 
ingredient
to fulfilment of moderate government©endorsed plans for economic
modernisation within the prevailing mode of production. These reforms 
werenot the product of new demands; Brazilian political reformer A.P. 
Figueiredo had articulated their logic as early as 1847.

{26 A.P. Figueiredo `The Need for Agrarian Reform in Brazil
[1847]' in Smith, T.L. Agrarian Reform in Latin America 
Knopf, New York, 1966; p.67}

The state was seen by all sectors as having overriding responsibility 
for
primary, secondary and adult education, despite a history of contest 
between
state and church. For much of the twentieth century the state and civil
society

{27 both terms are herein used in the Gramscian sense}

 had coexisted uneasily, civil society coming to expect of the state a
significant degree of intervention in matters of national well©being. 
In this
context the ready insertion of the left©catholic Freire by a supposedly 
leftªcatholic government into a state©run Agriculture Ministry literacy 
campaignseems unremarkable.

Here we simultaneously call into question the left credentials of the 
Christian
Democrat [PDC] regime of Frei Montalva on several criteria: the 
well©known United States funding of his 1964 electoral campaign,

{28Stallings, B. op.cit. p.124}

Vatican intervention on behalf of the PDC,

{29 Loveman, B. op.cit.pp.277©9}

 Frei's earlier flirtation with Mussolini,

{30Stallings, B. op.cit. p.94}

 repressive
labour regulation, and the highly favourable arrangements extended to 
foreign
multinationals for the `Chilenisation' of the country's copper 
resources, inter alia.

{31 Sigmund, P. The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics
of Chile, 1964©1976  University of Pittsburgh, 1977; p.33}

Against this background, Freire entered the ministries of Agriculture 
and
Education in a conjoint strategy intended to reduce adult illiteracy by 
twoªthirds by the next presidential election, a time frame hinting at 
an electoral
sub©text as much as social motives. According at least to Waldemaar 
Cort‚s,
Freirian methodology only came to be known as `psych©social' once 
fieldwork got underway and called forth literacy monitor 
preparation courses.

{32 Author interview with Valdemaar Cort‚s, Frei Montalva's
director of Adult Education, 1965©69; Santiago de Chile, 8 &
14/1/93}

 Prior
literacy programs had used infant and infantile pedagogy, reinforcing 
themirror negative of developmentalist ideology in the subject's 
construction of
self: a necessarily inferior identity, child©like, a metaphor for 
underdevelopment and dependency.  

Freirian psycho©social methodology was introduced into 
the national literacy
campaign from the time of Freire's team being established at INDAP, 
part of
the Agriculture ministry, in 1965. As Gajardo notes, however, the 
popular
education and popular culture movements had already moved beyond an 
earlier
accommodation with the state to outright antagonism to the hegemony of 

thedominant classes, regarding education as an instrument of class 
struggle to be
deployed in the creation of a hegemony favouring the popularclasses.

{33 Gajardo, M. op.cit. p.21}

Populist accounts of the vanguardist nature of Freire's work are seen 
from this perspective to be somewhat overstated.

{34 Author interview with Valdemaar Cort‚s, Frei Montalva's
director of Adult Education, 1965©69; Santiago de Chile, 8 &
14/1/93}

The overriding difficulty with the conscientizacion element as a 
methodology in
adult education has been that in its foundational statements from the 
sixties it
is vague, `naive' as Freire himself has since conceded. This has left 
open the
door for any number of regimes of authoritarian persuasion to declare 
their
adult education programs as premised on the psycho©social method, 
Pinochet's Chile being the quintessential example.

{35 see for instance the dictatorship's Manual del M‚todo
Psico©Social para la Ense¤anza de Adultos  Adaptaci¢n
preparada por la Secretar¡a Nacional de la Mujer, Santiago de
Chile, 1976}

The tension between conservative Vatican doctrine and the nascent 
liberation
theology movement in the Latin American church further sharpened 
differences
within the Frei regime, the Christian Left led by Jacques Chonchol 
viewing
advocacy of Freirian methodology as mandatory, especially in the wake 
of the
Medellin General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate in 1968.

III. Theoretical and methodological comments

Though later state©produced literacy manuals of the Frei Montalva era
substitute "coordinator" for "literacy teacher" and "participant" for
"illiterate",

{36 Manual de Alfabetizaci¢n para Adultos Editorial
Santillana, Santiago de Chile, 1966; p.2}

Freire's 1965 text 
Educaci¢n como Pr ctica de la Libertad
continuously uses the traditional term "illiterate" whilst lamenting 
the effects
of traditional literacy primers which "cast the illiterate in the 
role of the object rather than the Subject ofhis learning".

{37 published in English as "Education as the Practice of
Freedom" in Freire, P. Education for Critical Consciousness
Sheed & Ward, London 1990; p.49}

The mechanics of concientisation as elaborated initially by Freire in 
1965 cover
five phases: vocabulary research among participants, generative word 

selection,codification [visual representation] of research, elaboration of 
agendas, and preparing cards with phonemic breakdown of generative 
words.

{38 ibid. pp.49©52}

Care istaken with preparation of monitors to guard against the tendency to 
reproducedomesticating rather than liberatory pedagogy. Given the powerful 
traditions of
socialist influence and political struggle in the state teaching 
service in Chile
[noted earlier], Freire's perception of potentially non©dialogical 
`banking'
tendencies among his literacy teams is either profound or misplaced. 

At the occidental level, the literature as to its validity is 
formidable; work
dating from A.S. Neill, John & Evelyn Dewey, and more recently Ira 
Shor,
Michael Apple and Linda Christian Smith document the verticalist,
bureaucratic and anti©creative culture of Western schooling.

{39 See inter alia Neill's Summerhill, the Deweys' Schools
of Tomorrow, Shor's Culture Wars, and Apple and 
Christian-Smith's The Politics of the Textbook.}

However, a
palpable tension has existed in Chile for most of the twentieth century 
between
the formal education process as a state reproductive apparatus and the
unwillingness of radicalised teacher organisations to be uncritically 
complicit in those arrangements.

{40 see for instance Gysling, J. Profesores: Un an lisis de
su identidad social  CIDE, Santiago de Chile, 1992. The fierce
repression of teachers and their political representatives by
the military dictatorship 1973©1989 is indicative of their
historically progressive tendencies and ambivalent
relationship to the state.}

The two great social actors of the post©colonial Latin American 
republics © the
state and civil society © receive differential and inconclusive 
treatment in
Freire's Chilean writings. Freirian pedagogy elaborated in Chile says 
little
about state power, making vague reference to "human rights", social, 
political and economic forces [Sobre la Acci¢n Cultural] or 
"revolutionary spirit", oppression, reaction and "closed society" 
[Education as thePractice of Freedom].
For a detailed analysis of Freire's construction of the state we must 
look to later writings, such as Pedagogy of the Oppressed [1970 or 
more convincingly The Politics of Education [1985] and Learning to 
Question [with Fa£ndez, 1989].

Complexities around the state and state power were shifting steadily
throughout the sixties. Popular education had been a metaphor for state
primary and secondary education for much of the preceding part of the
twentieth century, a demand increasingly satisfied by the state albeit 
that
oligarchic agendas tended to influence the operation of schooling © 
once won © inways generally unfavourable to the popular classes.


As the oligarchy sought ways to mitigate the economic costs of 
modernisation,
schooling as a huge budget item became vulnerable to attack. Coupled 
with
elevated awareness of the political character of state schooling among 
the
marginalised sectors of Chilean society, the emerging [or re©emerging]
neoliberal view of state functions was matched by a renaissance of 
popular
culture and re©constructed notion of popular education as that which 
served thepopular interest, devoid of state influence.

Responding with characteristic generosity and incisiveness to these and 
related
criticisms recently, Freire remarked that the theory of concientization 
hadindeed been a weak point, particularly for its neglect of the 
"political character of education" and of "the problem of social 
classes and their struggle".

{41 Freire, P. The Politics of Education: Culture, Power
and Liberation  Bergin & Garvey, New York 1985, p.152}

To these concerns Marcela Gajardo © unacknowledged Chilean editor of 
several of Freire's major English works

{42 In an interview with the author [Santiago de Chile,
19/4/94] Marcela Gajardo discounts this observation.
Nevertheless, in view of concerns over the gender division of
labour consistent with the philosophical premises of Freire's
work in Chile, the issue seems to me important. Moreover, it
is reflective of a historical macho disposition inconsistent
with liberation theology or pedagogy, which neither psychoª
socialmethodology nor the subsequent socialist Unidad Popular
administration considered implicit in their programs. On the
latter see Rosetti, J. "La Mujer y el Feminismo" in Jaquette,
J. The Women's Movement in Latin America: Feminism and the
Transition to Democracy  Unwin Hyman, Sydney 1989, p.181}

adds a comprehensive list questioning the
type of practices which the methodology proposed to contribute to the 
liberationof the popular sectors:

Among these, what was the relation between concientizing 
education and the different political and
ideological projects of the social classes struggling for power; what 
was the relation between
[Freirian] practices and those in which the popular movement and its 
base organisations were
involved; what was the contribution of concientization to the 
constitution of class consciousness and
the creation of a popular historical project; what was the relation 
between concientizacion and the
political organisation of the popular sectors; and what was the 
function of the political parties,
fronts and vanguards in this process of critical apprehension and 
transformation of reality.

{43 Gajardo, M. op.cit. p.45}

Freire's 
departure for the United States in 1969 left only partial responses to

these issues, which were nevertheless more directly addressed in the 
literacy
program of the Allende administration from 1971. With that government's
brutal demise at the hands of the military in September, 1973 a new 
phase of
popular organisation and popular education partially linked to 
resolutions of
such questions was begun.

The concept of `banking education', the accuracy of assertions as to 
its
international preponderance then and now, and Freire's exposition of 
its theory
and practice are well enough known. Most commonly associated with the
English translation of La Pedagog¡a del Oprimido [Pedagogy of 
the Oppressed],
an earlier formulation of the concept from sixties Chile appeared in 
Sobre la Acci¢n Cultural. 

The educator's role in adult education requires "rigorous training ... 
permanent
evaluation of the teacher's work, and constant [professional] guidance 
of the
teacher, through which they feel secure in the realisation of 
their work."

{44 Freire, P. Sobre la Acci¢n Cultural ICIRA, Santiago de
Chile, 1970;  p.48}

Educators "should not lose any opportunity to stimulate students to 
expound
their observations, doubts and criticisms ... asking students to 
develop their observations first on the blackboard and then on paper."

{45 ibid.}

The antithesis of banking education is of course liberatory education, 
a set of
dialectical practices which imply certain procedures to be adopted by 
the
educator consistent with the stages of concientization detailed earlier 
for
literacy programs, varied but similar for post©literacy work. Their 
objective is to
lubricate the transformational process begun with the phases of 
concientization
described earlier. The teacher is central to this process.

Curiously then, in contrast to these observations from the mid©sixties, 
Freire
adopts a near counter©culture position on the teacher's role by the 
time of hisfinal year in Chile:

Nobody educates anybody, nobody educates themself. Men educate 
themselves among themselves mediated by the world.

{46 Freire, P. quoted in Gajardo,M. op.cit. p.57}

Later, the primacy of the student over the teacher is re©asserted 
[1981], and
subsequently the educator is reinstated to primacy with the assertion 
that

"when an educator says he/she is equal to his/her student, either we 
have a demagogue or an incompetent. If they were both equal, neither 
would recognise the other."

{47 ibid. my emphasis}

IV. Comments on Christian Democrat [PDC] texts

In the 1966 PDC primer Manual del M‚todo Psico©social para la 
Ense¤anza de Adultos two aims are advanced by Waldemaar Cort‚s, Fre¡ 
Montalva's Director
of Adult Education, in the name of the method, namely:

1. to have illiterates rapidly learn to read and write and

2. to facilitate their shedding their low self©esteem in favour of full 
recognition of their value as human beings.

{48 Cort‚s, W. et al [eds] Manual del m‚todo psico©social
para la ense¤anza de adultos Santillana, Santiago de Chile, 1966; p.3}

Broad reference is made to the [constitutional] democracy of the 
republic, with
interplay between the introduction and text around generative words 
limiting
the objectives of concientisation to discussion of ways one might 
better exercise
ones rights within the confines of that system.
  
The manual explains that cultural and social transformation arise 
through
Freirian conscientizaci¢n, describing it [accurately enough] 
as a process of
engagement with reality via literacy intended to replace the student's 
magical
consciousness with critical consciousness, the former contingent upon 
pseudoªknowledge and the latter upon critical engagement with it.

In a parallel text Manual de Alfabetizaci¢n para Adultos 
"coordinator" replaces
all reference to "literacy teacher", while "participant" replaces all 
reference to the illiterate person.

{49 Manual de Alfabetizaci¢n para Adultos Editorial
Santillana, Santiago de Chile, 1966; p.2}

 This was consistent with the emerging egalitarian
ethos of Freirian pedagogy, however opaque gender and race may have 
been toits perception at the time.

Cort‚s argues that women were included in the literacy program 
through
courses at Mothers' Centres and Neighbourhood Centres, and in the 
workplace; but concedes the gender bias of teaching materials.

{50 See interview between author and Valdemaar Cort‚s,
Colegio de Profesores, Santiago de Chile, 14/1/93 in Austin,
R. A Critical History of Literacy Programs in Chile, 1964 ©
1993 [Appendix]  forthcoming doctoral dissertation, 
University of Newcastle}

Community programs were coordinated through CEDECO [Centre of Community 

Education]. He
portrays the programs as non©marxist and pluralist in nature, and not
determined by the Christian Democrat government.

{51 ibid.}

In view of the orthodox content of literacy texts issued by various of 
the Fre¡
Montalva ministries, however, this claim is somewhat difficult to 
sustain. Any
divergence in a more radical direction appears to have come in the 
practices
employed by Freire's teams of literacy monitors, rather than from 
centralisedadministrations.

Amongst other incongruencies,

"What is not addressed is the possibility of simultaneously 
contradictory
positions of oppression and dominance: the man oppressed by his boss 
could at
the same time oppress his wife, for example, or the White woman 
oppressed by
sexism could exploit the Black woman. By framing his discussion in such
abstract terms, Freire slides over the contradictions and tensions 
within social settings in which overlapping forms of oppression 
exist."

{52 Weiler, K. op.cit. p.453}

Alverto Silva draws attention to the absence of some key concepts from 
the
official texts © struggle, class, party, power © such as to dilute or 
subvert the
revolutionary potential of the method, transforming it into an 
integrationist or
at best reformist strategy. He argues further that the net result of 
the
campaign was to dissociate literacy from other social activities, and 
to separate
technical and social preparation along with detachment of 
concientization from action.

{53 Gajardo, M. op.cit. p.82}

Given the militancy of political organisation in rural Chile, in both 
theagricultural south and mining north [see section I, above], it is 
curious that an
officially faithful rendering of the Freirian method appears not to 
have
produced generative words or themes going to the rapidly intensifying 
class consciousness of those areas as the PDC experiment with 
Chilenisation
faltered. Silva's concerns are self©evident on that level.  

Moreover, the discursive and practical activities generally recommended 
in
literacy manuals were somewhat sterile, orthodox and barely resonant 
with
Freire's evolving writings, which by that time were distancing Freire
increasingly from the liberal©democratic roots of Education as 
the Practice of Freedom. For instance, the generative word 

"[trade] union" in the Manual del M‚todo Psico©social para la 
Ense¤anza de Adultos corrals discussion around the
legalities of labour organisation and the implicit pull for workers to 
work
within those legalities, however much the political objective may have 
to do
with oligarchic hegemony.

By 1966 militant labour action against inflation, wage suppression and 
police
attacks had seen a steadily rising number of factory occupations and 
sporadic
clashes with the armed forces. Deaths of workers had resulted, the most
notorious incident being the assassination of nine squatters by police 
at Puerto Montt in 1969.

{54 Stallings, B. op.cit. p.114}

Terra Nullius had operated since the sixteenth century to progressively
dispossesses the sixteen major indigenous nations within the boundaries 
of the
postcolonial republic. Despite Freire's emphasis on autochthonous 
cultural
movements, one searches in vain for appropriate material in the 
literacy
primers. No serious effort appears to have arisen to conduct bilingual
programs.
  
In the final months of the Fre¡ Montalva government and after 
consistent
pressure from popular sectors, a constitutional amendment was carried
enfranchising illiterate adults. Its implementation was deferred until 
the next
administration took office, amid conservative fears that combined with 
the
simultaneously©granted lowering of the voting age from twenty©one to 
eighteen
a significant pro©Allende block would thus be created; it would take 
effect in the 1976 presidential elections.

{55 Sigmund, P. The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics
of Chile, 1964©1976  University of Pittsburgh, 1977, p.88}

In view of the 1973 military coup, initially
supported by Frei Montalva and the PDC, analfabetos were to 
wait another 19 years to realise their paper gain.

V. Material gains, interim conclusions

Despite inconsistencies noted, and an increasing division within the 
Frei
regime over the direction and pace of the entire Agricultural Reform 
program,
formidable advances were made which were significantly driven by 
Freire's
energetic team, and would require state terrorism later to undo. In 
1968 alone,
2000 Centres of Basic and Community Education [for adults] were 
established.
In the period 1965 © 1968 10,000 teachers were trained in the use of 
the
Freirian psycho©social method, adopted as Frei Montalva's official 

adult education methodology.

{56 ibid. p.80}

Nevertheless, that the incomplete project 
was sustainable until 1969 is of itself
a tribute to the political dexterity and social commitment of the adult 
education
teams at both the Education and Agriculture ministries. Indeed it seems 
to me
that the durability and pragmatic responsiveness of Freire's 
Christian©Marxism
was essential to the maintenance of a generally progressive direction 
in what
was an increasingly complex national project. 

Contrary to the rather Freire©ocentric histories on this period, it is 
clear that as Freire himself acknowledges

{57 See for instance his Education as the Practice of
Freedom ICIRA, Santiago de Chile, 1971}

 a number of educatorsshared major
responsibility for the design and implementation of the literacy 
program

{58 Torres, C. "From the Pedagogy of the Oppressed to A
Luta Continua: The Political Pedagogy of Paulo Freire" in
McLaren, P. and Leonard, P. Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter
Routledge, London, 1993, p.123} 

Marcela Gajardo who edited substantial Freirian works; Ra£l Navarro 
with
Professor Orme¤o and others who organised short©notice campaign mode
intensive training courses for adult educators at the Instituto 
Pedag¢gico of University of Chile; national program director Valdemaar 
Cort‚s;

{59 see for instance his Educaci¢n de Adultos CAVE,
Santiago de Chile, 1974}

andliterally thousands of enthusiastic literacy monitors operated in a 
pluralist
political context increasingly destabilised by organised local reaction 
and those
foreign forces with a growing sense of losing control in their own 
"backyard". As
noted, the initial structural and policy support of the Frei Montalva
government dissipated as class tensions sharpened and gave way to a 
regime
increasingly subordinating its "revolution in liberty" to oligarchic 
reªascendency.

This said, we conclude with an interim acknowledgment that also ends an
instructive piece by another eminent Latin American educator, namely 
CarlosAlberto Torres: 

"in pedagogy today, we can stay with Freire or against Freire, but not 
without Freire."

{60 Torres, C.A. op. cit. p.140}



Robert Austin

November, 1994