"This School Called Life". The Adult Education of Paulo Freire amid Risk and Extraordinary Effort

This chapter presents an interpretation of Paulo Freire’s educational conception starting from the analysis of the writing This school called life (1985), in which it is possible to find framework elements (equation of education and life, dialogue, autobiography) and contents (formative role of experience, opposition to fatalism, transformative action in real life) that contribute, even today, to define meaning and role of adulthood and adult education. In this perspective, it is interesting to highlight that the Freire’s legacy is still a fruitful contribution on lifelong and adult education. We are referring, for example, to the topics of hope, emancipation, transformative practices of adult people who live and participate in their historical context, supported by an education that, starting from the literacy, becomes a constant in their efforts of social actions. The learner par excellence of Freire’s education is the adult person: the adulthood is assumed in its dimensions of consciousness, knowledge, experience, relationship, identity and role as elements that realize a real humanity. Freire affirmed that “Life as a whole taught me as a great lesson that it is impossible to live it without risking”. In the writing This school called life, the notion of risk is deepening in three directions: learning by acting and making mistakes; not receding to fatalism; not giving in to the consolatory and paralyzing role of fantasy and imagination. For this reasons, the “school of life” needs of the school in the strict sense, as a public institution that is a forerunner of adult education. Freire does not confuse these two entities: making life a school is possible precisely because, rationally, people know the meaning and function of the school. This in order to pursue a feasible dream of democratic society, where people have a voice, taking charge of the fantastic effort that it requires.