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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

Dialogue: The Intersection
Between Freire and Vygotsky

presented by

Sandra Ferraz de Castillo Dourado Freire

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for

Master's degree in Literacy Instruction

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Date 5/12/00

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DIALOGUE: THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN FREIRE AND VYGTOSKY
By

Sandra Ferraz de Castillo Dourado Freire

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF EDUCATION
Department of Teacher Education

2000

ABSTRACT
DIALOGUE: THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN FREIRE AND VYGOTSKY
By

Sandra Ferraz de Castillo Dourado Freire

This study is a comparison between the ideas Of the Brazilian educator Paulo
Freire and the Russian psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky. Through an autobiographical
perspective, the study contrasts Freire’s pedagogical approach with Vygotsky’s theory of
learning, as they were experienced in two different teacher education programs.

The study selects equivalent aspects from both theorists, which guides the
construction of the text around the notion of semiotics, culture and consciousness.
Through this tripod he study analyses components involved in Freirean-based and in
Vygotskian-based classrooms.

The interception of the application of their ideas unveil a common ground based
on Marxist inﬂuence. Both acknowledge (i) a similar educational sequence in which
learning evolves from the social to the individual plane and (ii) the role language plays as
mediating social interaction and as mediating the process of thinking. This common path
leads to the ﬁnal claim that addresses the complimentary potential that exists between
both educational tendencies. Because F reire’s focus is on social action while Vygotsky’s
focus is on social thinking, teachers can beneﬁt from the two approaches by promoting

higher levels of thinking at the same time that empower student to overcome oppression.

To my parents

Novel and Teresa

To my mentor

Pe. F irmino Dalcin

iii

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a thesis involves much more than an individual effort. It actually goes
beyond the writing itself, ﬁnding inside the hearts of people the nourishment for the most
insightful ideas and the most powerful learning. Thanks to this people, this study has been
a fruitful learning experience.

I would like to acknowledge my professors at Michigan State University, specially
the members of my committee, Dr. David Pearson, Dr. Susan Florio-Ruane, and Dr.
Christopher Clark, for welcoming and supporting the embrionary ideas of this study; for
advising and guiding my research; for collaborating with so many insights during the
whole process. Their dedication, their caring, their openness of accepting different
viewpoints, and their ways of providing joyful and intelligent conversations specially
touched me.

Also, a thankful consideration goes to Dr. Laura Rohler. This thesis was approved
thanks to her activity as a program coordinator. She interrnediated all the bureaucratic
transactions in order to make this thesis be considered as an option for the Literacy
Masters program ﬁnal document.

I must recognize the valuable collaboration of my dear friends and their families,
whose support went beyond the boundaries of the paper: Catherine Reischl, who advised
and encouraged me to enter in the Literacy Masters program. Janet Navarro, whose
responses and reﬂections on my study lead to new and more sustained insights; whose
involvement in providing me with working opportunities were so important to the results
of this work; and specially, whose love and dedication represented the most valuable
support. Constanza Hazelwood, another supporting and daring friend, with whom I
shared ideas and culture that helped me reﬁne constructs involved in my intellectual

work.

I must draw a special consideration and reverence to my spiritual mentor, Pe.
Firmino Dalcin, to whom this thesis is dedicated, and who also appears as an important
piece of my existence, by considering life a true pedagogical experience. As a mentor, a
teacher and a friend, he deeply impacted my humanist view of the world.

This thesis is also dedicated to my parents, Teresa and Novel Castillo. From
whom I learned, along with my brothers Marcos, Arturo, and my extended family
Cristina, Santiago and Maria Eugenia, the priceless lesson that relationships consist of
love and forgiveness, of sharing and letting go. I would like to thank them for being this
vibrant audience that always accompanies me as I grow and learn.

Sincere acknowledgments go to Neusa Dourado F reire, Amaro Freire, and Bruno
Freire who passed onto my children the honorable heritage of the Freires. I would like to
thank them for always providing an environment of dialogue, respect and support to their
children and grandchildren.

Finally, the most signiﬁcant acknowledgments go to my husband and children. To
Joao Pedro, I thank him for teaching me to see the world with endless joy and excitement.
To Luiz Paulo, for teaching me to be persistent and never give up on my dreams and on
what is really meaningful for me. To Andre', for teaching me about priority and patience,
helping me to become a more balanced and wiser human being. And, to my wonderful
husband Ricardo, I thank him for being a constant source of challenge and support, and

without whom none of the three above neither this thesis had been possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
PART I
g A Freirean-based class ........................................................................................... 5
Semiotics .............................................................................................................. 11
Consciousness ...................................................................................................... l 7
Culture .................................................................................................................. 26
Consciousness, culture and literacy ..................................................................... 29
PART II
A Vygotskian-based program ............................................................................... 32
Semiotic mediation .............................................................................................. 38
Culture .................................................................................................................. 44
Consciousness ...................................................................................................... 49
PART III
The intersection between F reire and Vygotsky .................................................... 54
CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................. 60
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 62
APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................... 66

vi

INTRODUCTION

The ﬁrst question during the very ﬁrst meeting of one of the courses in my
Mater’s of Literacy program was, “ What is literacy?” I tried to answer to the person
next to me in my very rudimentary English, "literacy is an extension of the way we read
and write what we see." Astonished, by the end of my talk, my peer asked. "What do you
mean by what we see?" I tried to keep as concrete as possible because I really didn't have
a response with complex explanations yet. I replied. Literacy is the way we see things, the
world (big word, who can recognize this borrowing?). She nodded hopelessly but I was
actually the hopeless one. I was away from the academic community in which I used to
share a common discourse (ideas, inﬂuences, meaning). Now I was an outsider into
another academic community where I would have to learn their own discourse to
communicate. I realized that I was face to face with the challenge of reconstructing my
deﬁnitions.

The next task of that same meeting was to answer a question from the Fall/97
Comprehensive Exam. We were asked to write about authors and theories that have
inﬂuenced and change our view of teaching and learning/literacy. It couldn't be more
challenging and this is exactly what I began to write:

I am trying to recall names and works that have inﬂuenced me in my
thinking and in my practice in order to answer this question. While I do this
theoretical recapitulation about my practice in the literacy education ﬁeld, I
ﬁnd myself matching figures and situations that I had met once as a formal
knowledge, through reading. listening, experimenting, as well as through

action and interacting with others. These are the foundations of my practice,

though I am not able to recognize them all as isolated sources. The reason is
because they were transformed during my learning process and at some
point, they all became mixed together in the inner part of myself changing
not only what I think, but also how I think, what I do and how I do it. . . . As
seen, I recall authors not only in the education field but in a way, all of
them have to do with the way I changed my view of the worked, the View of
myself and consequently, my practice as a teacher. Of course there are
many other authors that(...) I ended up incorporating their thinking into my

practice and their practice into my thinking (...) This process is not over yet.

In that evening I realized that I had to redeﬁne my constructs as well. It was the
beginning of a process that last until now. A process which consists of a constant
reevaluation and reconstruction of beliefs and practices.

So, what I have here in my thesis is an examination of my experience in
elaborating my concept of literacy. It was also a reﬂection that took the shape of a
dialogue between the two Sandras, and her two main pillars of inﬂuences. It was a
dialogue between F reire and Vygotsky.

I became interested to know more about Vygotsky and Freire and their theories
faced to some similarities in the application of their ideas as I experienced them in two
different teacher education programs. First, in the teacher education program in college at
the University of Brasilia; secondly in the graduate program at Michigan State University.
I wanted to ﬁnd out what was the “it” in Vygotsky’s ideas and in the socio-
constructivism, predicated in my graduate education that sounded somewhat similar to
the Freirean pedagogy and the philosophy underneath Freire’s literacy instruction

approach that I had been exposed during my teacher education in college. Therefore, I

became strongly motivated in ﬁnding a common ground between them that would give
me a more solid foundation to base my practice as a teacher and as a learner.

Throughout the readings I encountered three big ideas that were foundations to
both theories: consciousness, culture and semiotics/language. Then, I decided to rehearse
the answers to some research questions that kept changing on me, due to the unfolding
insights I got aﬁer each reading. It was during that time I spent to answer those questions
that I realized that those concepts would not be complete until I addressed their practical
uses/application as well. That’s when my teaching and learning history came into play as
an important role in this search. As a participant-observer in two teacher education
programs I bring examples of my former Freirean formation and to my actual
constructivism experiences, I could contrast the two theories. By looking at concrete
examples, I could decide which aspects had inﬂuenced me the most and how.

Finally, I decided to focus on Freire and Vygotsky’s best matching legacy to
today’s teaching and learning approach: dialogue and reﬂection. My research question
was ﬁnally worded as what role does dialogue play in instruction within a F reirean
perspective and within a Vygotskian perspective? Through looking at the way dialogue
was incorporated by each of them, I would be able to see the theoretical concepts of
consciousness, culture and semiotics/language reﬂected in the practices teachers enact
during instruction. In Freire, these aspects are problem-posing, process of knowing, limit
situation and the process of conscientizacao (including the levels of consciousness). In

Vygotsky, his thoughts are represented by problem situations activities, the theory of

mediation, the zone of proximal development and the process of internalization (with the
stages of cultural development).

Thus, dialogue within the instruction brought up elements on each side that
enabled me to see in a clearer way where the intersections between the both approaches to
education were set, and in which sense my own practice was a synthesis of them. In this
sense, through the pages that follow, dialogue plays the role of unfolding aspects of both
theories and it is present in within the components that constituted the intersection
between the two theories, assuming indeed a secondary role.

Part I draws on the inﬂuence of Freire, which is illustrated with autobiographical
examples and also with examples of Freire himself, while Part H ties Vygotsky’s ideas
around Book Clubs. The text in this part, at certain instances tends to dialogue back with
the Freirean aspect as a way to stress the conversational activity in which I was engaged
while uncovering and connecting Vygotsky’s ideas. Part IH, however, presents the most
relevant part of my thinking: the way their ideas interact. It present points of intersection

while comparing selected components of both educational applications.

PART I
A Freirean-based class

If you came to see me in my college years, you would have walked down the
F aculdade de Educaccio corridor, stopped at one ofthe classrooms, opened the door and
seen a large room with glass doors on the back of the room. A chalkboard would have
covered the whole width of one of the walls, all sorts of class work would have been
posted up on the other walls, and you would have observe a couple of questions on the
chalkboard. In the middle of the room, there sat students and instructor in a circle.
Monday mornings I was there with my baby by my side, sleeping or giggling in his little
portable cradle. Once in a while Wilma brought her girls, who liked to draw and play by
the glass doors. Few of us were already classroom teachers. Some of my other peers did
other things for a living. Our discussions started out smoothly. We had a topic and a
couple of readings had been assigned. The instructor oﬂen threw out provoking questions
here and there to heat up the conversation. Questions may have been about the
dichotomy of education in Brazil, learning theories and practices, or the process of
literacy. Lessons were often prepared and presented by students in what we called
seminars. I remember the day Tania ’s groups gave us an egg inside a little bag to keep
for a week There we were at the end of that week: reﬂecting on our experience with the
egg. This was a typical reﬂective assignment that served as metaphors for the issue we
were discussing. Eventually, students divided into small groups and the discussion
continued. When we got involved, it was hard to be neutral. Discussions were often loud.

We would laugh or cry because many times questions posed existential issues that cut to

the heart. There was stress on being critical, on being able to uncover constructs behind
reality and name the ideologies behind our educative practice. I was learning to see and
speak with ruthless clarity.

There you have a rough picture of my teacher education experience in college at
the University of Brasilia. I tried to portray the various elements involved in this and in
any educational experience: social context (population); learners and instructors roles;
teaching strategies; instructional topics (objectives); purpose for that kind of education
(goal); and the learning involved (knowledge). Most of professors advocated a pedagogy
based on dialogue and reﬂection by problematizing learner’s reality. These elements are
also present in what has been known world wide as critical education, spread during the
second half of the twentieth century, most precisely after 1970, and generally associated
with the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. In order to better understand Freire’s inﬂuence
in my teacher education program at the University of Brasilia, a little bit of a historical
background comes is needed.

Indeed, the University of Brasilia was created in the sixties right after the
inauguration of the new capital, Brasilia. It was a period in between dictatorship regimes.
As a fruit of an utopian era, the epic construction wished to build the foundations for the
society of the future, based on democratic values and on the socialism ideals emergent
among artists and intellectuals at that time. National education was moving away from
the dichotomy (education for the. rich X lack of education for the poor) that reigned since
the Portuguese colonization. Educators like Paulo Freire, Darcy Ribeiro and Anisio

Teixeira, leaders of the popular culture-education movements that emerged in this milieu,

advocated a new deﬁnition of education based on humanist and existentialist constructs.
They inﬂuenced the organization of the public education system in the new capital and
the philosophy of education predicated at the University of Brasilia (which is a Federal
institution). Even though most of these leaders were thrown in exile after the coup et
d’etat in 1964, and their projects ceased, they came back with a more mature deﬁnition to
help rescue the democracy in the country after the Militar regime. Meanwhile in the
institution, those ideals remained only as a hidden part of the theoretical constructs of
many educators, because the dictatorship repressed any liberating practice-- you will see
how this impacted the practice of scholars later on: it created a culture of the word. The
democracy was ofﬁcially reestablished in 1986.

In the early nineties, when I attended the teacher education program at the
University of Brasilia, I experienced an academy still in the process of reconstructing the
foundations of its identity. There I experienced different teaching styles and different
ways of presenting the instructions. But among them, as I tried to represent in the
description, there was a fairly common tendency to promote conversations and reﬂection
in the classroom. Which made me inquire, What are the assumptions behind the teaching
and learning experience based on conversations? What is involved in a classroom
dialogue? What roles teachers, learners, content knowledge play within a dialogue based
instruction?

As a matter of fact, dialogue and reﬂection is not a new learning strategy. In
antique Greece, Socrates had a teaching style that consisted of a conversation with his

pupils based on questioning. He predicated that knowledge could only be constructed by

the learners themselves. Teacher and learner had the same status as knowledgeable
beings, and it was only through an active dialogue which had questioning as main engine
that enabled/activated an individual’s own process of knowing. He widely used the
posing question technique not only for teaching, but for questioning every single
statement political leaders/philosophers and teachers used in their rhetorical speeches. He
proved the power of questioning with his life.

Also, in a powerful manner, Plato acknowledged the political aspects involved in
oral and written discourses by believing that messages were always suitable of a naive
and a deep understanding. According to him, this understanding depended on the level of
one’s own background knowledge and self awareness. True knowledge could only be
revealed by engaging oneself in dialogue, because dialogue implies that the parts
(individuals) go beyond the use of memorized and imported knowledge. In other words,
he considered a person’s knowledge the one that a person carries within its existence and
can “defend in face to face dialogue.”

Closer to our time, Freire brings a pedagogy that consists of dialogic teaching and
negotiated learning. In a horizontal dialogue (a dual conversation) both learners and
teachers undertake reciprocal roles of teaching and learning. It is a pedagogy that widely
uses the problem posing technique as main engine to foster conscious awareness (critical
learning). This educative practice is designed to develop a broader understanding of the
self within social settings and to foster a committed practice within a leamer's own
community. The teaching and learning experience consist of, in Freirean words, a process

of active reﬂection and reﬂective action. His ideas are the foundations for the critical

pedagogy by advocating a participatory dialogue, self-empowerment, and social

transformation.

Banking Education

Within a dialectical perspective (a perspective that considers conﬂict the central
element for change/transformation), in the same way as Socrates beliefs and practice was
‘ intended to combat the speech monologue model, Freire’s pedagogy was intended to
combat the traditional and oppressive teacher centered, skill based model, a model that I
personally experienced while in elementary and middle school.

I remember my whole schooling before college, the academic routine was
parceled into subject-matters. Each area had its’ own topic, and content was taught
isolated from the other areas. In middle school each subject matter had a different teacher.
Learners were expected to learn from textbooks. Our desks were laid out in columns,
distant from the teacher’s desk. The talk among learners was not valued; it did not seem
right to argue with the teacher for any reason. Teachers had control of the instruction
providing us with the “appropriated” content explanation based on her/his own opinion.
By receiving information passively, learning consisted more of a form of memorization.

Actually, Freire created a metaphor for the system of education described above.
He called it Banking Education. The learner is like a bank account that merely receives
deposits. Knowledge is the money, it is the static and decontextualized information

deposited into the checking accounts (learners) and it circulates within the bank system in

a way that brings proﬁts to the system owners (dominant class). The teacher is the bank
employee who follows instructions for making the deposits.

For Freire, banking education works against humanist ideals and contradicts all
values of a democratic society. The banking education theory supports an oppressive
pedagogy that assumes that knowledge can be transferred to passive learners; implies on a
distance between learners and teacher, and gives a selective and partial explanation of
learner’s own reality and culture. By not valuing learners’ abilities, banking education
represses all forms of creativity. Learners are seen as merely reproducers of the models
taught. Freire acknowledged that it “has successfully taught sufficient numbers of people
to read and write in order to maintain a viable base of both, production and service”
(Taylor 1993, p.68), but societies can no longer survive on the back of slavery,
dominating its people thought and limiting their creative actions. F reire’s pedagogy draws

heavily on a denunciation of the notion of banking education.

Political literag

Thus, Freire’s counter-education is the antithesis of banking education. His
liberating model is based on (1) the creation of an authentic dialogue among learners and
between learners and educators (learners as subjects/agents of their own learning), and (2)
the development of learners awareness of their own social reality by examining their
current life conditions (learners as objects of learning). Freire’s main argument is that
only this horizontal dialogue can promote the level of systematic reﬂection upon practices

that leads to a critical consciousness. By dialoguing, people become more knowledgeable

IO

and critical about their own reality, thus liberating themselves from dominant ideologies.
According to him, “scientiﬁc knowledge cannot be knowledge that is merely transmitted,
for it would itself become ideological myth, even if it were transmitted with the intention
of liberating men” (Freire 1985, p. 85-86).

Freire’s theory had a profound impact in the political domain of the society. His
work with the working class and with poor communities in Brazil led him to develop a
literacy instruction system (known as Me'todo Paulo Freire) capable of empowering
learners against the oppressive conditions in while they lived, conditions determined by
the dominant class. He saw that this oppressive social condition was reﬂected in the
illiteracy of the people. In order to dominate, oppressors must deny those they oppress the
uses of language in its full spectrum, both oral and written. The oppressed, because they
do not develop language according to the dominant standards, are deprived of
participating in the broader society equally. Because he considered language a tool for
domination, he believed that language (rising literacy) was the main tool for liberating

learners ﬁ'om oppression, while promoting a true democratic society.

Semiotics
Freire started to deal with adult education in the late forties when he was the
director of a Governmental Professional Institution that prepared people to work in
industry, then SESI (Social Service for the Industry). Through SESI he went to one of the
institution’s unit in a ﬁshery area. Aﬁer the ﬁrst meeting with the ﬁshermen, he realized

that they did not understand each other’s talk. He bought a house by that community and

moved in with his family. For a whole month, he would tag along with the ﬁshermen all
day, taking part in their celebrations, meetings, and any social events within the
community. Everyday, as he walked with the ﬁshermen, he took notes of words and
phrases they used. He would sit and listen their long stories and ask for the meaning of
speciﬁc words and expressions.

He then started to reﬂect upon some language problems: syntax, semantic, thought
structure, and the symbolism represented in the semantic structure of the ﬁshermen’s
discourse. He learned to use their same metaphors to speak with them. And, by doing so,
he could get not only a better understanding of their thinking process through their
narratives, but also, he could introduce to them keys to understand the dominant
discourses of Brazilian society.

From a linguistic operation of the learners discourse. Freire turned his
investigation into a pedagogical project that started by a study of the community
discourse in order to ﬁnd out the semantics contained in student’s own uses of language.
It is a bottom-up instruction that helps the learners construct their own learning.

This example illustrates Freire’s notion of language. He acknowledges the
functional View of language and its socio-political implications. He understood that the
social context in which the ﬁshermen’s language was embedded (the ﬁshery community)
and the traditions created around their common activity (ﬁshing) impacted the way they
used (and created) language to understand/explain their own reality.

In other words, Freire acknowledges that the primary function of language is

social: the ﬁshermen narratives were to communicate their own experiences with one

another, in the same way they were negotiating meaning around events. The secondary
ﬁmction of language is individual, it mediates consciousness, i. e., it reveals the way they
see their relationship with the world -- which implies on the level of awareness of the
relationships that are involved according with the level of abstraction and objectivity in
which they are able to explain these relationships. As humans, we use language to interact
with one another in order to give/negotiate meaning of social conditioned events.
Therefore, individuals can never be understood apart from their relationship with the
world (time and place.)

Due to human’s sophisticated thinking abilities and their uses of language (in its
various forms), they not only differ from animals, but it is also the way they rule societies
in a complex manner. For Freire, all kinds of social enterprises/interactions are mediated
by language (verbal and non verbal), and the quality of that mediation impacts the
relationship between individuals and their surroundings. Language is a cultural and a
semiotic mediation device, i. e., language is what regulates and mediates thought and
action according to the speciﬁc social codes involved in the situation. It is indeed the
most sophisticated tool of decoding and making meaning. F reire sees language in terms
of its discourses in order to uncover the ideological constructs that socially conditions
human behavior.

However, human beings are politically accountable for their language practices,
no matter what they are. Freire’s emphasis on the relationship among language,
experience, power and identify gives weight to the political aspect found in his

pedagogies. In order to explain how the epistemic discourse functions, picture one of

those ﬁshermen’s social struggle when speaking for himself under a oppressed condition.
For instance, let's say he is begging with the person in charge of the ﬁshery unit for some
new ropes for his boat. Freire observed that they used the Sign structure embedded in
semiotic codes that reveals the “episteme of colonialism and white supremacist capitalist
patriarchy.” The strongest forms of domination occurs with the spread of semiotic codes
from the dominant ideology, which makes itself the basis for interpreting all discourses.
By doing that throughout the whole sections of the society, the dominator gets to
invalidate and to silenced the dominated by misrepresenting the latter’s discourse.

It is Freire’s particular strength that he has developed a critical vernacular

that can help to translate both the Others experience and his own experience

of the other in such a way that ideological representations can be challenged. .

. . Freire is careful to make sure his language of translation provides the

oppressed with tools to analyze their own experience while at the same time

recognizing that the translation process itself is never immune from

inscription in ideological relations of power and privileges. (McLaren,
p.114).

The Sign system

Even faced with their illiterate status, ﬁshermen dealt with everyday literate
events involving social constituted traditions around their ﬁshing. They shared meaning,
values and codes around the events within their family; within the school; around the
ﬁshing activity; when meeting with friends; when attending the church on Sundays, etc.
These are called traditions of mediation. Tradition of mediation are those in which every
one is born into and is embedded on discursive practices that belongs to one speciﬁc
community. The uses of these codes impact not only individuals’ interpretation of the

world but also condition one’s social action. It is also within traditions of mediation that

14

the ﬁrsts literacy transactions occur. lmplicitly in Freire's notion of the power of
discourse, it is the notion that literacy is originated in the oral domain. The written word
should be an extension of these vernacular practices. After all, the sign system exists as a
way to represent and translate into print the meanings of a speciﬁc discourse community.

Thus, the sign system plus the semiotic codes “carry prior interpretations since
they have been necessarily conditioned by the material, historical and social formations
that help to give rise to them.” (7) In other words, every symbolic representation is
synthesis of the relationship between society/social group and speciﬁc context (direct
experience) in which it was historically created. Through a Marxist concept of infra and
superstructure, Freire perceived that those relationships occur in different levels
throughout the society. For instance, the uses of a speciﬁc tool may bring a socio-political
meaning beyond itself, that designates the character of the social condition of its user
within its corresponding historical context. Semiotic codes are present in everything
human create. From bricks to books, each tool designates speciﬁc individual-social
relationships that are conditioned historically. Those relationships imply on speciﬁc uses
of language, on a speciﬁc discursive practice.

Indeed, what Freire saw within the discursive practice of the ﬁshery community
was the power differentiated between the vernacular and the dominant oral discourse; it
resided in the speciﬁc uses of the language semantically and syntactically. Thus, he
understood that the ﬁshery community’s social condition was affected by the lack of
literacy ability that would enable them to function within other discursive domains.

Therefore, only a high literate person would be able to stand by her/himself against

domination to speak in the discourse of the dominator, and use its metaphors and
constructs. Language and the Sign system constitute a form of social and cultural
criticism, in which all knowledge is fimdamentally mediated by linguistic relations that
inescapably are socially and historically constituted.

Unlike Plato or Socrates, for whom writing is static, Freire developed a much
broader perception of writing. He takes writing into a dynamic dimension, that designates
multiple possibilities of relationship. For him, when someone interacts with Sign system
(inner condition to humans within and with society), one is recreating a meaning
conditioned by one’s own background and by the situational context of the moment. Due
to socio-historical conditions, individuals’ perception of their world is always changing.
and it is different each time individuals interact with text (even with the same piece). For
each time, new relationships and connections can be established according to one’s own
level of self-awareness of this experience as a social act. To develop a critical
consciousness is to assume readers’ role as an active part of the word and the world, i. e.,
one is responsible for one’s own actions that intentionally or not, has a social impact. We
are in constant interaction with the other (personally or virtually) mediated by the
word/language, independent of the level of this relationship.

In the case of the sign system, there are different levels of relationship. Going
back to Plato’s perspective, the “serious” writing is the one written with knowledge, i. e.,
ideas must be sustained with arguments constructed within various layers of abstraction
in which “only the more skilled readers can interact with it.” Literacy is seen through

Plato’s perceptive as both a liberator and as a weapon for domination.

Freire acknowledges that one’s interpretation of a text and sign system may result
on a form of domination. For him, the “interpretation of a text always has a self-interest
and that it has a political dimension, an assertion to power” (Freire 1997, p.235). He
objects messages with intention to dominate or oppress, he objects the uses of literacy
that privileges someone, a class that evokes dominant power. The empowerment and
liberatory aspect in Freire that condemns any anti-democratic relationship is present in the
way he teaches people to read and write.

Actually relationship is an important notion in Freire’s approach to reading and
writing. For him, a printed word is not static, and it holds no absolute meaning in itself.
The text comes alive when in interaction with the reader. This one interprets the text
according to her/his own knowledge, and not with the knowledge of the text. Just like the
way we use the words to convey meaning in oral. In the same way as we “re-say” and “re-
phrase” ourselves when engaged in an oral dialogue, for Freire, written word has also the
potential of being “re-interpreted”, “re-told” what has been written. The relationship
between person and text is what changes with the whole context, not the written words

themselves.

Consciousness
Consciousness is the major and fundamental construct behind F reire’s theory and
his literacy instruction approach. He has a holistic perception of human beings by looking
at the individual through all interrelationships that take place among human condition:

relationship between individual-nature, among individuals, and between individual-

cultural instruments (tools.) He developed a deep concem with the functions of
consciousness and how individuals make use of semiotic devices in order to make sense
of the world and behave in society. By considering language the most sophisticated
human device, word meaning plays an important role in the overall of his philosophy and
his instructional approach, because it is the way to develop learner’s into critical

consciousness.

The Church and the definition of Conscientizagao

Between 1964 and 1978, all popular initiatives were repressed in Brazil. As any
non-democratic regime, the government centralized all national decisions. In the
educational ﬁeld, the government released projects like MOBRAL to be implemented
nationally. It was a program that, in short, was used as to counter Paulo Freire's literacy
instruction. It was in this milieu, during about 15 years of hard repression, that sectors
within the Catholic Church tried to keep some popular work committed with the political
education. This work was also done within catholic schools' students organizations, that
gradually recovered its strength after 1978.

For highschool (1985-89), I attended a private Catholic school which offered a
program designed to prepare teachers for K-4 Elementary. Teacher education classes
stressed the importance of considering the needs and interests of students as part of the
ideal teaching. There I was ﬁrst exposed to concepts such as students as subjects, as the
ones responsible for the action of learning, while the teacher was the problematizer of the

learning topics. The first thing that we, student teachers, had to acknowledge when

18

planning a lesson was the elaboration of the problem situation that would enable students
to connect with the content. At that point, those concepts sounded so new for me, whose
own classroom experience was based on the Banking education theory. Reﬂecting back
on the contrast between the two realities made me ponder what was behind students needs
and interests; the problematizer teacher; problem situation. If we acknowledge that the
teachers graduated in these programs were to start working in rural or "inner city"
schools, by focusing on students needs and interests and by problematizing their life
situation, means re-rising the foundations for a political education again.

It was during this period that I also got involved with Catholic youth activist
groups. Pe. Dalcin, a local priest, and a group of nuns from the high school I attended,
advised and sponsored those groups. They hosted our meetings and oriented our projects
with poor communities. Because of the Militar regime, those Catholics institutions which
kept developing social liberation practice, worked with discreteness. So, most of our
meetings consisted of an agenda that spanned the trivial to the polemic. Within this
context I was ﬁrst introduced to a model of informal education based on dialogue and
reﬂection, which goal was to develop political consciousness.

In the 19805, with the end of the Militar regime, Brazil met a renewed movement
for the national consciousness and political commitment. For instance, I remember a class
type meeting in which Pe. Dalcin was explaining the concept of conscientizaca'o for youth
groups. At one point, he wrote on the chalkboard: conscientizacao = consciéncia + acao

(conscientization = consciousness + action). It was a pedagogy based on three main

l9

principles: see, judge and act. I was taking part in the recovering process of revitalizing
popular education movements that had been repressed since the coup et d’etat in 1964.

In order to understand Freire’s notion of consciousness, it is necessary to
understand the meaning of the word conscientization (from the Portuguese
conscientizaca'o) and its uses. In the Portuguese, the word conscientizaca'o differs from
the word consciousness, although they are parts of the same process. While the
terminology consciousness can, semantically, be deﬁned as a sense of one’s personal or
collective identity; or a special awareness of or sensitivity to a particular issue or
situation, Freire believes that consciousness is the way that enables individuals to relate
with the world around them. It is a way of perceiving and understanding one’s own
surroundings. It is the ﬂow of information that takes place between the inner and the
outer of one’s own mind. It is the path through which one withdraws from one’s own
mind and enables to project one’s own mind towards/upon the surrounding world.

Thus, conscientizaca'o refers to the action of becoming conscious, or the action of
activating consciousness. Freire, however, expanded the meaning and uses of this
terminology. In his thought, conscientization is the whole pedagogical process which
implies on providing individuals opportunities to reﬂect upon their own existence which
results in a commitment with social change. l.e., this process involves the development of
individuals self-awareness accompanied by a social transformation/transforming action.
Himself deﬁnes conscientizacao as the critical development of the consciousness seizure,
i. e., conscientizaca'o transcends the spontaneous perceptual stage of intellectual

awareness, to foster into a critical stage, able to recognize objectively the world/particular

20

situation through an epistemological perspective of knowing. According to him, while
consciousness is set within intrapsyche conditions - processed internally, inside the
individual (determined by an ongoing and mutual relationship with social instances),
conscientizacc‘io emerges from the action of actually transforming the surrounding world,
according to the readiness of the consciousness. In other words, it is the act of becoming
conscious and, therefore, having internal conditions to support individual actions, that

impacts one’s will of establishing new relationships with a particular situation.

Conscientizagdo and praxis

In order to explain the process of conscientizacao, F reire imports the word praxis
from Hegel and Marx to stress the relationship between one’s own thoughts and practice.
Praxis, which is the combination of reﬂective activity with one’s own actions, is an
essential concept in the process of becoming conscious. Therefore, he views human
existence holistically as a task of praxis.

In whatever manner, his concerns of the social aspect of the consciousness focus
much more on the social conditions: “conscientizaca'o refers to learning to perceive
social, political and economic conditions and to take action against the oppressive
elements of reality.” (Freire 1987, p.19) In the social dimension, conscientizaca'o enables
individuals to take critical decisions considered by the ability to perceive reality
objectively and the self as epistemological being (praxis) committed with the well being
of the broader society. The politico-economical dimension refers to when the

transforming action faces the social structures that cause any form of oppression upon the

21

individual. So, by understanding individuals epistemically, i. e., valuing the historicity
and socio-cultural conditions and own praxis, Freire explains that:
consciousness is viable only because men’s consciousness, although
conditioned, can recognize that it is conditioned. . . . A [human] act upon the
world effectively, transforming it by their work, their consciousness is in turn
historically and culturally conditioned through the inversion of praxis.
According to the quality of this conditioning, men’s consciousness attains

various levels in the context of cultural-historical reality.” (Freire 1985, pp.70-
71)

Levels of consciousness

Freire identiﬁed different levels of consciousness, according to its manifestation
through the many ways of interacting with reality, and it is conditioned by the socio-
historical context in which it takes part. He ﬁrst introduced this analysis when talking
about the culture of silence. The culture of silence is the dependent part of the greater
social context, which reﬂects of the powerful relationship between the dominator and the
dominated. In a classroom in which the teaching and learning experience is the one
acknowledge in banking education:

“To understand the levels of consciousness we must understand cultural-historical
reality as a superstructure in relation to an infrastructure.”(Freire 1987, p. 32).
Consciousness acquires a historical-cultural conﬁguration through the Marxist concepts
of superstructure and infrastructure and the relationship between them (including men’s
dynamic role) toward a total understanding of a greater whole (culture).
a) The semi-intransitive consciousness: In closed structures, individuals are immersed in

their own condition and the manifestation of their consciousness “cannot objectify the

facts and problematical situations of daily life.”(Freire 1985, p. 76) Individuals

22

b)

actions are focused on meeting the challenges of their biological needs and organic
factors. Their perception of reality lacks a sense of historicity, and they do not
understand problems beyond their immediate world. Therefore, there is no
commitment to self existence because they delegate the explanation of their reality
conditions to external factors. They feel victims of the society’s structures, remain
passive to any external action.

The naive transitive consciousness: It is when people still like fabulous explanations
for the concrete reality but they start to ﬁnd arguments that explain the problems
related to their world based on the values of a social group. These arguments are
weak, however, and can not sustain a position or an opinion and can not explain
objectively the reality and the conditions in which people live. Usually, arguments
and reasons are mounted upon someone else’s ideas. They easily become victims of
ideologies and are easily controlled by group leaders, who oﬁen are the manipulative
character while the mass remains on semi transitive or naive transitive state of
awareness. It is a pessimistic view of the present. They usually complain about their
present life condition but are not aware of the process of individual change because
they do not acknowledge the contradictions that permeate existence. On the other
hand, it is also a type of consciousness very characteristic of the emergence of popular
masses, provoking conﬂicts with the elite mass. The contradiction generated in this
stage, gives a start on the historical transition, to social engagement. This stage
enables people to become politically active and to generate critical consciousness

among the engaged.

23

c) fllansitive consciousness: It refers to the political responses to a new consciousness; a
critical kind of thinking, by which individuals assume their epistemological role in
their process of seeking of their own identity within the broader context. See the
relational factors that shape the reality. They question current representations of the

reality and search for the factors that inﬂuence and condition it. According to F reire:

Critical consciousness is brought about, not through an intellectual effort

alone, but through praxis—through the authentic union of action and

reﬂection. . . Engagement and objective distance, understanding reality as

object, understanding the signiﬁcance of men’s action upon objective

reality, creative communication about the object by means of language,

plurality of responses to a single challenge — these varied dimensions

testify to the existence of critical reﬂection in men’s relationships with the

world, Consciousness is constituted in the dialectic of man’s

objectiﬁcation of and action upon the world. Yet consciousness is never a

mere reﬂection of but a reﬂection upon material reality. (Freire 1985, p.

69)

It is also interesting to note that the promotion from one level to another level is
conditioned by historical and social factors as well. While the transition from the ﬁrst
stage to the second is given automatically according to the promotion within the

economical standards of the community, the second to the third level is only possible

24

through a Speciﬁc educational action. That’s why F reire focus his educational approach

on the promotion of the critical consciousness. That is his goal.

Critical consciousness and scientific knowledge

As seen in his pedagogy, being critical is being able to articulate scientiﬁc
knowledge in order to support one is self against any act of domination. Scientiﬁc
knowledge is the kind of knowledge essential to the process of conscientizaca'o, once it
reveals the condition of a group or community. Therefore, scientiﬁc knowledge can only
support the liberating act if it is related to a social situation, not to an isolated individual
phenomena: “Conscientizaca'o refers to [the perception of] social, political, and economic
conditions and [it disposes an individual] to take action against the oppressive elements
of reality” (Freire 1987b, p.19.) Scientiﬁc knowledge ﬁnds its strength when used within

its social dimension.

Limit-situations

People just develop into the critical stage to Political literacy when, as subjects
individuals are able to transcend their individualistic perception to a broader perception of
reality, and acknowledge the limit-situations that they need to withdraw from in order to
“become more human.” Limit-situations are, indeed “problematic and conﬂict
circumstances which call for a resolution. They are challenges to further grth . . . to
develop one’s potential in several dimensions (language, self, and social participation)”

(Schipani 1984, p. 4.) In sum, Freire refers to limit-situations when pointing to any

25

oppressive conditions that limit one’s experience within society. In this view, illiteracy

was the limit—situation that set the frontier for people among the ﬁshery community.

Dialogue and consciousness

According to Freire, dialogue is the mediation factor for the process of
conscientization and for the act of knowing. His approach to consciousness raising is
characterized by a horizontal dialogue, which he calls the true dialogue, among learners
and instructor. The dialogical dimension of his approach reﬂects Freire’s democratic
assumptions that permeates his pedagogy, by considering learners ability to express
themselves (needs, interests, tendencies) through speech/talk within the community. In
his belief, only through a systematic dialogue can learners reach the discourse of power,
politically speaking, by developing metacognitive strategies built upon their own
individual discourses. The democratic foundation of this pedagogy is extensively
developed in his writings and speeches. There, the most important element for democracy
is listening and considering others, which leads to the concept of citizenship: inspire

individual commitment to the well-being of the society.

Culture
First of all, Freire differentiates ourselves from animal because of our ability to
make culture. He uses the word culture to refer mainly to our reality, to our surroundings
and to the conditions in which we are born. In fact, F reire’s view of culture is completely

engaged with his view of consciousness. It is impossible to understand one concept

26

without considering the other. His concerns for education for the consciousness, taking
off from understanding human action in the world epistemically, directs his perception of
the use of culture. He begins with the premise that humans exist in and within the world,
which explains his anthropological perspective on human condition as a natural and
social being in the making of their own history. He views any human activity as
embedded in cultural meaning, and men/women perform in their surroundings as objects
and subjects of the aims of their social values. “Because he considers the social plane
comes prior the individual plane, in order to get to the individual identity, there is a need
to rescue the cultural identity ﬁrst” (Gadotti 1996b, p. 583).

Freire deﬁnes naive or critical consciousness according to people’s relationship
with surroundings and with others. While the latter group is capable of using scientiﬁc
knowledge that requires elevated degrees of abstraction and the ability to use a powerful
discourse to explain reality, the former group is not able to rely on such abstract concepts.
However, either in naive or critical understanding, actions within society are perceived
through the notion of culture.

Thus, culture refers to all human manifestation in the world, including all sorts of
action (behavior) and production. The notion of culture ranges from the engagement into
activities that involves a simple tool creation to activities that involves a most abstract
thinking mode. Because of his dialectical view between the consciousness and the
transformation action of the reality, his thought draws heavily in the integration of theory

and practice, study and action.

27

Cultural Action

In Cultural Action for Freedom, for example, the concept of cultural action is
understood as all sorts of relationships across the different classes of society, and actions
that may work either for the freedom or for the domination of its people. On one hand,
cultural action for domination leads to all sorts of discrimination, and is based on the
values of the dominant class through the mere transmission of knowledge. It is
characterized by vertical relationships in which the dominant class rules through an
abstract knowledge which is not related to people’s practices. Education operates on the
banking metaphor and is committed to cultural action for domination.

On the other hand, cultural action for freedom leads to a democratic cultural
action while considering each individual epistemically, i. e., the knowledge involved is
the one based on people’s daily practice. It is characterized by a horizontal dialogue that
promotes a systematic reﬂection upon those practices in order to develop a higher level of
thinking. By dialoguing, people become more knowledgeable and critical about their own
reality, thus liberating themselves from dominant ideologies.

The fundamental role of those committed to cultural action for

conscientization is not properly speaking to fabricate the liberating idea to

invite the people to grasp with their minds the truth of their reality.

Consistent with this spirit of knowing, scientiﬁc knowledge cannot be

knowledge thatis merely transmitted, for it would itself become ideological

myth, even if it were transmitted with the intention of liberating men. The
discrepancy between intention and practice would be resolved in favor of
practice,. The only authentic points of departure of the scientiﬁc knowledge

of reality are the dialectical relationship between men and the world, and the

critical comprehension of how these relationships are evolved and how they

in turn condition men’s perception of concrete reality. (Freire 1985, p. 85-
86)

Thus, Cultural Action for Freedom leads to a political literacy while considering
the dialectical aspects of knowing, which presumes a dynamic relation between subject
and object through reﬂection upon reality/ a speciﬁc situation. “In humanistic terms,
knowledge involves a constant unity between action and reﬂection upon reality . . . Like
our presence in the world, our consciousness transforms knowledge, affecting on and

thinking about what enables us to reach the stage of reﬂection.” (Freire 1985, p.100)

Consciousness, culture, and literagy

Thus, Freire’s literacy instruction is a cultural action for freedom, conceived in
opposition of cultural action for domination. “We wish to design a project in which we
would attempt to move from naiveté to a critical attitude at the same time we taught

reading.” (Freire 1967, p. 123)

Conscientization occurs simultaneously with the literacy or post-literacy
process. It must be so. In our educational method, the word is not
something static or disconnected from men's existential experience, but a
dimension of their thought-language about the world. That is why, when
they participate critically in analyzing the ﬁrst generative words linked
with their existential experiences; when they focus on the syllabic families
which result from that analysis; when they perceive the mechanism of the
syllabic combinations of their language, the learners ﬁnally discover, in
the various possibilities of combination, their own words. Little by little,
as these possibilities multiply, the learners, through mastery of new
generative words, expand both their vocabulary and their capacity for

expression by the development of their creative imagination.(Freire 1987a,
p. 22)

For instance, picture a classroom designed specially for the ﬁshery community I
have been citing using the Me'todo Paulo Freire. Learners would be sitting in a circle
talking about a set of illustrations. All samples portray a ﬁsherman, like them, his house
and family in different conditions. The coordinator (the mentor, the teacher) leads the

discussion by asking ‘What do you see? Who made the well? Who made the house? Who

29

made the boat? Why did he do it? With what materials?’ In contrast with questions like
‘Who made the tree, the pig, the birds, the sea, the ﬁsh?’ At certain point the group will
construct deﬁnitions about nature and culture, clarifying concepts of necessity and work,
and differentiating man-nature relationship (transformation) from man-man relationship.
According to F reire, the man-man situation can not involve domination or transformation,
because “they are relations among Subjects” (Freire 1967, p. 63)

This Freirean-based classroom starts by discussing the object to be known within
the social setting of a learner’s own reality. Then, through an investigating attitude
towards the objects, the discussion evolves through different levels of knowledge
abstraction, developing learner’s thinking ability towards to a broader understanding of it.
His concern is to provide learners with tools, theoretical tools to analyze the ways society
validates injustices and inequity through its institutions. His goal is to give maximum
strength to the “human potential for creativity and freedom within the oppressive
political-economical and cultural structures in the society . . . through the process of
conscientization. . . . in which action is based on a critical reﬂection and critical reﬂection
is based on practical action.” (Gadotti 1996b, p.169)

Freire observed similar organization in the learning process development, as
stated in Education for Critical Consciousness. The process of conscientization considers
education more than a transference of knowledge. The learning process evolves from
reﬂections of the immediate contact with the knowledgeable object (learner’s practical
reality), then the understanding of the system that surrounds object and learner (practical

reality confronted with abstract knowledge/theory), which leads learner to a social

30

engagement involving transformation action(critical consciousness and political literacy).
Thus, he considers the world dynamically “in the making” by critical reﬂection,
transforming action and concrete realization.

"Our observations lead us to underscore that Freire's great intuition is to

have perceived the structural continuity between his literacy method on the

linguistic-symbolic dimension and the conscientization process on the
level of self and social interaction." (Schipani 1984, p. 42)

31

PART II
A Book Club meeting
A few years later, I came to Michigan State. There you would find me in one of the
Erickson Hall classrooms. Indeed the classroom ’s physical environment does not differ
much from my previous teacher education class example. If you came on a particular
Wednesday evening in the middle of the semester, and stood by the door you would have
seen the class dividing into groups and members of the groups exchanging their work,
discussing and writing down as they talked Topics ranged from methods of encouraging
emergent literacy, the role of story telling, authentic assessment to a wide diversity of
issues around literacy theories and practices. Oh! You certainly would have seen us
filling out our own self-evaluation sheets. Our instructor would move around the groups,
eventually stopping by each group, and helping out with some questioning. Although
exhausted aﬂer a day of work, I bet you would have been able to see wondering,
intrigued or surprised faces in the conversation. Most of us were teachers and came to
class directly from school. When time was up, all the groups came to a community share.
Our instructor often represented students ideas on the chalkboard, giving feedback to
every single idea. It could be a simple list, or a web or a concept map, or some sort of
framework connecting and organizing our different contributions. The stress was on
developing deeper thinking about the issues discussed. I was learning to cooperate in
creating educative conversations.
The description portrays a typical routine of a Book Club meeting in one of the

courses in my graduate program at. Michigan State University. Similar to my account of

32

my undergraduate experience in Brazil, the Book Club classroom also involves an
engaging discussion about topics relevant to teacher education and literacy. Despite
contextual differences, dialogue and reﬂection dominate both classrooms. The Book Club
instruction values students’ background knowledge and provides a relevant and
supportive contextual setting for learning. Students take an active role in the classroom
through the peer-led discussions. The instructor’s role is a listener who supports students’
learning by provoking questions and responses.

Actually, the program promoted a pedagogical practice grounded in the ideas of
the Russian psychologist and scientist, Lev. S. Vygotsky. Vygotsky left a legacy from the
twenties and thirties that has been reborn in the United States and in several part of the
world in the last three decades. It has impacted theories of learning and instruction
practice (Soderman 1999; Dixon-Krauss 1996) by valuing learners’ backgrounds and
privileging their active role in the learning process within a meaningful social context.

Vygotsky was a social psychologist that wanted to prove that meaningful social
interactions impacted learning and scaffolded individual development. Vygotsky’s notion
of individual development transcended and deﬁed the past contemporary notion of
conditional reﬂexes/reﬂexology. Although he was inﬂuenced by the behaviorist school, at
the end of his career he had rejected any type of reductionism, specially the view that
individual development determined social behavior. For him, the social domain (cultural
conditions) was as important for individual development as child’s biological/organic
(natural) conditions. He believed that a phenomenon must never be observed in isolation

from its broader context.

33

The social functions of language were indeed the primary component for
Vygotsky’s research in his work for the Leninist Russian State of the twenties and thirties
aﬁer the Bolshevist revolution (1918), in a period between the World Wars. As a
psychologist, his research focused on developing a theory of learning founded on the
principles of the Marxism. In a sense, the ultimate goal of his research was to develop
highly skilled individuals to be active within society in order to validate the new civic
values of the socialist nation. By looking at the learning process through the
manifestation of social behavior, he brought a new paradigm to psychology.

The main engine research from which he built his theory is the connection he saw
between speech and reasoning. It was by considering the social aspect of language that he
and his followers conceived the theory of mediation and the stages of cultural
development. These ﬁndings promoted a tendency in the educational ﬁeld to ground
instruction in social interaction experiences mediated by language. Many of his ﬁndings
echo in current versions of social-constructivism, emergent literacy and whole language
approaches.

All of these tendencies emerged in opposition of the reductionism models of
learning and teaching available in the twenties and thirties. They privilege an integrated
curriculum based on the teaching of language. All of them value and promote classroom
talk and interactive activities in which reﬂection has become the newest addition. The
following example illustrates these tendencies in general:

When I accompanied my pre-schooler ’s classroom visiting the dairy farms at

MS U, I saw those children learning so many things at once: language arts (learning

34

vocabulary related to cows/calves and milking, noticing the letters and numbers
identiﬁing the cows, ”reading” the print in the signs); physical skills (walking through
straight corridors, muddy and slippery ﬂoor); counting and classiﬁcation (noticing cows
displayed in diﬂerent sections for different purpose. A just born calf was placed in a
warmer spot); using their different senses (noticing particular smell, touching the
animals skin, holding cold bars; looking all around; listening for diﬂerent kinds of
“MOOS”, they could have tasted milk and cheese that day at snack time); music
(spontaneously imitating cows sound and singing songs with cows in it); problem-solving
(someone got their head caught up between the bars by one of the gates, children
participated actively proposing ways and ﬁguring out how to move the bar sideways);
imaginative play (they played around the tractor, climbing in and out, pretending to
drive, to be the farmer, etc. ); active thinking (talking and questioning throughout the
whole trip).

If we agree that children use all of their senses to learn (Welty 1984) then we are
more likely to acknowledge that my son’s experience surely had a bigger impact on his
learning than my own when I was a child. As I have said before, my basic schooling took
place within a Banking Education teaching and learning experience. In contrast, when
you visit a classroom today, you often see children doing much more than individual
drills, isolated reading, copying and reproducing. As in my son’s classroom example,
teaching and learning implies a dynamic and integrated curriculum that values learners’
personal background and promotes a social environment that validates the learning

experience.

As well as in my teacher education experiences, discussion and reﬂection have
become valuable procedures in regular and in basic education classrooms. Discussions
may occur in small groups or in large groups, or in other formats, but it is there as an
important part of the learning experience. Thus, we have in Freire and in Vygotsky,
legacies that advocate integrated curriculum that focus on the context of learning and on
social interactive activities with discussion and reﬂection as the main engines of the
pedagogical process.

By having discussion and reﬂection as the most important part of its model, Book
Clubs seemed appropriated as a truthful educational application of Vygotsky’s principles
because it promotes a format that privileges talk, stressing the relationship between

language development and the thinking process studied by Vygotsky.

The Book Club Project

The Book Club Project was developed by Raphael and colleagues to enhance
Student’s talk about text by involving methods and strategies in a very dynamic way in
order to promote the exchange of ideas within a group, and to stimulate a high
comprehension as well as a high level of thinking a subject. The Book Club meeting itself
is a student led-discussion about a book or books read by the members of the group.
There are three basic components plus instructional settings forming the project: (i)
reading: structured around thematic units using related books; (ii) writing: the reading
logs consist of a kit of blank pages for picturing ideas and lined pages for written

reﬂections and thinking sheets; and (iii) community share: students publicly share

36

thoughts before and after book club meeting. Instruction takes place during all the
procedures by supporting students and improving talk about books. It might consist of
preparation for a discussion or modeling a conversation, but the most important feature is
that the instructor has to be aware of the eventual needs and interests emerging from the
group during the development of the project.

Indeed, it is a reading program that is based upon Vygotsky’s ideas by giving
“emphasis on understanding the social organization of classroom interactions” (M011,
1998, p. 5). Book Clubs are organized around the notion of mediation, interpersonal
relations and individual activities. The notion of language as mediation for thinking may
be associated with the students-led discussion groups and their discussion regarding
books. Also, by creating a context that combines individual learning and social learning,
book clubs draw on the Vygotskian concept of the zone of proximal development, which
refers to students’ proximal level of development - the space that licks just beyond their
independent level of functioning, where they need assistance from an adult or more
competent peer; it is to be contrasted with their actual level of development (what they
can do on their own).

The most valuable aspect of Book Clubs, besides a format that provides
integration among all language arts and across curricular areas, resides on the talk
propitiated:

Book Club has been a successful program for my students and I think

much of this success comes from the Book Club discussions. It was

difﬁcult learning to have a discussion about text without the teacher

mediating. Students try to include me in their BC talk at ﬁrst because it

doesn’t seem normal to them not to respond to the teacher. Once they
understand and develop conversational skills though, they have the

37

discussion time and they often want to continue into lunch or recess time

(Montpass 2000)

As well as in the Book Club example described in the beginning of this section,
the program prompts students to relate to the content by establishing meaningful
conversations. Contrary to traditional classrooms, instruction now values and counts on
students contributions. Through a Vygotskian perspective, we were constructing our own
knowledge by giving and sharing meaning over speciﬁc content. And, by doing so, we

were constructing a kind of talk, a community discourse, that mediated our interactions

with one another.

Semiotic Mediation

Actually, understanding the notion of semiotic mediation was, for me as a teacher,
one of the biggest gains from Vygotsky’s theory. It helped me to build the bridge between
the social and the individual learning. In the Book Club’s example, the book and,
consequently the discussion that accompanies it, mediates the interaction between
students. Book Club worked as a good model to illustrate Vygotsky’s ﬁrst premises: (i)
that the social plane precedes the individual plane; (ii) and that every human act is
mediated by a cultural tool - which leads to his theory of cultural development (discussed

later on this section.)

The Sign system

The notion of tool mediation, or cultural mediation, is embedded in the notion of

semiotics. For instance, the use of the same tool in different settings, or communities,

38

may imply different social relationships. This is because tools have different meanings
according to the different conditions in which they were created and used. The meanings,
the codes/values that surround a speciﬁc tool change from community to community.
which leads us to deﬁne semiotics as related to the use of signs by a speciﬁc community.
As any human symbolic operation, the notion of semiotics is based on sign systems in
relationship to different level of abstraction, which imply diverse degrees of mental
activity that regulate human behavior.

For example, Cole & Wertsch mention that “Luria observed that the sophistication
of the written marks that children make on paper to help them remember a set of objects
goes through a microgenentic sequence from iconic mimicry toward abstract summary,
even before the children know the conventions of written language.” (Cole & Wertsch
1996, p. 5) What Luria observed reminds me of what we now call emergent literacy. The
literacy process observed in this child includes an oral universe (listening and speaking)
and a Sign system universe (reading/writing). With this case, we can see all aspects
working for the purpose communication (social function) at the same time that it is
causing an impact directly on this child’s thought development. S/he is internalizing a
speciﬁc kind of thinking peculiar to this community as s/he experiments the action of
writing with the desire of explaining the world around her/him (individual function). It is
not a linear, fragmented and isolated process. To the contrary, s/he is immersed in a
holistic process because I doubt that S/he has been exposed to each of these human
features in isolation. But if s/he were engaged in the same activity within another cultural

setting, the meaning conveyed would have been different.

39

The semantic aspect of cultural tools (considering language a cultural tool) is a
notion that I experience myself, as a bilingual person learning a third language. Literary
translation among languages do not necessarily translate their semantics/meaning. In this
sense, I understand the signs as the cultural values and codes generated within a speciﬁc
community/culture. At the same time, they are used for social interaction/communication
and for conveying one’s own thought. Through a Vygotskian perspective, they have a
social and an individual function.

As human beings, we are also part of the animal kingdom and we share with
animals the need of using signs for survival. Once animals organize their societies with
the use of signs, from the most instinctive animal hierarchies like ants and bees societies,
to more cohesive and productive societies like monkeys, apes and gorillas animals
communicate instinctively among themselves by signs. However, humans go beyond the
use of signs for communicating instinctively. Humans are capable of using signs to
communicate intentions (social function), which means that the use of signs by humans is

related to human’s thinking abilities (individual function).

Cultural tools

Because humans have very sophisticated thinking processes, they are the only species to
create and use tools (artifacts) to organize societies. Moreover, humans created symbols
to represent not only the tool itself, but to represent human relationship with it, the
activity in which the tool was conceived and designed. Symbols understood in this

relationship, may be able to refer to the most concrete and observable to the most abstract

40

and complex non-observable behaviors. It means that, behind the speciﬁc purpose of the
concrete signs that guide human activity, exist an abstract meaning that has a
psychological function. That is where the concepts of semiotics enters the picture.

Vygotsky and Luria, when discussing the functions of tool and symbol in child
development, observed:

Nowadays psychology has begun to realize that growth processes alone do
not account for the whole complexity of child development; what is more,
when it comes to the most complex and speciﬁc forms of human behavior,
growth, in the literal sense of the word [meaning the botanical/natural
aspect of growth], while remaining an element of the process of
development, is but a subordinate factor. The processes of development
display such complicated qualitative transformations of one form into
another, as Hegel would say, such a transition of quantity into quality, and
vice versa, that the notion of growth cannot be applied. (Veer & Valsiner
1994)

Thus, according to this statement, I come to understand once more that they
believed that the meaning making is the utmost important feature of human behavior that
permeates and conditions the ways in which signs and tools are used. By taking in
account the contextualized social environment in which tools are used, Vygotsky’s
develop the concept of cultural tool. Cultural tool has an important role in understanding
semiotic mediation, especially when talking about psychological forms of behavior. More
speciﬁcally, in their study of speech (the external, observable aspect of language) as a
psychological tool in the construction of individual consciousness, Daniels observed that
“the social does not become individual by a process of simple transmission. Individuals
construct their own sense from socially available meanings . . . Changes in social
circumstances (particularly patterns of communication) give rise to changes in the

patterns of construction.” (1996, p. 10)

Meanings, tools and goals all necessarily relate the individual and the
social world of which the individual is part, for they are all formed in
socio-cultural context. Understanding the use of tools (psychological or
physical) is jointly constructed by the developing child and by the culture

41

in which the child is developing, with the assistance of those who are

already more competent in the use of those tools and in culturally

appropriate goals. These units of analysis therefore integrate the micro-

social contexts of interaction with the broader social, cultural and

historical contexts that encompass them. (Tudge and Winterhoff 1993, p.

67, as quoted in Daniels 1996)

“(They) . . . direct attention to the ways in which activity is structured

differently across contexts. If cognitive development proceeds through the

construction of meaning from activity, an understanding of the cultural
structuring of activity is crucial to an understanding of the ways in which
meanings evolve differently in different contexts. (Bidell 1992, p. 313 as

quoted in Daniels 1996, p. 19)

In a more complete sense, semiotic mediation imply not only on the notion of a
tool mediating social interaction, but also imply on the meanings the tool itself conveys in
relationship with its context. Thus, the notion of semiotic mediation enriches the uses of
the book within Book Club in a sense that provides learners with opportunities to
negotiate and construct meaning. It promotes learning experiences based on the

relationships the students establish with the book and with one another, and it addresses

both the “individual and the social world” in which the student resides.

Language as a cultural tool and a semiotic device

For Vygotsky, language is a cultural tool and therefore, a semiotic mode of
mediation. He relies on two semiotic potentials in human language: “a potential for
decontextualization and a potential for a kind of linguistic contextualization, or re-
contextualization. The ﬁrst is tied to his account of abstract word meaning and concepts,

and the second is tied to his account of inner speech.” (Cole & Wertsch 1996, p. 43).

42

Egocentric and inner speech are important concepts in understanding Vygotsky’s
explanation of the social origins of individual mental functioning. First of all, there is an
external form of speech: “Its external form reﬂects the fact that the child has not fully
differentiated this new speech function from the function of social contact and social
interaction.” (Wertsch, p. 57) Then, there is an egocentric form of speech, which is a
speech form found in the transition from external to inner speech, the latter being what
enables a child to engage verbally with others. It is the form that “enables humans to plan
and regulate their action and derives from precious participation in verbal social
interaction. . . . The primary function of speech , both for the adult and for the child, is the
primary function of communication, social contact, inﬂuencing surrounding individuals”
(Daniels 1996, p.57)

With his interest in analyzing the mental processes, he considered language,
particularly speech, an extension of the consciousness and a window to its functions.
With a Marxist orientation, he took the word meaning as the cell, the microstructure of
consciousness acting directly within its social connotation. Taking Marx’s method of
socioeconomic analysis, he considered the word meaning as a unit for analyzing
consciousness, preaching that the word is a microcosm of consciousness that reﬂects all
its aspects. As Wertsch mentions, “he viewed the word as capable of reﬂecting the
[dynamic] inter -ﬁ.Inctiona1 organization of consciousness instead of individual mental

functions.” (1985, p. 194)

43

Culture

The notion of culture in Vygotsky is drawn from Marx’s historical materialism of
social organization through Hegel’s dialectical framework. It is related to the dialectical
concept of interaction between man and world in the social plan. Most speciﬁcally, his
concept refers directly to the quality of mediation of such interaction. The notion of
culture in Vygotsky particularly refers to the uses of those tools made by humans, and
how their social implications shape individual’s internal development and the mental
process. Luria is the one who explains that:

In the complicated inter-relations with his surroundings, his [man’s]

organization is being differentiated and reﬁned; his hand and his brain

assume deﬁnite shapes, a series of complicated methods of conduct are

being evolved, with the aid of with man adapts himself more perfectly to

the surrounding world . . . [including] that social change of civilized forms

and methods with help the child in adapting itself to the conditions of the

surrounding civilized community. (Veer & Valsiner 1994, p. 46)

His concept of culture relies on the concept of mediation. In fact, Vygotsky
developed the concept of mediation in a more complex way than he did culture. In his
thought, culture is understood within the concept of the mediation act. As Wertsch
acknowledged “neither Vygotsky nor his followers provided extensive accounts of the
notion of culture. An explication of Vygotsky’s notion of culture must be based on an
analysis of the role that culture played in his overall theoretical system.” (1995, p. 61)
The notion of mediation, however, plays a ﬁmdamental role in his research about how
cultural tools shape intelligence and consciousness. Cultural tools are artifacts that serve

speciﬁc social functions. Their studies focused on what kind of structural connections are

made through analyzing the interaction between the organic individual being and his

44

artifactual social environment. For them, this interaction implies constant mutation in
individuals’ behavior. There is ﬁrst what they called interpsychological category, which is
the social experience. Then, there is what they called intrapsychological category, which
is the mental process itself, this is the internalization of behaviors. The latter determines
his up-coming social enterprises because it impacts directly action within the
environment. The notion that the social plane precedes the individual plane in terms of
internal development rests on Vygotsky’s suggestion that humans are never as
autonomous and as free of outside interference as it might at ﬁrst appear. Instead,

human mental functioning, even when carried out by an individual acting

in isolation, is inherently social, or socio-cultural, in that it incorporates

socially evolved and socially organized cultural tools. . . .The word social

when applied to our subject has great signiﬁcance. Above all, in the widest

sense of the word, it means that everything that is cultural is social.

Culture is the produce of social life and human social activity. That is why

just by raising the question of the cultural development of behavior we are

directly introducing the social plane of development.” (Vygotsky 1981,
p.164)

Thus, the social plane is not only a fundamental role in Vygotsky’s uses of culture, but it
is also the foundation for his approach to individual development. Perhaps this is the
major contribution of Vygotsky’s thought to the ﬁeld of human science. It is not really
surprising given his view of culture within social context. But the turning point, what
contradicted specially the western individualist psychological approaches, is his uses of
culture in order to explain the formation and development of the individual mental
processes. For him, the way individuals appropriate cultural tools in a social setting is

critical to the way the internal processes develop. To be more speciﬁc, internal functions

45

develop according to the way the mediation of cultural tools and signs (language, Sign
system) takes place within social and cultural interaction.

It is important to stress before, however, that cultural tool also accounts for habits
and all types of social behavior. With this notion in mind, cultural development will then
relate to the process of mastering behavior and habits in order to develop higher mental
functioning. Because it is a dialectical process, it shapes not only the thinking abilities,
but social abilities as well.

Vygotsky and his followers developed a mesogenetic method (which considers
development as a process) based on the Marxist microgenetic research models in order to
study the development of higher mental processes in individuals. The microgenetic
research refers to the study of a single cell/structure that belongs to a bigger cell, but it
does not mean that the cell/structure has to be isolated to be studied. The mesogenic
principle is to approach this cell/structure by analyzing its relationships with its
surrounding cellular environment.

The application of this method becomes possible (a) in the analysis of the

composition of the cultural method of behavior, (b) in the structure of this

method as a whole and as a functional unity of all the components
processes, and (e) in the psychogenesis of the cultural behavior of the

child. . . . [There is] a genetic relation between certain structures of

cultural reasoning and behavior, and the development of the methods of
behavior. (Veer & Valsiner 1994, pp. 62-70)

The scientist is also a part of the equation. S/he might propose tasks and might get
involved along with the child/patient. It is also called historical-genetic method because it

investigates cultural behavior from a historical point of view, i.e., looks at “the very

46

process of formation of the highest forms of behavior, instead of investigating the
functions already formed in its developed stage.” (Veer and Valsiner 1994, p.70) For
Vygotsky and his followers, no functions are ever seen as ﬁxed structures. Functions and
behaviors change. A dynamic relationship exists between external behaviors and
individual’s internal functions during the process of mastering methods for solution of the
problems in the social surrounding. As Vygotsky himself stated, “the cultural-historical
development of psychology goes along the path of cultural methods and habits; the
history of culture starts with a primitive outward technique and ends with a complicated
psychological technique.” (Veer and Valsiner 1994, p. 53)

To better understand the cultural historical perspective, Cole explains Vygotskian
mediation using a transformative metaphor:

it included the cultural mediation as a central focus and served as a

juncture where natural and cultural processes are joined to create

speciﬁcally human forms of action. . . . This juncture point is in the

mediated act. Vygotsky (1929) wrote that the mediated act (A-X—B)

consists of two simple reﬂexes, A-X and X-B. These elements are, he

argued, in the quality that emerges when they are combined. To capture

this quality he depicted the familiar triangle:
X

.A.

A is an action on B that incorporates X as its means. Mediated action

mixes the natural and the artifactual; the relations of its parts are
explainable in natural science terms, but the emergent property of their
combination is not. It is a qualitatively unique form of thought and action,

a hybrid of phylogeny and culture. (1996, pp.2-4)

It is important to remember the difference between the two notions of behavior,

natural and cultural. When studying the cultural development of a child, natural behavior

refers speciﬁcally to organic functions that makes uses of very concrete and basic tools

A 7

for interacting with one’s surroundings. Cultural behavior occurs when a child makes use
of complex methods and sophisticated tools such as signs and other abstract tools in order
to interact with the surroundings. Children’s cultural development, thus, is a process that
involves mastering cultural and psychological methods. “First, there is natural
development, which is closely bound up with the processes of general organic growth and
the maturation of the child. Second, there is cultural improvement of psychological
functions, which involves working out of new methods of reasoning, and mastering the

cultural methods of behavior.” (Veer & Valsiner 1994, p. 57)

The theor_'y of cultural development

By looking at the different methods a child uses to solve a problem, observers can
establish phases of cultural development according to reliance on a various reasoning
methods and tools employed. These phases were deﬁned as pre-instrumental, pseudo-
instrurnental (magical) and the real instrumental.

First Stage (primitive/natural behavior): introducing the task to a child. It refers to the
process of recalling the data supplied, which will depend on child’s attention,
amount of memory and interest in the topic.

Second Stage (naive psychology): searching for a method: this is a transitory stage in
which the child searches for solutions to the problem. S/he can either discover
some mnemotechnical methods using her/his own natural memory resources or,

facing the lack of it, ask for assistance. S/he will grasp the suggested method very

48

quick, “only the difﬁculties which the child meets on this path bring her/him to

the second stage.” (Veer & Valsiner 1994, p. 64)

Third Stage (the external cultural method used to solving the trick): It is not observable
and it takes a short time. The child replaces the process of memorizing by a rather
complicated external activity (creation, new associations and new forms)

Transition from the third to the fourth: when the external becomes an
intemal/ingrown activity.

Fourth Stage: “after mastering the structure of some external method, [the child]
constructs the internal process according to the same type” (Veer & Valsiner
1994, p. 66) This is the stage in which the transition from internal to external
speech takes place.

What is important to keep in mind about the concept of cultural development in
Vygotsky’s studies is that “[it] does not create anything over and above that which
potentially exists in the natural development of the child’s behavior. Culture, generally
speaking, does not produce anything new, apart from that which is given by nature.”

(Veer & Valsiner 1994, p. 59)

Consciousness

It was Vygotsky’s concern for the origins of language that led him and his
followers to focus on the problems of thinking and speech and of the origins and
functions of consciousness. He understood the formation of higher mental functions and

consciousness by looking at the relationship between the internal and external factors that

49

involved the human behavior, i. e., observing the relationship between human action and
cultural signs —note he uses the notion of cultural mediation in order to explain mental
functions. He considered the dialogicality and polyphony in consciousness by believing
that signs in consciousness precede its “genuinely reﬂexive strata”, i.e., before every
human action a meaning must have been internally mastered in the ﬁrst place. A meaning
that he preached to be originated through social interaction.

Because Vygotsky and his followers viewed any mental function always in
relationship to human activity, the context in which individuals participate in activities
play an inﬂuential role in activating mental activity. However, just asserting the
relationship between individuals and the environment is not enough to understand
Vygotsky’s concept of mental function. For that, we must add his concern with the
cultural signs that mediate this interaction, the so called psychological tools and technical
tools. That is how semiotics came to play the most important role on Vygotsky’s research,
especially on the last third of his life. Speech is what mediates different levels of thinking.
However, it is important to note that it is not the tool or the sign itself (I understand that
later on Vygotsky conceived every tool to be a psychological tool due to its
contextualized use) that conducts to a higher function, but the triadic relationship among
mental processes, physical activity, and the whole external context (social and natural.)

Due to the fact that consciousness, as an internal non observable function could
not be measurable, Vygotsky’s foundation for understanding consciousness relied in its
socio—cultural constructs: he viewed “consciousness as the objectively observable

organization of behavior that is imposed on humans through participation in socio-

cultural practices. . . Although Vygotsky’s texts do not explore the concept of
consciousness extensively, by the end of his life he understood consciousness broadly as
the subjective reﬂection of material reality by animate matter” revealing a strong Marxist
inﬂuence. (Wertsch 1985, p.187)

As Daniels accounts of Vygotsky highlights, Vygotsky’s focused on the social
origins and the social nature of higher mental functioning and the uses of culture as a way
to intercept the structure and functions of consciousness. The social origins of individual
mental functioning is explained by Luria as “the highly complex forms of human
consciousness [goes] beyond the human organism. One must seek the origins of
conscious activity . . . in the external processes of social life, in the social and historical
forms of human existence.” (Luria 1981, p. 25)

Although Vygotsky acknowledged different types of consciousness, his “primary
concern was with uniquely human forms of reﬂecting reality that emerge in a socio-
cultural milieu. . . . Vygotsky’s understanding of human consciousness is that humans are
viewed as constantly constructing their environment ant their representations of this
environment by engaging in various forms of activity.” (Wertsch 1985, pp.187-l88).

The dynamic organization of consciousness implies a mutual transformation
caused by the interrelationship among all components of thought, both horizontally and
vertically. Due to his developmental/genetic approach, he thought that each component
had different functions in different level of development — of the young child, of a more
mature child and of an adolescent [what about adults?]. “Thus, instead of focusing on

static structures, Vygotsky emphasized change, transformation, and dialectical negation

51

as inherent aspects of the organizational principles of human consciousness.” (Wertsch
1985,p.191)

Therefore, consciousness awareness- or self-reﬂection, for example, is just one of
its possible modes. Wertsch explains that “it is a form that exists when consciousness
itself becomes the object of consciousness” (1985, p. 191) which we would, in today’s
parlance, label metacognition.

In both, Vygotsky and Freire, the uses of the term reﬂection do not refer to a
“passive reception of data . . . [but] is just as much concerned with the organism’s active

transformation of reality and representation of reality” (Wertsch 1985, p. 188)

The theory of activigy

According to Wertsch, Vygotsky was heading in the right direction by assuming a
direct relationship of the word with both thinking (internal: meaning) and speech
(external: sound), i. e., the word as a semiotic mediation of human consciousness, but “it
[the word] is not a unit for analyzing human consciousness itself. . . [By taking the word
as a unit of analysis], Vygotsky failed to provide an adequate account of the natural line
of development, and he failed to specify what it is that is transformed by social forces [the
cultural aspect of it]” (Wertsch 1985, pp. 196-197)

Therefore, still recalling Wertsch, Vygotsky’s study of semiotic codes are reduced
to the functions of the intellectual part of the consciousness. That fact opened space for

criticism and dualistic interpretations because his study of word meaning did not explain

52

adequately the relationship between natural and social forces of development. Wertsch
criticism is that:

word meaning is not really a unit that reﬂects the interﬁrnctional
relationships that deﬁne consciousness. . . . but rather if we took a tool-
mediated action, would better deﬁne Vygotsky’s notion of consciousness
as a dynamic organization interfunctional relationships. . . Just as word
meaning transcend the boundary between individual and social, so does
action. . . . [However] word meaning (or any other semiotic unit for that
matter) is a unit of semiotic mediation of mental functioning, not a unit of
mental functioning itself. (Wertsch, 1985, pp. 206-208)

Since Vygotsky did not reach the point where he could explain “how human
consciousness is related to social institutional forces” (Wertsch 1985, p. 210), it was leﬂ
to followers such as Wertsch to extend beyond Vygotsky’s studies to draw upon the
social processes. While looking at structure of human activity/labor within the system of
social relationships and social life settings, he acknowledges the Leont’ev’s theory of
activity, which emerged from Vygotsky’s studies as a more adequate unit of analysis for
consciousness. Wertsch claimed that activity transcends the word as unit, because it better
extends the genesis of Vygotsky’s thought concerning the inter-functioning of thought
and material between internal and external functions; between the inorganic(thought) and
organic body(things man produces). The word, in this case, is part of this bigger spectrum
of human behavior. The most important characteristic of an activity is that “it is a socio-

cultural interpretation or creation that is imposed on the context by the participant(s).”

(Wertsch 1985, p. 203)

53

PART III
WEEK!

When I ﬁnished compiling the data for this paper there were many things that still
needed explanation, especially regarding the comprehension of Vygotsky’s theory. Even
though his ﬁndings, like the notion of mediation and the stages of cultural development,
were important I was puzzled while trying to understand the goal for education within
Vygotsky’s perspective. Among my data, I found a note to myself (August/99): It is not
clear to me their view of “man Why did they (V ygotsky and his followers) want humans
to develop those higher thinking abilities for? What kind of “man ” did they want for that
society? What was their main social need? What were the social ideals this learner would
have to implement/work on in his/her society? At that point, I was still interpreting
Vygotsky through a Freirean perspective which considers learning as a process that takes
place as a collective experience and implies on a social change. I could not understand
how learning could be a goal in itself if it didn’t imply on any social action beyond it.
However, it was by understanding Vygotsky through the perspective of social
psychology, which focus on the study of the mind in society, that I would be able to create
an intersection between those two educational tendencies.

Freire’s pedagogy provides me with tools for managing cultural diversity and
students with different background knowledge in the classroom by accepting students the
way they arrive in the classroom. If we ﬁght for an authentic learning, authentic mediums,
authentic assessment, it is important to consider learners in their authenticity, the integrity

of their identity. Problem-posing, process of knowing, limit situation, and social change,

54

are pedagogical components that give emphasis on learning as a collective process that
leads to a social action committed with the change of the conditions that surround the
group of learners.

However, Vygotsky’s leaming theory provides me with tools to address learning
diversity by promoting interactive activities adjusted to their individual learning level, by
using a mediation tool, by working within learners’ zone of proximal development, and

by expecting them to show learning over a period of time.

Recalling the situations described in the Freirean-based class and in the Book
Club meeting, I selected those components from Freire and Vygotsky’s theories in order
to illustrate their pedagogical representations as I drew intersections to illustrate how I
saw them connecting. As a result, I found not only points of intersection, but also a path
in common, mediated by dialogue, that presents the following dynamic: social

interaction mediated by language > social meaning > individual growth > change.

55

 
   
 

 
   
 

FREIRE WGOTSKY

 

 

  
    

   
       
   

  

Problem solving
activities

social interaction
mediated by
language

Problem posing
technique

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
   

 
    

Social
meaning

Process of
knowing

Theory 0
Mediation

 

 

 

 

 
     

  
 

   
   

   
 

 
 

Zone of proximal
development

Individual
growth

Limit Situation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
   
 

Social change

Individual change

 

 

In both teaching and learning experiences examples, the ﬁrst point that I identify
is a social interaction mediated by language. In a Freirean perspective, problem posing
is indeed a technique that propitiates knowledge to emerge from a collective stand point.
The discussion starts (and evolves) by problematizing aspects of our daily lives. As I said

earlier, when we got involved, it was hard to be neutral. Discussions were often loud, we

56

would laugh or cry, because many times questions posed existential issues that cut to the

heart.

In a Vygotskian perspective, more speciﬁcally in the example of the Book Club,
the problem solving activity takes the shape of a reading activity that promotes student
interaction with the book, both socially and individually. It is indeed a sequence of
systematic activities that integrate all language arts Skills. Note that the problem posing
technique must have a goal implicit once it focuses on the action of discussing the
problem. While in a problem solving activity must present clear objectives in order to the
activity be successful. These two concepts, action (goal) and activity (motive) were

developed by Leont’ev and his theory of activity.

In conversation, learners negotiate social meaning, in accordance with their
individual prior knowledge and cultural background and the contribution of their peers. In
a Freirean-based classroom we generated knowledge by discussing the social meaning of
an egg inside a little bag [that we kept] for a week By reﬂecting on our experience with
the egg we were learning to be critical ﬁrst of all with ourselves, by looking at our own
relationship with the knowledgeable object. In this sense, the process of knowing was a
collective act: we shared our ideas by adding our perspectives and complementing each
other’s discourses while generating a collective consciousness. In Freire’s process of
knowing, learners are subjects and objects of the learning themselves. As a matter of fact,
Lessons were often prepared and presented by students in what we called seminars.

Learners and teachers traded roles as a way to say that we were all teachers and learners at

57

the same time, without considering the teacher’s expertise. Within Book Clubs, however,
we constructed knowledge by interacting over a cultural tool: the book/text (the theory of
mediation). The essential part of this interaction between learner and book was mainly
individual — reading and writing, but supported by the group within the small group
discussions and community share. It was a format that actually allowed us time to process
information and to draw some conclusions. The learners would develop their own
perception of the subject through inner dialogue, to share with the group.

The process of negotiating the possible meanings of a learning situation through
an engaging dialogue, must create opportunities for learners’ individual growth. In
F reire, the dialogicality that existed between learners and teacher, between listening and
speaking the word, between theory and practice, was always pushing us to transcend our
own limitations. Individual growth was achieved by outgrowing the limit-situations.
Once we became critical, once we had uncovered the constructs behind reality and
named the ideologies behind our educative practice, we could no longer remain in the
‘barracks’ of oppression. This condition, even though it refers to the individual, existed
within the social domain. A limit-situation can only be transcended (by the individual) if
there is a collectivety that supports the new upcoming social condition.

On the other hand, through the Book Club’s discussions, our instructor would
move around the groups, stopping by each group, and helping out with some questioning.
In other words, you would have seen the instructor or a more knowledgeable peer
working within our zone of proximal development. And all of a sudden you would have

been able to see wondering, intrigued or surprised faces: you indeed would have seen our

58

conﬁdence in advancing towards a larger understanding, solving one more problem.
Again, here there is one more individual ability that expands thanks to the inﬂuence/help
of the group/other peer.

Interestingly, note how the dynamic from social interaction mediated by
language all the way to change it can also represent the steps of Freire’s process of
consicentizaccio, at the same time that can also refer to Vygotsky’s process of
intemalization/the theory of cultural development. The concepts presented in the diagram,
can be also represented through the Ron Harré’s Vygotsky Space diagram, which
emphasizes the idea of relationship between both educational tendencies. In sum, both
theories want to move learners from concrete and simple thinking to more abstract and
critical thinking. In either case, however, learning promotes change, and as a more
knowledgeable other at the end of the learning process, the learner becomes an agent in

her/his community.

59

CONCLUSION

As I leaped into developing this paper, I became engaged in a profound
reevaluation of my intellectual identity, which I found to be so bound on my whole
existence as a person, because this study let me interact deeply with both theories,
especially with Vygotsky, which allowed me broaden my knowledge as a teacher and as
a person. By constructing my learning of Vygotsky, I reconstructed the Freirean inﬂuence
so important in my teacher education.

The most signiﬁcant ﬁnding for me in doing this study, went beyond the
intersection of both theories to their combination. As far as I see, they are pedagogies that
may complement one another. By promoting dialogue and valuing interaction, both
theories may beneﬁt one from another in a sense that they both follow a pattern of
instruction that moves from the social to the individual. While most accounts of Freire
stops with social change as a result of access to literacy, Vygotsky provides extensive
explanation about the develop of the mind that begins in the social domain. On the other
hand, Vygotsky’s account of the social mind addresses a change within the individual to
become part of and contribute to society as it is and it does not lead to the edge of social
transformation, topic that is Freire develops extensively.

As I look at the concepts that made possible the intersections, I understood them
not only as way to enrich my teaching (like a planning tool), but as a way to promote a
dialogic relationship with students by considering their individualities with their learning

communities.

60

All of this process surely sounds somewhat utopian, as utopian is the education
Freire advocates. Even now as I ﬁnish writing these last sentences, I keep hearing his
voice and his lips slowly moving underneath that white beard, preaching for “um mundo

menos feio, um mundo mais humano” (a not so ugly world, a world more humanized.)

61

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APPENDIX
Paulo Freire: A biographical sketch

In Brazil of the forties, there was Paulo Freire working with working class
communities, ﬁsherman and peasants in the Northeast, the poorest region of the Country.
He was an educator who had his ﬁrst bachelors degree in Law, loved linguistics, studied
philosophy (therefore, sociology) and had a special interest in psychology. He has been
considered the greatest educator of his time, “the ﬁrst among a dying class of modern
revolutionaries who ﬁght for social justice and transformation.” (Taylor 1993, p. 1)

From 1946 to 1954, he worked as the director of a Governmental Professional
Institution that prepared people to work in industry SESI (Social Service for the Industry.)
His position supervising the educational units/centers in extremely poor areas got him
involved with education and teacher training. Such a task made him interested in the
academic failure so prevalent among the poor population that he worked with.

In this role, he started a innovative project by promoting periodical teacher
meetings in which they discussed problems in their work with the children and conducted
surveys among the children’s families to understand conditions and to look for solutions
that they, the teachers and families, could implement. With the successful results of this
school-community work, he started to visit more schools under SESI’S coordination to
speak to teachers and to families.

It was by establishing this close relationship with students’ daily life within their
own communities that their living condition revealed to F reire the oppressive character of

a social structure that promotes the domination among social classes.

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Later on, he took part in the Movement of Popular Culture, 3 group that worked in
the education of worker class communities for the Governor of Alagoas, in the Northeast
of the Country. This opportunity helped him build in-depth knowledge of Education and
Culture among poor communities. This movement was very inﬂuenced by the Europeans
sociologist’s movements, like the one called Peuple et Culture in France. It was during
his participation in this movement and afterwards that he started to work on a pedagogical
theory of his own.

Freire’s ﬁrst insights emerged from his concrete experiences with peasants, but
they echoed in Marx’s socialist approach. As Freire himself had said more than once, he
got to Marx through the daily work with the worker class people. His own insights and
assumptions about the relation of the human condition to socio-economic structure
matched Marxism theoretical framework, and it was the crucial foundation for Freire’s
analysis of those communities.

F reire was the ﬁrst to bring together a historical, social and linguistic dimension to
the literacy instruction ﬁeld in Brazil back in the forties. He applied concepts from the
psychiatry like alienation and consciousness to the process of learning, which became the
basis for his consciousness raising and empowerment approach to education within
literacy instruction. His deﬁnition of consciousness in education has to do directly with
the application of those laws made by the dominant class but never used by them for the
needs of the population. A conscious population is to be able to transcend its oppressive

condition within a dichotomy society by using the same laws in a democratic plane.

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His pedagogy brings a deep understanding of the individual and of the social
aspects in the process of education. He bases his praxis in democratic socialism and
points out the importance of the social perspective brought by Marx, though he critiques
the denial of the individual by the Marxist Mechanists. To the individual Freire
emphasizes the subjectivity that every person uses to understand the world (the epistemic
being), without denying the importance of the objectivity needed for the construction of
knowledge. To the social, he approaches the dynamic and dialectical relationship between
individuals and society based on the use of complex systems of communication
media/signs. The process of education is, therefore, a process that uses language as a
mediating device for the development of consciousness within speciﬁc socio-cultural
context at a given historical moment.

Because of the military repression that took over the Government during the
sixties, Freire’s process of conscientization came to be associated with class struggle
while Cultural integration became associated with political revolution. Forbidden to go
back to his home-country from 64 to 79, he lived in several countries in the Americas,
Europe and Africa. However, it was during his years living in Chile and Switzerland that
he generated and wrote his most important writings.

Exiled from his country, he took his original project along to several other
countries where he visited and lived for almost 16 years. Along with his life, his thought
and his theory expanded, met new frontiers and was constantly reshaped. In the seventies,
through the publication of Cultural Action for Freedom and Pedagogy of the Oppressed,

Freire’s ideas found voice in several other countries struggling with political-socio and

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economic domination, especially in Latin America and Africa. Some of the “First World”
powers, like France, Switzerland, Germany also acknowledged the F reirean revolutionary
approach to culture and education founded on socialist ideals. His ideas also spread
through researchers in the United States at that time. My reference list Show just a few of
the massive production of dissertation in American academies that focused on Freire’s
ideas by that time. His concepts of conscientization and his revolutionary action
repercuted throughout the world also through the creation and action of the Institute of
Cultural Action, founded in Genebra.

Cultural action for freedom, had his ﬁnal format while he was teaching in
Harvard. There, he got a chance to explore concepts of cultural imperialism. According
to Heins-Peter Gerhardt (Gadotti 1996b, p. 161), Freire’s ﬁrst epistemological
assumptions relied on (i) the development for a critical consciousness as a result of a
critical education work; (ii) the role of education as responsible for the development of a
critical consciousness that has to be based on critique and dialogue; (iii) the critical
consciousness is inherent in any true democratic society.

F reire himself considered his exile a true pedagogical experience. In which he
was able not only to take physical distance from the reality in which he originally
actuated, but also, it was by confronting himself with other realities that his ideas were
reshaped and developed from an Adult literacy method into a philosophy of education

approach.

Similar to Vygotsky’s ideas, Freire’s ideas spread quickly and went through many

stages of understanding. Much of the misunderstanding of Freire was from the failure of

69

white Eurocentric academics to take his critique of capitalism seriously. It is fact that both
theories suffered misinterpretation specially during the time of the translation of the ﬁrst
studies, because of the suppress of the Marxist socialist framework which underlined
Freire and Vygotsky’s fundamental constructs and assumptions that embody and gave
strength to their thought. But most of all, misunderstanding were given by the

reductionism of Freire’s ideas to a single method of literacy instruction.

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