Paulo Freire is alive

freedom and education during the pandemy and in the teaching of theater

Abstract

The Covid-19 Pandemic has required us to change our habits to meet sanitary measures. This situation has generated divergent positions in society between those who are willing to comply with the guidelines and between those who claim freedom to act as they see fit. Discussions about freedom are commonly seen in social media posts and street demonstrations. But what kind of freedom are these people talking about? What does this freedom have in common with the kind of freedom I constantly discuss with students in my classroom? This text is part of a haunting: how can the word freedom be used to support completely opposite postures? I intend to discuss the theme of freedom, from the thought of Paulo Freire, in dialogue with a concrete teaching experience, with students of the Degree in Theater, IFCE. The discipline Methodology of Teaching in Theater generated an organization and realization of an action of university extension, with art/education activities, in a rural territory, in Chapada do Apodi, Ceará, based on a liberating perspective. I demonstrate that experience presents a possible path for the construction of what Freire considers to be an education as a practice of freedom.