Julie’s Blog

Freire’s fourth letter reminded me of Galatians 5:22.  The Apostle Paul wrote that the fruit of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  These attributes are referred to as fruit because they are produced.  Much like Freire’s qualities of humility, lovingness, courage, tolerance, decisiveness, security, patience/impatience and joy are acquired through practice.  It is important to recognize in both cases an element of active pursuit is essential to the development and maturity of the esteemed traits.  A teacher must be dedicated and subscribe to progressiveness to employ such qualities.  One who is not may develop some of these features, but never to the fullest potential, which would be detrimental to the teacher and his/her students.  Freire discussed each characteristic in detail in regards to student relations.  I completely understand and accept the legitimateness of each within the context of a classroom and the benefits that would coincide outside of the classroom for a given teacher and his/her students. However, I question how one would employ these qualities to deal with obstacles outside the classroom posed by, as Freire wrote, governmental contempt and the arbitrariness of antidemocratic authorities (83).  Hopefully, this will be addressed in a future letter.