The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire's Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education

by James Lindsay

Many of the major seemingly faddish but broadly dominant developments in education today have roots that can be traced back in whole or in part to Paulo Freire. These include, especially, the abysmal performance in achieving at-grade-level competency in most subjects in most classes in most schools, misplaced curricular emphases, the rampant data-mining of children through relentless surveys and assessments (though these serve other purposes as well), Culturally Relevant (and Responsive) Teaching, “decolonizing” the curriculum, student-led project-based learning, and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), especially “Transformative” Social-Emotional Learning. Other programs, like Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE)—including the abominable practice of Drag Queen Story Hour, in which drag queens (adult men dressed as clown-form sexualized women) do drag performances for children while reading to them in school libraries and classrooms—graft themselves onto the Freirean “generative” method. It is because of this methodological approach that they are able to do what they do and to justify their inclusion in (early) childhood education.