The Marxification of Education Quotes

“I am including a lightly edited executive summary of the key points provided to a legal firm attempting to fight Marxist brainwashing in real American schools. The Freirean approach to education is based off the work of the Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire, who is most famous for his 1970 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This book is the third most-cited source in all of the social sciences and humanities and enjoys pride of place and curricular centrality in virtually every college of education in North America. The Freirean method, called “Critical Pedagogy” because it makes a Critical Theory (Neo-Marxist Theory) out of education itself, lies beneath, behind, or relevant to virtually every pedagogical trend in education over the last 20 to 30 years, including Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Culturally Relevant Teaching, Comprehensive Sexuality Education, and project-based learning schemes. Culturally Relevant Teaching is unambiguously and unapologetically a direct repackaging of the Freirean approach into the context of “cultural competence” and American identity politics. Freire’s pedagogy is a disaster for education and our children and has no place in our schools. What Freire did, in short, was to “Marxify” education and knowing.”
― James Lindsay, The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire's Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education

“For Freire, political literacy clearly matters, not just actual illiteracy. Indeed, as we will see, actual literacy is, at best, a secondary concern. He feels this way because, in keeping with Karl Marx, whose theology he adopted in full, man’s true nature lies in gaining the power to transform the world (into a socialist utopia through relentless critique of what is), and his ability to participate in this process of political activism and transformation is the most fundamental aspect of his being and his key human right.”
― James Lindsay, The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire's Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education