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Similar to what my peers have noticed about Friere’s focus on ‘good intentions’ and leadership, I was struck by this idea that good leaders can sometimes go astray. Friere writes, “revolutionary leaders do not go to the people in order to bring them a message of ‘salvation,’ but in order to come to know, through dialogue with them, both their objective situation and their awareness of that situation the various levels of perception of themselves and of the world in which and with which they exist. One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people,” (95).

This quote strikes a chord with me as both an anthropology major and future teacher. I have studied many times over the ways in which the anthropologist or field researcher can go into a new situation with the thought that they will ‘save’ a people or a culture, only to realize that they were wrong about many things. In her ethnography Thin Places, Ann Armbrecht recounts the notion of going into fieldwork with a ‘black box’- an argument that you think you are prepared to make about a group of people without even doing the research: a preconceived notion. Friere’s concept of leader as bringing salvation- being more concerned with one’s own ideas rather than the community’s – is like going in with a black box of ideas that are made before even experiencing what is needed.  

In thinking about the classroom, it would be easy for new teaches to assume that they can change the world of their students. It may be true that great teachers can do this, but, it is not without the knowledge of each individual in her classroom- of their goals, their culture, their family life, etc.- that a teacher can make a difference. Friere’s words are important for new teachers to remember: “one cannot expect positive results from an educational program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people.”