The most controversial aspect of the book and, to my mind, the most significant, is the dialogue about the literacy campaign in Guinea-Bissau, Freire reveals that he argued against the use of Portuguese as the language in which the literacy campaign should be conducted, but, once Mario Cabral decided that this was the only viable way to proceed, Freire suppressed his disagreement in the interests of unity, arguing that: "What I could not do in Guinea-Bissau is overstep the political limitations of the moment," A letter written by Freire to Mario Cabral in 1977 is published for the first time in the appendix (this letter was withheld from the collection, Letters to Guinea-Bissau, by Freire - a moment lasts ten years!), In this letter, Freire advocates the use of Creole rather than Portuguese, insightful outlining the consequences of teaching literacy in the language of domination namely the reproduction of the class structure and perpetuation of the colonialist mentality, as well as the failure of the literacy campaign for the "masses", That literacy cannot be taught in the language of the oppressor without perpetuating [his] hegemony is, at last, acknowledged not only in discourse, but in practice as well.

The issue of Guinea-Bissau is important, for it brings out the enormous problems with a mandate for political unity, one that has contributed to the perpetuation, world-wide, of literacy being taught, unproblematically, in languages of domination, This practice has raised severe problems for the teaching of literacy in formerly colonized countries, such as Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, I also observed the severity of this problem in my work among Spanish-speaking immigrants in Los Angeles who were attempting to become literate in English, The difficulty, as Freire points out, is that literacy must be an integral part of the social practices of people's everyday lives if it is to be meaningful, and if the necessary opportunities for practice are to be available. What Freire does not address is how literacy, as a social practice, is gendered. It is particularly problematic for women to become literate in the dominant language as they tend to be denied access (sometimes forcefully by the men in their lives) to the public spheres of interaction where the dominant language is spoken; so practice becomes possible only in the classrooms (if they are "permitted" to attend), or in doing written work within the privacy of their homes. A related issue is that the form of the dominant language, as a "man-made language," eclipses women's presence, cuts out their discourses, and effectively silences their gender-specific experiences.

However flawed, it is the attention given to language that is one of the key contributions of Freire's work. Language is not simply a tool, or a medium of communication; it is "packed with ideology" and reproduces the oppressor's world. Because literacy is also about learning a language, it involves more than the technical skills of reading and writing. As Freire puts it, one must learn to read the world, as well as the word. His project is to develop a literacy for emancipation; critical literacy is essential if the practices of the oppressor are not to be reproduced as [his] language is learned. Yes, the dominant language and the attendant discourses must be learned, eventually, but first one must begin from one's own language, one's history and experience. In literacy for emancipation , popular culture is the starting point, but one must learn both to reclaim one's culture by naming the world, as well as critically to reflect upon the world as socially and politically constructed. Experience is the crucial point from which one works, but we must also learn to develop a, critical attitude toward it by "questioning one's experience as well as the reasoning behind it." Also key is the idea of "illiteracy" as an act of resistance, that is, of refusal to take up the language of the oppressor. The challenge for the teacher is to use the few spaces available within education to build upon this resistance. To do this, the teacher must have "political clarity" - that is, know how to "properly" read the world - and respect the experiences and linguistic codes of the students. There are no "how-to's"; one must figure it out in the process of revolutionary practice.

While I agree with the points about language, experience, critical literacy and resistance, I strongly disagree with the facile treatment of the teaching situation. There is an underlying assumption of unity in Freire's work which I find disturbing; I find it even more disturbing when unity is raised to the level of a "first principle" for "proper" political practice. We see this reflected in the literacy notebooks where students learn; "The national reconstruction demands of us: Unity, Discipline, Work, Vigilance. And "unity" kept Freire from publicly disagreeing with Cabral. And "unity" is used against feminists throughout Latin America; it has long been used by the "left" in oppositional political situations (including in the USA and Canada) to silence feminist concerns. In the "politics of possibility" which Freire advocates, is it not possible to imagine a world in which political solidarity does not require the silencing of differences; a world in which Freire might have supported the work in Guinea-Bissau, but maintained his difference with respect to the language issue? Might have "saved" the literacy campaign? And isn't the attention to difference, to disagreement, essential to a critical politics of transformation?

Along with the emphasis upon unity comes a penchant for orthodoxy and the assumed authority of the "proper" political perspective. Thus, the work stagnates; it cannot handle critique - ironic, when his is what the approach is about. While Freire, Macedo and Giroux raise the question of differences and the need to respect them, these are not developed. Apparently, all teaching situations abound with the unity of teacher and students against a common oppressor, variously named as capitalism or colonialism. The only exception, named by Giroux, is the example he gives of a feminist teacher (the most lengthy reference to feminism in the book) in which the teacher engaged in the "wrong" practice of inciting the "scorn and resistance" of the students when she showed them "a variety of feminist articles, films, and other curriculum materials." Clearly the teacher's error is assuming an authoritative stance, yet there is no analysis of how the raising of gender might create this dynamic in a way that raising issues of class does not. Issues of authority, power, and value differences within the classroom, differences among students, as well as between students and teacher, are ignored. Not only am I angered by Giroux's example, but I find the work in general glosses over serious teaching and learning issues. I don't want a "how-to" manual; I would like to see serious analysis of the problems faced, especially of power dynamics within various educational situations. Orthodoxy brings with it a deification of Freire, as well as a didacticism in textual material that leads to precisely what Freire talks against - the lack of coherence between discourse and practice.