A Voice for Maria Favela - (Radical Politics and Education) by Antonio Leal

Book Synopsis

This open access book, originally published in Portuguese in 1988 and now available in English for the first time, describes the Brazilian educator, Antonio Leal's, experiences teaching so-called "unteachable" children in Rio de Janeiro's favelas. A Voice for Maria Favela tells the story of how Leal considers what the children bring to the class, gradually engaging them in developing a narrative about Maria Favela, a single mother and housemaid. Leal uses the sounds within the story to draw out the students' abilities to see enunciation and articulation as a process of becoming literatized.

A contemporary and admirer of Paulo Freire, Leal nevertheless recognised that his students' needs could not be theorized along Freirean lines of oppressor/oppressed. He devised an emancipatory approach that is more focussed on the individual child and their capacity for self-expression than those often found in critical pedagogy. The book puts forward a unique type of radical pedagogy and philosophy of education, developed through direct classroom observation. The book includes a substantial introduction written by the translator Alexis Gibbs (University of Winchester, UK) and preface by Inny Accioly (Fluminense Federal University, Brazil).

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Review Quotes

A Voice for Maria Favelaoffers a concrete and inspiring example of how to overcome prejudices over low class community of students: it shows the political and aesthetical educational life that emerges when an educator does not underestimate the creative power of any human being.
Walter Omar Kohan, Professor, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I read this book in two sittings and was enthralled throughout. First, the translation is very fluid-it reads with verve, depth, and fluidity. The translators have captured a voice and rendered it clearly for English readers. The book itself is something of a revelation for critical education or anyone interested in the tradition following Paulo Freire. One of the central questions of Freire's oeuvre is how does this politically-informed, radically democratic method apply to children and special education methods. Another is the sheer readability of Freire, whose use of theory can sometimes confound readers in teacher education courses. Leal solves both these problems: his text is explicitly methods-based, showing every detail of how he approached his transformative coursework, which will shock and transform educators' presumptions about pedagogy. It is practical to the extreme while maintaining the same analysis and radical approach of Freire. Finally, it is entoxicatingly readable, vulnerable, and relatable to anyone without technical academic training.
David I. Backer, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, West Chester University, USA

About the Author

Antonio Leal is a Brazilian educator and educational theorist.

Alexis Gibbs (Translator) is Senior Lecturer in Education Studies and Liberal Arts at the University of Winchester, UK.