The Cathedra Paulo Freire was created in 1998, at PUC-SP, to debate important themes about Freirean thought. With units that extend for fifteen teaching weeks, it confers credits equivalent to an optative unit for regular post-graduate students in the Education Program: Curriculum.
Initially, guest professors whose productions were in tune with Freirean thought, coordinated the Cathedra each semester. In the first two semesters, Professor Ana Maria Araújo Freire (Paulo Freire’s widow) and Professor Miguel Arroyo, respectively, were invited. The collegiate institute of the program defined the following themes to be worked on in each of these semesters: “Paulo Freire: 30 years of Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, and “Paulo Freire: the contemporary pedagogical roots, history and process”.
At that moment, the collegiate institute recognized the important contribution of the work developed by the guest professors, but began to feel the need for a more permanent presence of the professors of the Cathedra, to articulate this work in unison with what was developed in the Program. Based on these considerations a new format was designed for the Cathedra.
It was concluded that the Cathedra should be coordinated by a Professor connected to the Program’s permanent body of teaching staff, who also had knowledge of Freirean thought. In 1999, Professor Ana Maria Saul took on the coordination and, initially, worked in collaboration with Professor Yvonne Khoury.
With this change, the theme to be developed each semester became the responsibility of the Cathedra’s coordinators. It was also established that the Cathedra organize special seminars that would later take the form of “Dialogues at the Paulo Freire Cathedra”, to which guest professors, from outside PUC/SP, were invited. These events were opened to students from the entire university, with the aim of broadening debate about Paulo Freire’s thought.
Source: https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/curriculum/article/viewFile/3129/2067
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