ABSTRACT
Education is the ultimate foundation for universalizing movements, because critical thinking leads to asking the big questions and connecting the dots—fostering a way of thinking that is as universalizing as the system it must challenge and subvert. Pedagogy of the oppressed, the revolutionary vision of learning and schools proposed by the Brazilian educator and visionary, Paulo Freire, is an inspirational guide for universalizing movements. A small but influential sector of faculty, educated by professors who were radicalized in the 1960s, are critical thinkers who see their academic mission as creating a pedagogy of critical thinking that translates into resistance and transformation, targeting the corporatized university and society. Education should always be the greatest aggregator of critical thinking and citizen activism. The education system is a contradiction. It is part of the ideological apparatus of the system, inculcating capitalist values and thinking, and teaching conformity and acceptance of authority.
