ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to show the theoretical influences on Paulo Freire, with an emphasis on Frantz Fanon, in order to show the contemporary relevance of Freire’s work in Brazil, America and Europe, which gives rise to several controversies and makes him the target of ultraconservative hatred. It examines the possibility of re-politicizing early childhood education using Freire as a “theoretical tool” to enable releasing the political imagination, by establishing some connections between Freire’s work and the pedagogical proposals for early childhood education renewal that have been discussed since the 1990s. Freire sees childhood as a possibility to resist shaping and imprisoning forces, a power of life. Adventure, reinvention, risk, and passion for knowledge – Freire’s propositions resemble childhood as it expresses possibility, inauguration, and inversion, or subversion, of the established order. The issue is identified or devised considering the children’s reality, on a regular or episodic basis, expressed by the children themselves or identified by teachers, and engaging family members.
