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urgent, critical confrontation with reality. So far removed is this from the realm of
serene tranquility that the educational process is experienced as ‘an act of self-violence’
as all concerned critically negate their own negation (Freire, 1972b, p. 125).
Where, however, does this impatient act of critical self-violence lead? Freire often
tells us that ‘every denunciation generates annunciation’ so that the role of the educator
need not go beyond that of critically ‘unveiling’ the structures of oppression (Freire,
1972a, p. 41). This unveiling needs to proceed on the basis of a rigorous scientific
understanding of concrete material data, the emphasis being placed on ‘knowing the
world as it is’ in scientific detail in order to problemetise it (Freire, 1972a, pp. 41–42;
1985, p. 138). In order to prevent a lapse into the vain hope of the inveterate dreamer,
one must at all costs remain focused on the Possible and ‘have your feet firmly planted
on the ground’ (Freire & Shor, 1987, p. 186). As long as the noble impatient rage of
the critical educator is tempered by a concern with scientific rigour, then guiding
students toward a critical knowledge of reality will enable them to initiate and lead the
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process of their own becoming (Freire, 1985, pp. 127–128).
At other times, however, Freire insists on the need to move beyond a scientific
knowledge of reality and a concern with the Possible. Sometimes, indeed, Derrida’s
notion of ‘the impossible possible’ is called to mind; the idea that a future announced
as ‘possible’ is neutralized in advance such that only the impossible can truly arrive
(Derrida, 2001). For Freire, progressive education is conceived as an inspirational
process through which the educator seeks to mobilize the educand with a dream; a
pedagogic practice through which the impossible, by virtue of the strength and convic-
tion with which it is dreamed and announced, becomes possible. While his concern to
avoid the false hope of the irresponsible adventurer leads Freire to declare that ‘the
impossible should not even be dreamt of’ (Freire, 1994, p. 158), when he embraces
the discourse of transformative hope he insists that ‘the possibility alone of saying that
it is impossible makes possible the impossible’ (2007a, p. 82). Rejecting the discourse
of impossibility as ‘reactionary’, Freire is conscious that the task of ‘making viable
the dreams that appear impossible’ (Freire, 1993, p. 123) is engagement full of risk –
a precarious adventure driven by the trail-blazing hope of the prophetic educator.
Embarking on such an adventure puts one at odds with the practice of patient hope.
The educator animated by patient hope concedes that ‘I cannot manipulate the
students to bring them with me to my dream’ (Freire & Shor, 1987, p. 156) but must
rather persevere in respectful dialogue. The educator animated by transformative
hope, however, argues that ‘there is no liberating education without some measure of
manipulation; there is no such thing as angelic purity’ (Freire et al., 1994, p. 36). For
the transformative educator, the aim of education as a political act is to move beyond
dialogue, critique and the articulation of well-founded possibilities. In the face of a
reality that sickens and offends, it becomes the responsibility of the educator to
announce their utopian vision and to mobilize support for it, thereby transforming it
into a shared utopia dream (Freire et al., 1994, p. 37).

Conclusion
To point out that there are tensions in Paulo Freire’s thought is to say nothing new. So
aware was Freire himself of the different directions in which the radical educator was
being pulled that he referred to the praxis of education as a ‘near mystery’ (Freire,
1998b, p. 221). What I have tried to highlight here is that the conflicting demands placed
on the educator, what Derrida would have termed the aporia of contradictory injunc-