Engaging Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of Possibility is a cross-cultural case study of how people experience schooling in relation to their sense of time and optimism. César Augusto Rossatto examines how real-life situations and social structures influence people's construction of notions of possibilities. The findings of this study suggest that a curriculum based on Freirean critical pedagogy and time theories can be used to enhance time-consciousness values in contemporary social life.

Engaging Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of Possibility is a cross-cultural case study of how people experience schooling in relation to their sense of time and optimism. César Augusto Rossatto examines how real-life situations and social structures influence people's construction of notions of possibilities. Positionality, or perceptions about life and projections of the future, has great impact on students' success in school. These perceptions-how they interpret the past, live in the present, and foresee the future-are, in turn, greatly influenced by their intellectual locality. By the same token, how educators see their position in the world and their classroom 'roles' determines their operandum beliefs. The findings of this study suggest that a curriculum based on Freirean critical pedagogy and time theories can be used to enhance time-consciousness values in contemporary social life.

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction: A Personal Perspective
Chapter 3 Seeing Fatalism and Optimism from a Freirean Perspective
Chapter 4 Time Consciousness
Chapter 5 Blind Optimism
Chapter 6 Fatalistic Optimism
Chapter 7 The Impact of U.S. Standardized Testing in the Context of the Four Categories of Optimism
Chapter 7 Resilient Optimism
Chapter 8 Theoretical Implications for Children's Development, Studies on the Concept of Time, the Centeredness of School Pedagogy, and Critical Pedagogies
Chapter 8 Transformative Optimism
Chapter 11 Policy Implications, Recommendations, and Conclusions