Compare and contrast William Brickman and Paul Freire
By: Helena Gray
Northcentral University
Presented to Dr. Stein
June 29, 2014

Introduction:
This paper speaks about the two individuals, William Brickman and Paulo Frere’s. Even though some of their thought and view on education were different, they had some similarities. The paper will explain their birth, death, achievements and the difficulties both men faced through their journey in the field of education.
Compare & Contrast William Brickman and Paulo Freire William Brickman was born on June 30, 1913 and died of Leukemia on June 22, 1988 at Philadelphia hospital. He was the founder and president of the comparative and International Education Society. Brickman attended city schools and earned his bachelor and master at the City College in New York, and his Ph.D at the University of Pennsylvania. His teaching began at City College, where he taught for over 40 years, the New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. One of his achievements as a teacher, and researcher, was in the field of education and Comparative and International Education. Brickman encouraged and published young scholars, contributed article to encyclopedia, and wrote many articles and reviews for professional journals. The opportunity to interact with people from other cultures at an early age drove him to learn their languages and pursue more into his research of comparative education (Silova & Brehm, 2010 p. 20). He held many visiting professorships and was a member of numerous committees. Brickman was different from Freire, in that he conducted more research, visited and included more scholars to his research and work; whereas Freire did less work, for his views were not as extensive as Brickman.
Paul Freire was born (1921-1997) to a Brazilian family, and lived among new class of people different than where his family was from. Here, he saw firsthand the oppression of the peasantry in the region (Flanagan, 2006).
Freire viewed education as not being neutral, for it was the way for the powerful to oppress others. “Education empowers the oppressed to discover alternatives to situations which have been taken as natural, necessary and unchangeable” (Flanagan, 2005 p. 186). Freire had an intense sense of educational justice for all and this exposed him to multilingual and multi-cultural influences until the end of his life through education, the oppressed should be empowered to see the conditions that keep them in their current state (Flanagan, 2005). William Brickman’s beginnings were equally inauspicious, living in the poor section of the Lower East Side of New York City (Silova & Brehm, 2010).
Brickman's Contributions
Brickman wrote and published many diverse works. As editor of school, Brickman encouraged young scholars. For the Norwood Educational Reprint series, he edited over 40 books, contributed articles to encyclopedias, and wrote several articles and reviews for professional journals.
Brickman’s dedication and his childhood experiences greatly contributed to his success.
The opportunity to interact with people from other cultures at an early age drove him to learn their languages and pursue more into his research of comparative education (Silova & Brehm, 2010 p. 20). Equally, Paul Freire’s personal experience and the environment in which he grew up and lived in greatly contributed to his ambition and success.

Conclusion
Overall, both men contribution made a great impact in the field of education. I will therefore finalize to say that the articles written of them are very interesting to read, for it tells of their life, death, difficulties and encounters in the field of education. Therefore, William Brick and Paul Freire, though had some slight similarities, they were both scholars who made great contributions in the field of Education.

References:
Brickman, W. W. (1966). Ten years of the Comparative Education Society. Comparative Education Review, 10 (1), 4-15.
Gadotti, M. (1994) Reading Paulo Freire. His life and work, New York: SUNY Press.
Flanagan, F. M. (2005). Greatest Education Ever: London: Continuum International Publishing.
Silova, I., and Brehm, W. C. (2009). Education and geopolitics in a changing Europe:
Forty years of scholarship in European Education. European Education: Issues and
Studies, 41(2), 7–3