ID21 Insights Site map Adult literacy students write their own textbooks. The first is the Freirean approach to education. Paulo Freire advocated a process of education that builds on people's experiential knowledge, and which links literacy to gaining higher self-awareness and social consciousness. The diagrams generated are labeled using standardised cards with pictures on them, which are easy for local people to recognise and copy.
Learners make their own copies of the diagrams in exercise books.
Written words are gradually associated with the diagrams. Participants learn by actively writing, not passively reading. As they gain literacy, they also conduct systematic studies of their communities, oriented on analysing community problems and finding opportunities for action. Participants reported self realisation as a benefit of the process. In Uganda, men assumed household tasks like collecting firewood that they had never done before.