The Department of Education of our school held a new book release meeting for the newly published book called “The Wiley Handbook of Paulo Freire” written by Professor Carlos Alberto Torres, Chair Professor of the Department of Education at the sister school, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), at 10 o’clock in the morning. This event was held on August 13th and the Dean of the College of Education, teachers, and students, as well as the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Liaw, Shyue-Cherng graciously attended the meeting.
Professor Torres is a distinguished professor of the UCLA Department of Education and serves as the chair of the UNESCO Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education. He is committed to improving the world’s awareness of global citizenship education issues. Pay attention to and discuss, and put forward the theory and practice plan of global citizenship education suitable for the context of each country.
This year, he was invited by the “National Taiwan Normal University-UCLA International Taiwan Research Project Grant”. Professor Carlos Torres, a distinguished professor of the UCLA Department of Education, visited the school for a short-term visit in August. For this year’s “National Taiwan Normal University-UCLA International Taiwan Studies Program Award” our school recommends Professor Su, Jung from the Department of English, Professor Lin, Shu-hui from the Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature, and Professor Lai Tzu-Yun from the Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation to UCLA to participate in the “Sinophone Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Critical Reflections” international Academic seminars and short-term research in the school. UCLA recommends Professor Carlos Torres to come to our school this year. He will be received by the Department of Education of the school and cooperated with the College of Education and the Department of Education to conduct the “Sustainable Development and Teachers Training. A comparison of NTNU model and UCLA model” research project. Since the establishment of the Taiwan Freire Center in June 2016, the school has established a formal cooperative relationship with UCLA since 2007 to promote and deeply cultivate Paulo Freire’s educational practices and doctrines. During the visit of Professor Torres to Taiwan, he held a new book release conference for his new book “The Wiley Handbook of Paulo Freire.” Paulo Freire is a famous Brazilian educator, and his book ” Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) is regarded as one of the basic texts of the critical pedagogy movement. This book introduces Paulo Freire’s life, research, theory, and how countries around the world reinvent Freire.
The new book launch conference was delivered by Dean Hsueh-Chih Chen from the College of Education. He welcomes Professor Torres to visit the school. Our school looks forward to the brilliant introduction and explanation by Professor Torres from the character Paulo Freire, a master of educational philosophy. Professor Torres introduced the book from the perspectives of dialogue, southern countries, knowledge, awareness, and democracy. At the same time, it included the element of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promoted by the United Nations, he discussed Taiwan’s efforts on education issues. Professor Chen-Wei Chang from the Department of Education then introduced how Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in Asia recreated Freire’s theory according to their own special and complex historical context, and practiced them in different academic fields and fields.
After the meeting, Professor Torres carefully answered the questions of the teachers and students. Concerned about and reflecting on contemporary emerging issues, the professor used his meticulous thoughts and complete answers to the audience present, drawing a wonderful end to the new book launch.