Who is Paulo Freire from Pedagogy of the Oppressed and what is their importance?

The Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a book about ideas, and the ideas presented are those of the author, Paulo Freire. Freire is an educator and a revolutionary. Although Freire states in the preface that he has never been involved in a revolution, he looks upon his role in education as revolutionary and he believes in the ideal of a revolution of the common people. He is interested in the problem of impoverished, oppressed people, and he believes that the problem is systemic, rooted in the struggle between an oppressive upper class bent on maintaining power and an oppressed lower class rendered impotent by oppression.