This essay critically highlights the main features of a study that attaches importance to the concepts of time and optimism and their effects on the achievement and goals of high and low achievers in a North American and a Brazilian context. The focus on the time factor that serves as a leitmotif throughout the study gives this work its originality. One of the study's most pleasing aspects is that it draws on Freire's ideas as Education Secretary in Sao Paulo to suggest options for future education policy intended to provide more democratic and socially inclusive educational programmes. It is argued that these Freirean ideas should be given greater importance in educational administration worldwide than is the case at present. They can serve as an antidote to the technical rational and managerial approaches that seem to dominate the area.