We researchers and students of the Paulo Freire Cathedra of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP), connected to numerous courses and different lines of research, have organized ourselves to share our perplexity in relation to the latest declarations of the movement “School Without Party” (Escola sem Partido). The name Paulo Freire has been systematically attacked by this movement whenever the debate about critical education arises.
On the “School Without Party’s” website there are numerous reports that seek to discredit Freire’s ideas, an educator recognized world-wide as one of the greatest expressions of pedagogy in history, and Patron of Brazilian Education. The “School Without Party” demonstrates a deep lack of understanding of this author’s thinking, and no interest in trying to understand it. The evidence of this is in its arguments, equivocal concepts and misrepresentations of Paulo Freire’s propositions.
For us, fundamental questions from the Freirean proposal must be present in education. Schools are a space for dialogue between distinct visions of the world, which includes necessary debate about diversity in the context of the curriculum, and also with respect to different dimensions and perspectives of the policies that orient human relations. To reflect critically and position ones-self with regard to controversial themes, such as dictatorships, torture, sexuality, social movements, amongst others, is fundamental to promote respect for human rights, without dogmatism and authoritarianism.
By condemning the possibility for teachers to raise themes of gender, for example, (waving the banner of the ‘neutrality’ of the educational system) the “School Without Party” reveals its commitment to maintaining the status quo. The intolerance demonstrated on the streets of Brazil dangerously reflect this intention. It is naïve, if not deliberately false, to defend that this persistent scenario of violence against women can change without the work of consciousness raising, which is done within the ambit of education.
With this manifesto we want to expand the important debate about the role of education in the construction of a more just society with greater solidarity. It is impossible to construct knowledge and humanization when there is no dialogue and conviviality in diversity. Every pedagogical act is a political act vested with intentionalities. Therefore, to combat inequality and violence, it is essential to adopt a position, to take a side, to have clarity that one will always support or oppose certain projects of human beings and society. Critical education has contributed to the raising of awareness and the humanization of men and women, looking towards social transformation.
A school that claims to be ‘without a party’, working to suppress urgent political and social questions in Brazil, can only represent the side that wishes to maintain conditions that generate oppression and injustice. In this way, this movement demonstrates its side and its Party, even though it does not declare these things.
Sign the letter on the link: https://www.change.org/p/cr%C3%ADtica-ao-movimento-escola-sem-partido .
Researchers of the Freirean network, participants of the Paulo Freire Cathedra at PUC-SP, that develop work within the ambit of the project, Paulo Freire: Legacy and Reinvention, repudiate the Legislative Suggestion that proposes to revoke Law 12.612/2012, written by federal congresswoman Luíza Erundina, which made educator Paulo Freire Patron of Brazilian Education.
The justification for the Legislative Suggestion is unfounded, presenting historical and conceptual misconceptions, and is linked to ideological actions orchestrated against Paulo Freire, demonstrating that the legacy of this educator makes the actual representatives of conservative and authoritarian forces uncomfortable. Considered “dangerous” during the Brazilian military dictatorship, Freirean ideas still threaten oppressive groups that currently utilize semantic kidnaping and powerful media backing to raise supporters for the maintenance of the status quo in an attempt to discredit the political-educational option of Paulo Freire.
Internationally recognized as the author of a pedagogy that is committed to humanization, and against all types of oppression, Freirean pedagogy aims for the construction of a more just and democratic society. By assuming the non-neutrality of education, Freire denounces the complicity of the educational system with socioeconomic and political inequality, and proposes a problematizing education in which dialogue, solidarity and social justice are emphasized.
For Freire, the teaching-learning process is realized through critical dialogue between educators and educatees, mediated through objects of knowledge to broaden awareness about the reasons for oppression that limit human potential to “be more”, and instigate actions for mobilization to make it possible to overcome limit-situations. By proposing dialogue as a radical and fundamental concept of his pedagogy, Freire rejects any possibility of indoctrination and demonstrates the value of educators and educatees developing autonomous thought that permits a reading of reality that becomes increasingly more critical.
The Freirean praxis implies the struggle for access to, and permanence in, decent well equipped schools, for children, youths and adults; respect for the knowledge and culture of the educatees as the starting point for educational practice; rigorous and methodical production and appropriation of knowledge to unmask reality; permanent professional development for educators; and opposition to processes that cause inequality and oppression, working through solidarity and humanizing practices.
Given what has been said here, we express our deep indignation with the regression represented by revoking the title of Patron of Brazilian Education, granted to Paulo Freire, and we defend the resistance that demands a guarantee of democratic education with social quality.
São Paulo, October, 2017
Dr. Ana Maria Saul Coordinator of the Paulo Freire Cathedra, PUC-SP.
PORTUGUESE
