|
|
Teaching for Social Change: Educational Activism in Brazil |
|
|
|
|
Contributed by John P. Myers
|
|
Sunday, 01 June 2003 |
At Colégio Júlio de Castilhos, a high school of over 4,000 students in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, a group of five first-year students are making a presentation in their Ancient History class. Their topic is the history of Rome, and they start by showing a few slides about the myth of the city’s founding. Cléomar, the teacher, takes notes on the presentation and occasionally interjects with a question or comment. The students take turns discussing different political and economic topics. One presents on agrarian reform, which he illustrates by comparing issues in Rome with those of agrarian reform in present-day Brazil. The student describes the work of the Landless Workers Movement (or MST) that emerged in 1979 and is currently one of the largest social movements in Latin America. The MST has been involved in combative and sometimes violent confrontations over land reform, through their strategy of long-term land occupations. When successful, they have created settlements characterized by cooperative relations and collective management. Cléomar interrupts to relate how a confederation was formed in the 1980s of diverse peoples living in the Amazon rainforest to work for agrarian reform and prevent exploitation of the resources.
While this scene may appear unremarkable, teaching about oppositional social movements and social justice would have been dangerous in Brazil just twenty years ago, when many of these teachers began their career and were politicized. From 1964 to 1985, Brazil’s government was a military dictatorship, but politics has changed greatly since the return of democracy in 1985. January 2003 marks another major political turning point, when Luis Ignacio da Silva, nicknamed Lula, of the Workers Party was inaugurated as President. Lula comes from a working-class background, an anomaly even for leftist politicians in Latin America. Brazil now has the distinction of being the most populous country in the world with a democratically elected leftist government.
These activist teachers in Porto Alegre draw on their political activities to teach for inclusive democratic citizenship. Although teachers no longer need to sneak out at night to hold meetings about progressive politics in Brazil (as they did during the military regime), they remain in an educational system that often presents knowledge as objective, and schooling as equally beneficial and relevant for all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, gender or ethnicity. In this context, teaching remains a largely conservative profession that is apolitical and overlooks issues of social justice. Yet education is a key site of political conflict over what and how young people should be taught. The social studies curriculum in particular is contended by various groups, who want it to reflect their vision of how society should be organized and what the role of citizens should be. The outcome of this conflict, especially in the social studies, has implications for the kind of citizenship that young people learn, and will eventually practice, particularly in a country whose citizens have limited experience with democratic institutions. Within an educational system that reflects the social and economic inequalities of Brazil, these progressive teachers see their work as a struggle to transform society.
Activist teachers often introduce issues of social justice and democratic citizenship that are based on their own experiences of political struggle. At times, they take up issues that the school is unable to address sufficiently or ignores completely. Carmen Susana, for example, works with an NGO to organize meetings of students of color across the state, in order to build solidarity. She makes racism the central theme of her classes by drawing on her personal experiences with discrimination, building up the self-esteem and confidence of students of color, and explaining to students how they can change society.
“Often the students look at me and say that I am not black, because people don’t understand the concept of what it means to be black, and they confuse being black with the tone of the skin. If it is really dark, then you are black, and if it isn’t really dark, then you are not. I often address this in the classroom. The students ask why I say that I am black, and some students say that I’m not. Then they are shocked, because I say that I am. This hits them, and they have to think. This is already a way to start the questioning of who is and is not black.”
By weaving examples from their study of geography with the students’ own experiences and knowledge, students are encouraged to come to their own conclusions about the treatment of people according to the race and ethnicity in their communities.
“Normally I begin working with them on the concept of race and tracing a parallel between racism and discrimination. Then, from the meaning of the term we have discussions and debates in regards to the reality in which they live, where I aim to have the students think first about the question of whether there is racism or not. And starting with the student’s response, I push her to make her own conclusion about whether there is racism or not. I also have the students do interviews and research that emphasizes the history of the country, so that he or she understands how these issues began, how they arrived in the present situation.”
A common strategy that these teachers employ is to help their students understand the causes of oppression operating in the world and to act on this knowledge, an approach which in Brazil is tied closely to the work of the educator Paulo Freire and others in the area of popular education. Popular education is an approach that emphasizes the experiences and knowledge of the students, an understanding of the socio-political context, learning that is combined with social activism, and non-authoritarian relations between teachers and students. Freire became an internationally renowned voice for popular education during the 1960s and 1970s, due to his successful literacy campaigns. In order to raise their students’ consciousness, some teachers incorporate an analysis of the national and global conditions that have led to inequality and injustice in Brazil, including issues of colonialism and globalization. Thadeu, a history teacher who is active in the Workers Party and a national leader in the teachers union, uncovers relations of power and domination by emphasizing the role and point of view of social movements, and he encourages active participation for social change.
“I give space to opinion, I give space to voice and, on the other hand, in order to respect history, I always seek as much as possible to work with the history that is not the old history… undoing some myths constructed by the official history of the last centuries and looking for some reference to popular movements that were very important. The great majority were covered up in Brazilian history. I try to demonstrate that the world out there is not a world that satisfies everyone, that this Brazil that is out there is not a Brazil for everyone, and that there is need for change, which is of interest to the whole world. From the most humble to the most sophisticated, transformation is necessary to gain the power that leads to security, for the workers to have more hope. Thus, the history I teach is not the history I learned.”
These teaching approaches address the difficult, and often overlooked, tasks of promoting political consciousness of social justice issues in students, and preparing them to participate in the political system. Students learn that politics is not just something to talk about.
Although Brazilian activist teachers continue to face obstacles in teaching about social justice, most notably the socioeconomic inequalities and illiteracy, which are reflected in the educational system itself, there are several educational practices in Porto Alegre that support teaching about and for democracy and social justice. These practices, however, are not common across Brazil. In comparison to Canadian education, for example, these practices are quite innovative and progressive.
First, textbooks in Porto Alegre are often chosen by a consensus of the teachers in each subject area; while teachers in Canada might also have some choice, they are allowed to choose only from a small number of approved textbooks, which tend to be politically conservative and which avoid controversial issues. In Porto Alegre, the choice of textbook was not restricted and, in fact, history books with a Marxist focus were chosen in several schools.
Another important way in which power is shared in significant school decision making is in the role teachers play in selecting the principal: they choose the school principal by election. This approach helps to break down the antagonistic relationships and the ‘us-them’ mentality that can develop in schools between the administration and teachers, inevitably diminishing the quality of education. Lastly, some elementary schools in Porto Alegre have extended participation in school management by adopting school councils. These councils further democratize the power relations within schools by including all members of the school community - teachers, parents, students and support staff - in school deliberation and decision making.
This practice is a product of the Participatory Budget in Porto Alegre, a program that allows for open citizen participation in decision making about the city budget.
Ultimately, activist teachers are not satisfied with teaching students about political issues, events and ideas. They go further by teaching directly and indirectly in ways that prepare their students for participation in the political system. They insist on the importance of teaching for social change and action, and in so doing, reveal the potential of education to build and strengthen democratic citizenship. At the same time, the challenges that activist teachers continue to face demonstrate that citizenship remains a contested subject in the school system.
John Myers is a doctoral student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. He recently spent 3 months in southern Brazil researching democratic teaching. He can be reached at: jomyers@oise.utoronto.ca |
|
