Simulación en Crystal Ball

07. Liberation Theology had its heyday in the 70s and 80s…. Organizing themselves in small communities of bible study (Christian communities CEBs) or in pastoral groups specializing in social movements (land, indigenous, minors, etc.), they developed a social vision of Christian salvation promises.

Source: Fernandes, Rubem César. Religião. Pouco Padre, Pouca Missa e Muita Festa.

The movement mentioned in the text can be characterized: a)   as the principal representative of Protestant reform in Brazil. b)   by its anti-socialist doctrine in Latin America.

c)   by its position, which combines religion with Marxist doctrine.

d)  by its conservative stance of detachment from revolutionary movements.

e)   by its defence of the military regime, inaugurated in 1964.

This vestibular-style question offered during a geography lesson tested Colégio Ceará students’ knowledge of social movements and their affiliated political economic ideology. Although the question suggested that the time for liberation theology has passed, vestiges of the movement live on in the pedagogical approaches inspired by Paulo Freire.

Freire’s (2005) The Pedagogy of the Oppressed is considered to be one of the seminal texts of critical pedagogy, an educational philosophy that draws on critical theory and advocates refiguring the traditional relationship between teaching and learning. In his book, Freire offers a Marxist class analysis to argue that people are divided into oppressors and the oppressed: the oppressed do not recognize their oppression just as the oppressors cannot always see the ways in which they are part of the system that oppresses. In order to work towards liberation, the oppressed must recognize the causes of their oppression. This recognition will help the oppressed to see their situation “not as a closed world from which there is not exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform” (Freire 2005: 48). Ultimately, the pedagogy of the oppressed will become “a pedagogy of all people in the process of permanent liberation”, as those formerly oppressed will free the oppressed and oppressors alike (Freire 2005: 53).

Given the emphasis on transformation, it is unsurprising that time features heavily in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In his characteristically dense prose, Freire delineates how time will feature in the hands of those not invested in the pedagogy of the oppressed:

The rightist sectarian differs from his or her leftist counterpart in that the former attempts to domesticate the present so that (he or she hopes) the future will reproduce this domesticated present, which the latter considers the future pre-established – and kind of inevitable fate, fortune, or destiny. For the rightist sectarian, ‘today’ linked to the past, is something given and immutable; for the leftist sectarian, ‘tomorrow’ is decreed beforehand, is inexorably preordained. This rightist and the leftist are both reactionary because starting from their respectively false views of history, both develop forms of action that negate freedom. The fact that one person imagines a ‘well-behaved’ present and the other a predetermined future does not mean that they therefore fold their arms and become spectators (the former expecting that the present will continue, the latter waiting for the already ‘known’ future to come to pass). On the contrary, closing themselves into ‘circles of certainty’ from which they cannot escape, these individuals ‘make’ their own truth. (Freire 2005: 37)

Thus, the rightist and leftist sectarians’ decided lack of imagination blinds them to what Donaldo Macedo, in his preface to the 30th _{anniversary edition} of the book, describes as “the power of thought to negate accepted limits and open the way to a new future” (Freire 2005: 31). Those engaged in the pedagogy of the oppressed use the problem-posing method as “revolutionary futurity” (Freire 2005: 83). As students and teachers act as co-investigators, critically analysing oppression as part of on-going historical processes, they begin to see how they might work in the present to create (a) better future(s). How does this process begin? Freire argues that traditional schooling treats students as piggy banks to be filled with knowledge, that this system “involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students)” (Freire 2005: 70). He proposes shifting the balance to dialogical relations between teacher and student, with teachers engaging in “problem- posing” to provoke curiosity as well as critical consciousness. Hence, students become teachers and teachers become students as both “develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves” (Freire 2005: 82).

Oppression & O Povo in the Brazilian Curriculum & Pedagogy

The 1996 Lei das Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional (LDB, Law of National Education Fundamentals and Guidelines) characterizes education as a responsibility shared between the family and the state, “inspired by principles of liberty and the ideas of human solidarity” with its end being “the full development of the student, his preparation for the exercise of citizenship and his qualification for work” (LDB 1996: Art 2). Though the “dominant classes” constructed the LDB, Pereira and Werlang (2002) demonstrate a Freirian spirit throughout the document. Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed designates “human solidarity” as a specific goal towards which teachers and students should be working. The LDB is imbued with similar Freirian language throughout.

Additionally, the LDB outlines curricula that should encourage students to valorise non-dominant/oppressed identities and, potentially, recognize oppression. Although the LDB specifies that all educational institutions must

adhere to the National Education Plan (a separate document developed/updated every 10 years in concert with federal, state and municipal stakeholders), it still outlines basic tenets for the curriculum of ensino básico (nursery, primary and secondary schooling): each level must integrate age-appropriate lessons related to the environment, human rights, and the history and culture of Afro-Brazilians and indigenous peoples. Specific to ensino médio (high school) is a focus on technology, citizenship and modern production as well as mandatory philosophy and sociology classes. Similarly, the “Human Sciences and Its Technologies” section of ENEM (see Appendix II) requires skills and knowledge that demonstrate a “critical consciousness” approach. Key skills include understanding cultural identity and showing how social, economic and political factors relate to power dynamics. Students should be able to trace these power relationships over space and time, relating them to changes in production, advances in technology, and the natural environment/resources. Political movements, citizenship and rights feature heavily as students are expected to draw on history from “democracy in antiquity” and “the development of liberal thinking in capitalist societies” to “the great revolutionary processes of the twentieth century” and current “networks and hierarchy in cities, poverty and spatial segregation”. Furthermore, students should understand how all of these are linked with production structures from slavery to capitalism and socialism. The LDB and the set of skills required for ENEM both suggest various versions of o povo: those oppressed economically, socially and politically.

Metodologias de Apoio: Áreas de Ciências Humanas e Suas Tecnologias (Support Methodologies: Human Sciences and its Technologies), produced by the State of Ceará as a guide for social sciences teachers, explicitly promotes Freirian pedagogy:

The teacher’s critical consciousness and interference as a political agent of transformation from his own practice can constitute […a] mechanism for change that can catalyse ‘indignation’ as a driving force for a practice based on an ‘epistemological curiosity’ as suggested by Paulo Freire in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (Seduc 2008: 10)

Teachers should not be afraid to use their own politics to provoke indignation through problem-posing. (Freire posits that teachers made conscious are ethically bound to act both pedagogically and politically; thus, a mathematics teacher might incorporate his political knowledge about capitalist systems into the dialogical teacher-student relationship.) Although the pedagogical guide encourages an anti-hegemonic approach, it attempts to curtail teachers advocating too radical a revolution:

History teachers must take into consideration that the contradictions posed by the current stage of capitalism (flexible) have permitted Latin America and Brazil to advance in the struggle for implementation of effectively democratic societies. (Seduc 2008: 13)

The guide’s approach posits that the current incarnation of capitalism and democracy are interlinked. Teachers should be wary of disputing this when provoking indignation to help students learn.

What does the prescribed Brazilian curriculum and pedagogy beget? Following Freire, a level of “critical consciousness” of the modes of oppression, oppressors and the oppressed should lead to indignation and, perhaps, liberation and/or peaceful revolution. Following the LDB, this critical consciousness should create capacitated citizens, qualified for work. Is indignation compatible with worker-citizens who slot into the structures of flexible capitalism? Support Methodologies argues that it is, that the work of teachers and students in dialogue will create students who will:

assume the role of citizen, critical subject, conscious of his role in society, capable of breaking with excesses and social injustices, in search of an egalitarian and democratic society that respects diversities. (Seduc 2008: 14).

In the following sections, I move into the classroom to show how these documents are (and are not) put into practice.