The Legal Milestones on Brazilian Education
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American International Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2021 doi:10.30845/aijcr.v11n1p1 The Legal Milestones on Brazilian Education Juliana Battistus Mateus Ferreira Juliana Battistus Mateus Ferreira 55, Gil Vicente St, 2 apartments, Curitiba, PR, Brazil Abstract This article presents a historical description about the Brazilian educational background, since the Portuguese Colonial days up until the independent Republic of Brazil. The correspondent research analyzes the historical events that were vital to the Brazilian education, taking it back to Brazil’s own legal acts checking back to the educational ideas included throughout all these years, making it viable to understand Brazil’s current educational status, by understanding its past contributions, following Carvalho (2003), Castanha (2012), Lopes (2015), Miguel & Corrêa (2011), Ramalho (2006), Romanelli (2014) and Saviani (2008). And in order to assess it properly, this article has adopted the hermeneutics as its methodology, since it leads the researcher to contextualize, learn and correctly interpret the phenomenon, in accordance to Gadamer (2006) views. By doing so, the path taken by the Brazilian education system in search for a national system of education is presented herein. Keywords: Brazil; Education; Colony; Empire; Republic. 1 INTRODUCTION There are historical deficiencies and disfunctional problems present on the Brazilian education system. One of those problems is the weakness of the public schools’ system, as far as viable access to basic learning material is concerned, as well as school violence, veiled or not, that will eventually result in low levels of knowledge input and low effective social engagement. Such particular issue is reflected and involves teachers’ education, selection of supporting materials, the study time, as well as classes and courses offered. This is where the notorious quote from The Manifest of the Pioneers of Escola Nova1 (1932, p. 33) comes from: “in regards of order of importance of all of this country’s issues, no one is greater in importance and urgency than the education matter”2. That is why this article aims to analyze the historical moments that took place in the Brazilian education system history, so that it will be possible to assess all of the existing educational ideas that took place during this time. Considering that “the school institutions and their teaching ideas history, though different and self sustained in their own right, also eventually cross paths” (Saviani, 2008, p. 444). This current research aims to add knowledge and understanding of the current education scenario, starting its study from the analysis of the past. According to Saviani, it is possible to divide the history of the Brazilian educational system into 4 moments: [...] the first period relates to the prevalence of the traditional understanding; the second establishes the prevalence of the uninitiated traditional view; the third period is referred to as the modern teaching conception of things; and it is on the forth period that the critical view emerges and expresses itself on the dialectical conceptions (historic-critical) and also reproductive-critical, going against the reproductive conception, which its most known expression can be found on the human capital theory. (Saviani, 2008, p. 20) In order to do that, the methodology used in this research is hermeneutics, since it will lead us to the contextualization and the better interpretation of the phenomenon. The choice of the methodology is defined by the proposed five research moments of a phenomenon: perception, comprehension, capture, interpretation and communication (Gadamer, 2006). 1 There is no direct translation of the term into English. Nevertheless, just as a way of situating historically this educational issue, it might be useful to recall that Educação Nova brings together elements of what is called in French Éducation Nouvelle, and in English Progressive Education (Vidal, 2013). 2 All translations by the author (2020). 1 ISSN 2162-139X (Print), 2162-142X (Online) ©Center for PromotingIdeas, USA www.aijcrnet.com 2 THE BRAZILIAN EDUCATION JOURNEY Brazil’s history can be divided into three historical periods: the colony, the empire and the republic. Looking at each one of these periods, it is possible to denote that the economic and social characteristics influenced on the provided education in those times. There were distinct teaching thoughts involved, as well as methodologies, practices and educational goals. And as a consequence of that, it also impacted on the culture of being a teacher and on the planning of the academic graduation process. 2.1 THE COLONY DAYS The theoretical contributions of historical analysis presented by researchers of this field normally describe the Jesuits, that arrived in the country during the Colony years (1500-1822), as the first teachers Brazil ever had. The Jesuits provided a strong educational religious schooling for the native people between 1549 and 1759. They were sent by the colonizing kingdom of Portugal and they had a very clear agenda while in the Brazilian colony: to teach the catholic practices and Portugal’s sovereignty to the native people found in Brazil (Lopes, 2015). The Jesuits interfered strongly on the natives’ culture, by reinforcing their culture and social representations over the natives’. They also introduced their own opinions and materials brought to the new land, as well as their daily practices. That way, education in Brazil during this time, focused mainly on literacy of the elite’s children, the religious awareness for the natives and the formation of religious leaders, such as priests, founded on the humanism and scholastic patterns established by the scholar methodology called the Ratio Studiorum (Lopes, 2015). The educational measures during this particular time were highlighted by its standard pedagogical methods, “education is done so that people knew what they could or could not do” (Lopes, 2015, p. 50). Education was known, therefore, for the correction and for disciplinary actions. The Jesuit priests, Colony Brazil’s first educators, developed an educational process, from a schooling standpoint, based on an organized and systematic process. Still on this project – the Ratio Studiorum – some pages were dedicated to explain pusnishment practices. (Miguel & Corrêa, 2011, p. 124) Training teachers was something that didn’t interest the Portuguese and therefore, there was none. Undergraduate courses available at the time were boycotted by the Portuguese Empire, who feared for independence acts in the colony. So, there were only universities in the Brazilian colony that focused on Art classes, “that covered Logic, Physics, Mathematics, Ethics and Metaphysics”, and Theology, “that would grant the student a doctorate degree”. The first degree was given in 1550 in Bahia (Lopes, 2015, p.152). In the final colony years, education was led by guidelines from the Pombalina Reform, which was implemented by Marques de Pombal in 1759. She proposed a public educational system, but it was kept to the elite only; royal classes; in addition to the deportation of the Jesuits priests out of the colony, being replaced by paid teachers that were appointed by the Portuguese monarchy. Up until this point in time, school education was traditional, males only and aimed at local elite groups. Women had a different role on education. They would be responsible for the social education role, good mannered family guidelines, under the consent of the Church. Such a scenario suffered very little change on the Empire years (Lopes, 2015). The following is a table with milestones in the history of education in the Colonial Brazil. 2 American International Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2021 doi:10.30845/aijcr.v11n1p1 Figure 1 - Timeline of the history of education in Colonial Brazil. Prepared by the author (2020). Education in the Colony Brazil years was very much guided by the Jesuits model until their expulsion from the colony in 1759. The Brazilian educational scenario started to be rewritten with the arrival of the Royal Portuguese family in Brazil, in 1808, and the rise of the Brazil Empire. 2.2 THE EMPIRE DAYS Now during the Brazil Empire years (1822-1889), education was divided into three segments: elementary, secondary and higher education. This classification was determined by the Constitution of 1824 signed by the Emperor. It was described as a centralized policy, which came to suffer changes ten years later by the Additional Act, that started the descentralization process of education in Brazil and the spread of the free elementary education across the country. The first two segments of education were made the responsibility of the provinces, taking on the literacy and initial education years, and the last one was directed to the Portuguese Monarchy. The responsibility delegated to the provinces caused a process of various sorted practices and educational policies across the Brazilian territory. That happened due to the considerable economic differences between the existing provinces, which caused great educational differences among the provinces (Sucupira, 1996). It is important to mention that, as soon as the Independence of Brazil from Portugal was made official, a Constitutional Body was named and it established a Constitution project. That project dealt and considered the public education system only on items 250, 251 and 252, that anticipated the creation of primary schools, sports