PISANDO SUAVEMENTE NA TERRA OU PRIMEIRO BIMESTRE ESCOLAR
Veronica Pinheiro
09 de abril de 2024
Collage: Lívia, 7 years old | Class: I am nature
Photo: Veronica Pinheiro
We reached Complexo da Pedreira through a school. We have many criticisms of the education system that homogenises thoughts and practices. The criticism is wide-ranging, not directed at teachers or a specific education department. The regular school plays its part in the project of imposing European civilisation. This imposition results in a distortion of identity for Afro-Pindoramic peoples, since the school teaches us to see through the eyes of the coloniser. Leonardo Boff once said:
"Each one reads with the eyes they have, and interprets from where their feet tread."
By ignoring knowledge and sciences that are not intentionally contained in its manuals, the school provokes a process of deterritorialisation of children within favelas, quilombos and villages; it thus delegitimises the knowledge brought by children and families, forcing students to adopt the idiom and language of the dominator.
I have witnessed (as a student, teacher, pedagogical coordinator and school principal) a lot of physical and symbolic violence committed within the school.Symbolic violence is the "invisible" violence that subjugates and imprisons subjects. We have a lot of critics, but we can't ignore the fact that in Brazil urbanised children and adolescents, especially in the peripheries, are so vulnerable that school can become a space for interesting constructions. So... if school is a place of homogenisation and docilisation of populations, it can also become a place of rupture.
So what would be the disruptive element?
Cris Takuá, my teacher, teaches me not to rely on ready-made answers, but on sowing possibilities for transformation that sustain worlds. We believe in strengthening territories by awakening recent and very old memories. Since time is circular, what will be and what has already been are sensitively connected. Telling stories to wake up is not just about awakening a socio-historical consciousness, but about establishing pillars that make it possible for people to read themselves through their own eyes.
For these and for other reasons, however, we couldn't just go to school and tell teachers and students that they need to think in a different way. We are building dialogue and bonds, not applying a proposal devoid of context. We arrived treading softly on the earth. Many of the students' parents studied at E.M.P. Escragnolle Dória as kids and were pupils of the teachers who teach their children. Some teachers have worked here for over 15 years. It's essential to hear these stories.
We ended the first half term in great mood. The first grade teacher invited us to plan the activities for the next terms together, including the idea of a living school in her planning. Some teachers are voluntarily accompanying the children's workshops at school and the reading circles. Others found me on Instagram and made their way to Selvagem.
Diretoras e coordenadora pedagógica também começaram a sonhar conosco. Até o Sol, tema do ciclo de estudos Selvagem em 2024, passará a fazer oficialmente parte do Projeto Pedagógico Anual da escola – PPA. Não fizemos palestras ou reuniões para falar dos ciclos para a equipe pedagógica, o proselitismo não faz parte do pensamento Selvagem. Como se deu então as parcerias? Pela magia do encontro. O encontro é capaz de criar vínculos de vida de maneira orgânica, natural e confluente.
“May we then cheer up
and cheer up once more,
Nhamandu first true father!"¹
Foto: Veronica Pinheiro
¹A fala sagrada: mitos e cantos sagrados dos índios Guarani I. Pierre Clastres; tradução Níeia Adan Bonatti. – Campinas, SP.