A vivência democrática da Escola Liberdade

Abstract

This research was carried out in the Liberdade School, a school that belongs to the Municipal educational System of Cuiabá MT, which is managed by the Council, seeking to stimulate effective participation of all the members of the school community, working with direct democracy in school. Through cooperated management, the School relies on a pedagogical practice based on the relations of alterity, aiming at citizen development. The aims of the study were the relationships built between educators and students, as a basis of support of the pedagogical practice, and bringing closer the relations between the school community and the local dwellers. The aim was to understand the way of life of the people involved in this process, questioning about the changes that it is able to provoke in their attitudes. The innovations in the pedagogical practices were also analyzed, seeking to understand if this practice contributes, according to the proposal of the Educational Project of the School, for a citizen civic education. This is an ethnographic case study, supported by a qualitative approach. In the field work, the methodological procedures used were registered in a field diary, interviews and analysis of documents and works developed from 2002 to 2008. As it is an investigation that seeks to understand the “democratic” way of life, I continued the study following the historical process. The management proposal of the School is that the social actors put themselves in the condition of “learners” and “teachers”, when teaching. The results show that there were significant advances in the strengthening of the collective work in the Management practices, and that the biggest difficulties are in the differences of interpretation of the Liberty School and of the Municipal Secretariat of Education about the interpersonal relationships in the democratic management. The information obtained through observation and interviews show that the aims of the School Project are being fulfilled, since this citizen development happens in the process and it is in this context that it can be obtained. So, the evidence of changes in the relationships and in the pedagogical practices, that have been obtained in the daily school life, have indicated that, despite the difficulties of institutionalization and having the vulnerability of the Project as a consequence, it is possible to transmit a distinct and innovating logic when doing the school activities.