LEARNING, TRANSFORMATION AND EMANCIPATION: THE CASE OF THE ODÉ KAYODÊ SCHOOL

Abstract

This work constitutes one of the evaluative elements of the Public, Emancipatory, or Reproductive Education course, taught in the Graduate Program in Human Rights and Citizenship at the University of Brasília (PPGDH/UnB). This qualitative research addresses the relevance of alternative pedagogical practices, grounded in Afro-Brazilian culture, within a context of rebuilding human rights education. It uses bibliographical research as a research strategy at the Odé-Kayodê Pluricultural School, located in the city of Goiás, Goiás. By choosing this school as the object of our investigation, we aim to contribute to reflections on the plurality of education as a social right and the importance of debates that promote understanding of what it means to educate for transformation, aiming for emancipation. Thus, based on the theoretical contributions of Schilling (2014), Demo (2015), and Freire (2011), among others, we understand that a collective hermeneutic effort is essential to promote epistemological exchange, with concerns for a "just school," driven by the need for reflection in the face of a capitalist, meritocratic, and unjust society. The emergence of a new school model centered on learning and involving students and teachers brings, in alternative schools, signs of possible initiatives, if observed at the core of their practical and socio-pedagogical concepts. Furthermore, the ideological specter of "emancipation" intensifies in a movement to transform pedagogy from a bourgeois, primarily instructive, conception of teaching to authorial, collaborative learning, organically founded on Freirean autonomy. The conclusions indicate that schools must break with the dictates of neoliberal policies that impose the confinement of students within instructionist pedagogy, which in turn advocates for classroom-based educational processes to the detriment of meaningful learning and the development of critical thinking. To achieve this, it takes courage to challenge the machine and the alienating ideology of the capitalist system.