The power of freirean pedagogy in the context of authoritarianism in brazilian education

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on the power of Freirean education in face of the authoritarian conservative impetus of contemporary Brazil, exposing the rise of the reactionary movement underway in Brazil. To this end, it points out how the history of Brazil is marked by the authoritarianism, in which the death of thousands of native peoples took place; the process of slavery, which humiliated and vilipended hundreds of other people; the dictatorships and the deep social inequality embedded in the country. Methodologically, there is an exploratory study that provides a reflection on the legacy of the work of Paulo Freire in front of the statement of plural and democratic values, necessary to realize a dialogic and problematizing education. It also presents authoritarian elements that are already placed in the Brazilian educational context under the shadowy spectrum of totalitarian danger. In this sense, this study was anchored in the light of Arendtian thought about the totalitarian system, referring to a time of freedom limitations, rigorous political persecution, and social injustice. However, it is by indignation that the world is moved, without losing hope of being able to enjoy it in the beauty that the pedagogical construction, politically assumed, leads to freedom. Thus, when the roots of education are stuck in the horizon of equity, lovingness to people, and full citizenship, education becomes humanizing. With this, the liberating education, under the egis of the thought of Paulo Freire, can anchor itself, no doubt, on ethical principles to achieve the highest degrees of the human development scale.