The school without party movement in question: teaching narratives

Abstract

The School without Party Movement is a topic that became the object of our research in 2018, when it gained great repercussion in the field of education, by both: those who defended the proposal and those who rejected it. In this paper, we present reflections based on the study carried out that year that aimed to know the trajectory of basic education teachers and the way they dealt with the issues raised by this Movement. To this end, narrative interviews were carried out with five teachers. In these interviews, teachers talked about their professional trajectory, as well as analyzed the School without Party Movement. The study also aimed to understand the trajectory of this Movement and its arguments. The determination of the Movement that “the teacher will respect the right of parents to have their children receive a moral education that is in accordance with their own convictions” raises questions about how to deal with the diversity of convictions and conceptions that may coexist in a classroom. As the research listened to the teachers, characters directly involved in this proposal, we gathered data that contributed to broaden the ways of understanding this movement, from the teachers’ point of view. Based on Paulo Freire’s studies, we discuss the meanings of neutrality and the meaning of moral education implicit in the proposal, as well as analyze the risks of fanaticism and sectarianism that this Movement can entail.