Teacher Paulo Freire in the Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos: Primary School for Brazil

Abstract

Primary School for Brazil was the single study published by Paulo Freire in the Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos (RBEP) in 1961, and stemmed from a conference given at the Symposium Educação para o Brasil, promoted by the Centro Regional de Pesquisas Educacionais de Pernambuco (CRPE). During this period, Paulo Freire was still a teacher that, like many of us, tried to survive through teaching, applying for Public Service exams, giving lectures, publishing studies etc. He was not yet famous and notorious, nor an established author (Foucault, 2009c) with cemented ideas for education. Notwithstanding, he managed to publish his study in a journal where the main proponents of  Brazilian education were issued, such as: Carneiro Leão, Lourenço Filho, Anísio Teixeira, Fernando de Azevedo etc. Therefore, our focus in this paper is to comprehend: what did the teacher Paulo Freire say about primary school to the point of his ideas begin to circulate among the most prominent intellectuals of education writing for RBEP? In this sense, we analyzed speech as an action, perceiving it not as what may be behind it, nor through what is being said in its content, but “as regular and distinct series of events” (Foucault, 2009a; Albuquerque Júnior, 2009). We then conclude that, in 1961, Paulo Freire’s ideas had not yet been cemented in education, however, in his discursive path, there were already established authors on whom he based his views, a fact that, in our opinion, facilitated this publication.