Nessa escola ninguém quer a sua “boa” educação: o Centro Herval em busca de um caminho popular para a escola popular de massa

Abstract

The high index of disapproval in Brazilian public schools, where the children of the working class are studied, is there flection of the social inequality present in society. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that Brazilian education has presuppositions, forged by an excluding society, which imposes a meritocratic school model unattainable to the poorest population. The case described in this study, analyze how the Herval of Cruz Braz Educational Center (CERHCB) broke with this model of exclusionary school by gathering, starting a management committed to a popular education, a collectivity of educators who carried,in their histories, the defense of a model of public education that search a new format that would serve the popular classes. This public school, in Juiz de Fora (MG), at first attended only students with a school history of retention in the 6th grade, with age / year gap of three years at least, which manifested resistance to the traditional teaching system in leaving school, failure and behavior considered by traditional school like indiscipline. The CERHCB, by enhancing the identity of its public served and implementing compensatory actions to its lags, increased the student's interest in the learning process, contributed to his stay in school, ensuring his promotion to High School. In addition to the committed team, initially, the municipal administration understood the project as an alternative to a less exclusive education and, therefore, allowed a considerable autonomy to the management. However, with the change in the municipal administration, a set of procedures was initiated that, according to the education department, sought to "frame" the school and give a "equal treatment" to the rest of the network. Therefore, the bureaucratic discourse prevailed, and the school was limited by the new administration. The institutional bad faith, the result of a conservative society, reached the CERHCB, agreeing with the precarious functioning of the education system for the poorest populations that do not meet the same conditions of the middle class for good school performance.