Contribuições do pensamento de Paulo Freire nas práticas educativas no contexto das ligas camponesas de Sapé

Abstract

This research is a study of the contribution of the thinking/method of Paulo Freire in the context of the Peasants’ Leagues of Sapé. The contributions of Freire are based on a literacy method which promotes a critical-political comprehension of education, destined to young and adult illiterates. Its objective was to make the ‘oppressed’ subject free from subjection to the ‘oppressor’, by means of a process of education which stimulated a critical vision and understanding of the world. The Peasants’ Leagues were one of the largest movements that Brazil has experienced made up of peasants whose goal was to fight for basic citizen rights, in addition to an agrarian reform based on the right to land. Many of the peasants were illiterate, the ‘forgotten’ of society, who discovered in the Leagues a place of struggle and freedom of speech. The link between the Paulo Freire literacy method and the Peasants’ Leagues was provided by CEPLAR – Campaign of Popular Education – which was a small but expressive movement of popular education present in the state of Paraiba, in the period between 1960 and 1964. With the Civil-Military Coup of 31st March 1964, CEPLAR and the Peasants Leagues came to an end, and Paulo Freire was exiled. Even with the demise of these expressive movements, we affirm that they left a legacy of conquests and an example of struggle for history.