{"id":173203,"date":"2015-02-28T14:16:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T17:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=173203"},"modified":"2015-03-30T14:32:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T17:32:27","slug":"the-architecture-of-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/the-architecture-of-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Architecture of Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Escolas

Washington Luis Collection\/MRC\/MP\/USP Collection<\/span><\/a> Escolas Reunidas de Dois C\u00f3rregos, in Piracicaba, S\u00e3o Paulo State, 1924Washington Luis Collection\/MRC\/MP\/USP Collection<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Created in the early years of Brazil as a republic, the grupos escolares\u2014<\/i><\/em>the name given to the consolidations of separate elementary schools\u2014occupied mansions or monumental edifices, frequently surrounded by large gardens. The classrooms were huge, the windows high and wide, and the courtyards immense. Corresponding to the former primary schools that are now known as the first five grades of ensino fundamental<\/i><\/em> that combines the former primary school with what used to be gin\u00e1sio<\/i><\/em>, the grupos escolares <\/i><\/em>were the symbol of quality public education. Their architecture and mode of operation expressed the ideals of the men who had brought down the monarchy and wanted Brazil to be a modern country. \u201cThe grupos escolares <\/i><\/em>were the materialization of the republican plan for education,\u201d says Maria Aparecida de Menezes Borrego, a historian at the Paulista Museum of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP). They were so important, she notes, that \u201cthe public works department had a special section devoted to building schools, headed by Ramos de Azevedo and other big names in the architecture of the time.<\/p>\n

Borrego has organized an exhibit about the grupos escolares <\/i><\/em>at the Conven\u00e7\u00e3o de It\u00fa Republican Museum, an extension of the Paulista Museum, based on the collection of 4,884 photographs compiled by Washington Luis, who was president of Brazil from 1926 to 1930. The first part of the exhibit, which opened in November 2014, emphasized the architecture of schools that Washington Luis had visited or inaugurated when he was, variously, city councilman, state deputy, mayor, or governor of S\u00e3o Paulo. The second part will open in April 2015. It will display textbooks, student enrollment records, and report cards from the early years of the 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

The S\u00e3o Paulo republicans – Prudente de Morais, Bernardino de Campos, Jorge Tibiri\u00e7\u00e1, Ces\u00e1rio Motta, Caetano de Campos, Rangel Pestana, and others\u2014were committed to overhauling the education system \u201cas an eminently republican project,\u201d says Rosa de F\u00e1tima Souza, from the S\u00e3o Paulo State University (Unesp) in Araraquara. She has spent more than 20 years studying the formation of the grupos escolares <\/i><\/em>as well as the gin\u00e1sios<\/i><\/em>, which correspond to today\u2019s sixth to ninth grades, created as a reflection of the Vargas Era policy to expand the capacity of the public school system. \u201cExpansion of gin\u00e1sios<\/i><\/em> occurred more rapidly in S\u00e3o Paulo. Even so, not all the municipalities had them,\u201d she comments. As of 1930, there were only three gin\u00e1sios<\/i><\/em> in the state\u2014in the cities of S\u00e3o Paulo, Campinas, and Ribeir\u00e3o Preto. In a book published by Editora Unesp in 2014, O gin\u00e1sio da morada do sol <\/i><\/em>(The Gin\u00e1sio<\/i><\/em> in the House of the Sun), Souza and her colleagues Vera Valdemarin and Maria Cristina Zancul tell the story of the first gin\u00e1sio<\/i><\/em> in Araraquara, established in 1934 by the incorporation of a private school and now known as the Escola Estadual Bento de Abreu.<\/p>\n

First, the teachers<\/strong>
\nThe grupos escolares<\/i><\/em> resulted from the 1893 reform of the schools that began with the creation of teacher training courses. \u201cThe S\u00e3o Paulo republicans believed that training teachers was the key to developing public education as \u201ceducation for the people,\u201d considered essential to the strengthening of the new regime and the shaping of a republican citizenry,\u201d Souza observes. It soon became evident, however, that maintaining what were called \u201cnormal schools\u201d for teachers was expensive. She recalls that during the First Republic (1889-1930), \u201conly 11 official normal schools were created and maintained by the state; these were in important cities like Campinas, Casa Branca, Itapetininga, S\u00e3o Carlos, Botucatu and S\u00e3o Paulo.\u201d The first one was the Caetano de Campos Normal School, which occupied a building on Pra\u00e7a da Rep\u00fablica in downtown S\u00e3o Paulo, and served as a standard of excellence for teachers all over the state.<\/p>\n

\"Grupo

S\u00e9timo Catherini\/MRC\/MP\/USP Collection<\/span><\/a> Grupo Escolar Conven\u00e7\u00e3o de Itu, inaugurated in 1927S\u00e9timo Catherini\/MRC\/MP\/USP Collection<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

To solve the teacher shortage, in 1895 the government adopted a palliative strategy: they instituted the \u201ccomplementary curriculum,\u201d which initially lasted four years and followed the primary level. The complementary courses rather than the second stage of the primary course became a teacher training ground,\u201d Souza says. \u201cAs a result of that action, two modes of teacher training were established in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo: the normalistas<\/i><\/em>, educated at the normal schools, and the complementaristas<\/i><\/em>, educated in the complementary schools. Obviously, the graduates of normal schools had gone through a longer and more complicated period of training, while the complementaristas<\/i><\/em> had a shorter period of instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grupos escolares<\/i><\/em> were created by bringing together from four to ten smaller units that had been separate schools. In a second stage, anticipating the planned innovations, these so-called \u201cunited schools\u201d applied the principles that would govern education during the early decades of the Republic, such as classification of students by age, placing several classrooms in a single building, assigning one teacher for each grade, and separating boys and girls.<\/p>\n

\"Geography

Helena and Verico Pinheiro Collection\/ MRC\/MP\/USP Collection<\/span><\/a> Geography notebook, belonging to student Helena de Oliveira MachadoHelena and Verico Pinheiro Collection\/ MRC\/MP\/USP Collection<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe schools established at the beginning of the Republic represented regenerative education for a population that was still largely illiterate,\u201d Borrego says. The new educational strategies brought more children into the schools\u2014the number of registered students in the state jumped from 31,000 in 1900 to 338,000 in 1929. In an article in Revista de Educa\u00e7\u00e3o P\u00fablica<\/i><\/em> (Public Education Review), Souza wrote that the state government and the agencies associated with education in S\u00e3o Paulo sought to publicize these achievements through articles in newspapers, official reports, pompous ceremonies held to inaugurate new schools, festivals, and lectures. Despite these efforts, in 1940, 70% of Brazil\u2019s population, 41 million at the time, was still illiterate.<\/p>\n

The public schools remained as symbols of quality education for decades. But they were a fragile symbol, in the opinion of Rosa Souza. \u201cI am particularly opposed to using the history of education to reiterate nostalgic and idealized views of a glorious past in which the public schools were of good quality and functioned marvelously well,\u201d she says. In examining school archives and reading reports by teachers, directors, and inspectors of S\u00e3o Paulo schools throughout the 20th century, she has found stories of \u201cinnumerable difficulties faced daily, whether with respect to the conditions of the infrastructure and educational materials, or concerning working conditions, salaries, and student achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Souza, in 1960, more than 40% of Brazil\u2019s children were kept from attending school because of a shortage of capacity. Furthermore, promotion rates were low: almost half the children failed first grade. \u201cKeeping their children in school was very difficult for many families, especially those in rural areas,\u201d Souza observes. In fact, school reform favored the cities and neglected the countryside, although most of the population of the state of S\u00e3o Paulo still lived in rural areas, as Souza and Virginia \u00c1vila, of the University of Pernambuco, wrote in an article in the journal Hist\u00f3ria da Educa\u00e7\u00e3o <\/i><\/em>(History of Education). Rural schools continued to suffer from a teacher shortage and precarious facilities. Moreover, too many students had to quit school to work in the fields.<\/p>\n

Anyone who had some money and didn\u2019t want to have their children attend classes with the public school students sent them to private schools, usually religious. The Col\u00e9gio Nossa Senhora do Patroc\u00ednio de Itu accepted only girls. One of them, Helena de Oliveira Machado, attended that school in the decade of 1910; her notebooks and drawings, preserved by a granddaughter, were displayed at the Studies Center near the Republican Museum, complementing the exhibit on the architecture of the grupos escolares<\/i><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The public school system began to decline in prestige under a succession of educational reforms that meant the end of Latin classes and, eventually, instruction in French as well. In the 1970s both the grupos escolares <\/i><\/em>and the gin\u00e1sios<\/i><\/em> were converted to state elementary schools, and the teachers suffered a drastic wage squeeze that resulted in strikes like the one in 1979. \u201cAs in the past, there are challenges to be met both in the political realm and in the exercise of the profession,\u201d says Souza. \u201cThe republicans of the early 20th<\/sup> century left us a lesson, i.e., we must defend the public schools and teacher training, and support government initiatives toward modernizing and disseminating education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project<\/strong>
\nThe history of the rural primary school in the State of S\u00e3o Paulo (1931-1968): Circulation of foreign references, state initiatives, and school culture (No 12\/08203-5<\/a>); Grant mechanism: <\/b><\/strong>Regular Line of Research Project Award; Principal Investigator:<\/b><\/strong> Rosa de F\u00e1tima Souza (Unesp); Investment: <\/b><\/strong>R$69,621.09 (FAPESP).<\/p>\n

Scientific Articles<\/em>
\n\u00c1VILA, V. P. S. e SOUZA, R. F. As disputas em torno do ensino prim\u00e1rio rural (S\u00e3o Paulo, 1931-1947)<\/a>. Hist\u00f3ria da Educa\u00e7\u00e3o<\/b><\/strong>. V. 18, No. 43, pp. 13-32. 2014.
\nSOUZA, R. F. O bandeirismo paulista no ensino e a moderniza\u00e7\u00e3o da escola prim\u00e1ria no Brasil<\/a>. Revista de Educa\u00e7\u00e3o P\u00fablica<\/b><\/strong>. V. 20, No. 42, pp. 123-43. 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Schools of yesteryear as the materialization of a republican plan for education","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[203,226,241],"coauthors":[5968],"class_list":["post-173203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities","tag-architecture","tag-education","tag-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173203"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=173203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}