NEW HORIZONS FOR POPULAR EDUCATION: THE RISE OF THE FIGURE OF THE INDIO IN THE CASE OF SÃO BORJA

Abstract

This article is the result of a “Brave New World: breaking paradigms through education” university extension project, funded by a Scholarship Program of Academic Development (PBDA) of the Federal University of Pampa, in 2012. São Borja is a frontier town of Rio Grande do Sul, and the base of this university extension. It represented one of the earlier Jesuit Reductions, known as one of the “Seven People of the Missions”. Thus, the figure of the Indio relies on an important historical element, part of the formation of the city and the everyday habits of its inhabitants. However, on the premise that this relevance regarding the indigenous roots is undervalued or even unknown, including classrooms, the extension project focus this concealed point with city public schools. The chosen audience in the 2012 edition included the classes of third year of the middle school Escola Estadual Padre Francisco Garcia. The workshops were conducted and experiences guided for the pedagogical orientation of Popular Education, proposed by Paulo Freire, in accordance with the theory of the “directed knowledge”: the Socio-Interactionist Constructivism. Questionnaires are also applied at the beginning of this extension project. It is because, together with official surveys both on education and current Indigenous condition, it serves as the basis for understanding the framework that would be worked on, as well as to contribute to the construction of results of academic research. It was possible to establish debates on public policy in force, with an approximation of the universe of young people with local realities proven ignored, such as indigenous, while the understanding of the basic functioning of the major political institutions of our society.