Between Codes of Persistence

Concepts of Beautifulness in Art, in Pedagogy that Makes Sense and the Patron of Brazilian Education

Abstract

The concept of beauty in art, in general, is that of the aesthetic exposed in what is used to be called “beautiful letters” and “beautiful arts”. This makes it seem that the struggle in the arts is a calm sea and a serene night. No night is serene without moonlight and the moon demands movement, one that refers to the opposing forces in action. This movement is from another “sense” of art and it is this open and unfinished semantic field (universe) that interests us to compare its edges. Another slippery concept that is difficult to consider precisely is that of education. For each paradigm, as well as epistemology or culture, there should be an education perspective of its own. The education project in practice in complex societies - those in which a type of paradigm has established itself as the hegemonic one, based on violent practices -, the processes of mentality composition or the formation (reproduction) of labor can very well not make any sense to apprentices or students coming from classes considered to be subjected or in the process of being - by the logic of the dominators. The idea of submission has something of “expired” or “extinct”, but with an aggravating factor. It seems that it was by consent, without war, without fighting, almost by request. In this case, education and catechesis have the same origin, the same meaning: to impose ways of being and of how to think on those who are in the teaching benches as if they were sweet cookies, but with an overwhelming force that, against which, there seems to be no escape. It is the same litany known in university spaces as the old speech of the winners. On the opposite side of the coin, it is also known that no submission is complete or complete, that there is always the possibility of a game changer expressed in the codes of persistence and remanence of chants, prayers and gestures – and why not languages? These codes that disturb the owners of power, including the educational one, and make them (re)orient their morning speeches forever, wherever they come from. It is these codes that are also guided by those who defend a pedagogy that does not reproduce or shape, but enables transformation, designing another way of teaching that contains learning; and, like the moon and the sea, they meet in any process of exchange. This is in a project in which making sense matters and the student's perspective is considered. The educator, the school and the project are challenged to see where the world is seen. Therefore, this project is one through which something is seen from the opposite side of the dominator, thus being able to make sense of the student's life, work, and existence because it includes a fundamental notion: the existence of those who learn. If those who “learn” are not considered in the educational process, the pedagogy in execution is not questioned because its nonsense is not called into question. And its nonsense is not seen because the student is not considered. His life and those of his are nullified. This is an act of violence produced every day in classrooms. Obviously, the struggle for an educational process, which is constituted by transformative pedagogical projects, is not the action of a single man. There are, however, men from time to time who manage to outline, express and/or structure these anxieties in specific acts, in structured projects and, therefore, structuring public policies. In this sense, Paulo Freire summarizes the steps of what we want to deal with here, having already considered these concepts. We will see, from his work, the concepts of Boniteza and Pedagogy that make sense for the persistence of literary structures beyond, far beyond beautiful letters.