THE PEDAGOGICAL POLITICAL PROJECT IN THE COLLECTIVE MOVEMENT FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL DEMOCRATIZATION: REFLECTIONS ON AN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

This article is based on an experience and dialog among its authors and analyzes collective work constructed over the past 14 years in a municipal public school in Santa Catarina, with the perspective on democratization of administration as an expression of the movement of its Pedagogical Political Project. The text is the result of the systematization of reports of this experience by one of the authors (who exercised the elected function of administrator of that school), interfaced by some theoretical references from the field of school administration, articulating description and analysis. It is thus an empiric interpretive work that is based on a concrete experience and articulated with theoretical elements,  and results in systematized knowledge. The authors initially highlight the social quality of education as a fundamental presumption of the school’s pedagogical project, and then describe and discuss factors of the constitution of their Pedagogical Project as a collective movement for democratization of the school. Finally, they highlight some advances and challenges of this process that is still a “work in progress.” The experience reveals that despite the challenges, a public school can be a space of resistance to authoritarian forms of management, and can invest in a collective project and with it achieve more significant levels of autonomy.