Do Mané Xiquexique ao João Pergunta: educação no Ceará nas décadas de 1920 e 1930

Abstract

This work intends to understand how education was planned and executed in Ceará during the 1920s and 1930s by intellectuals who believed that, due the mesological conditions of Ceará, there was a singular way of life of cearense in relation of Brazil. Thus, the climate would be a strong element impact on the formation of culture and behavior of the people living in northeastern drought region in general. Based on this theory, during the Reformation the Cearense Education, initiated in 1922, started to be defended the idea that the education should be adapted to the reality of children. It was in this context that appear in 1923 the book “João Pergunta ou o Brazil Seco”, a reference to the Brazilian northeast. This book written by Newton Craveiro, condensed in their lessons the main guidelines of education reform led by Lourenço Filho and reinforced the ideal of a school adapted to reality: “We have to teach child what they have to do when become adult. What does the northeastern child when it becomes man? Fight against drought "(CRAVEIRO, 1923, p. II). They wished therefore educate the northeastern subject in this direction so that they could settle accounts with the natural weathering, creating healthy and well prepared people for this hard mission. In this context, it recalled the figure of Mané Xiquexique, the mestizo created by Ildefonso Albano, which inspired Newton Craveiro in the creation of João Pergunta. Mané Xiquexique was the rude man from the Northeast, who learned to cultivate the land and take care of the cattle in everyday experience. On the other hand, João Pergunta was the child he had learned in school agricultural and pastoris basic processes . João Pergunta was therefore the model of child that the idealists of the New School in Ceará yearned to form. This work is an effort to understand how was built this ideal of education and which with symbolic, imagistic, political and cultural aspects it dialogues. For the development of this problematic, they composed the documentary corpus of this research especially the work João Pergunta ou o Brazil Seco of Newton Craveiro and other school books and literary of the period cut, the magazine Education New, as well as newspapers, reports of presidents of state, laws , Decrees and regulations.