conceptions of childhood and the education of working class children: a Benjaminian critique of the school project without a party

Abstract

The present article attempts to systematize some contributions of the philosopher Walter Benjamin with the intention of helping us think about childhood and the education of the working class in a context in which are formulated law propositions like Escola Sem Partido (School Without Political Party), in Brazil. These are propositions with a strong conservative nature and ideological control that have been developed in recent years. We seek in Benjamin the notion of experience and how it relates to childhood and the field of education, as well as his contributions to popular or proletarian education. From these notions and Benjaminian referential, we aim to analyze education projects and bills, such as the one mentioned above, inquiring about the conceptions of childhood, history, experience and politics that underlie this debate. The intention here is to think, from a benjaminian point of view, the continuous growth and expansion of the ideas that guide the “Escola Sem Partido” bill and its influence on the education of young children, especially working class children. For this, we consider some of the author's writings as: Experience, Experience and Poverty, The Life of Students, Programe for a Proletarian Children's Theater, Communist Pedagogy, The Storyteller and his radio narratives presented in Berlin and Frankfurt radio stations, in which children's culture and everyday life stand out. In addition to Walter Benjamin, we also refer to publications such as Gaudêncio Frigotto and Jorge Larrosa and to federal bill 193/2016 (“Escola Sem Partido”), as legal document analyzed, in order to begin tracing the paths of this study, which is part of a current doctoral research.