It is the teacher—and the teacher’s conceptions of education and the world—that can make a difference in the teaching-learning process, since the teacher provides students with the opportunity to learn to interpret the world and to value their own history. It is of great importance that teachers, in the exercise of their profession, see themselves as those who will contribute to the construction of a sense of identity by establishing connections between individual and social identities and through a critical analysis of the history that is passed on to their students.

Understanding this process is essential for transforming the reality in which we live; it means enabling students to write their own stories, create a culture, and perceive themselves as historical agents. This empowers them to become critical citizens who are aware of their rights and duties, realizing that the world can be changed, transformed, reinvented, and experienced.

We are currently facing a variety of challenges—social, cultural, economic, and technological transformations—which are embedded in the socializing context for new generations. This makes it necessary for schools to develop curriculum proposals and educational materials that take into account this complex context, emphasizing educational practices rooted in the history of everyday life, local history, customs, legends, traditions, memories, and experiences in daily school life. It’s a challenge!

Today, it is important to provide an education that is intrinsically linked to students’ history, their life stories, and their local context, regardless of the teacher’s subject area. In this way, teachers will fulfill their social role as mediators of conflicts, challenges, and struggles faced by these students; for example, today’s education requires greater sensitivity and broader perspectives from schools to reflect more deeply on their city’s cultural heritage, thereby establishing connections with the meaning the community attributes to such assets and providing opportunities for students to exercise their citizenship.

It is important to emphasize that culture translates into school experiences within this context of exchanging experiences, lived experiences, and knowledge, with a focus on the history of everyday life, local history, customs, legends, traditions, and memories—all of which involve cultural relationships that both construct and deconstruct, thereby reviving cultural roots.

From this perspective, it is understood that students who possess this knowledge may eventually be in a position to contribute to the building of a less exclusionary society by taking on a role—above all, a political one.

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According to Gadotti (1998), “all knowledge brings with it its own transcendence”; thus, methodological practice—which encompasses education and culture—requires a conceptual foundation that supports and sustains such methodologies, providing opportunities to examine the students’ regional/historical identity—what they wish to preserve and transform in their history—  to reflect on and transform it, to exercise their full citizenship, to discern limits and possibilities in their actions and in the transformation of the historical reality to which they belong; and to take an active stance in societal transformations and in the construction of pedagogical knowledge grounded in quality and in their lived historical and cultural experience.

This allows for the construction of a pluralistic history, free from any kind of prejudice, in which the excluded gain a voice and assume the role of critical citizens, intervening consciously as beings who shape history and belong to their own era and spaces.

This methodological approach, which integrates education and culture, encourages a more attentive understanding of the world in which we live; it provides an opportunity to explore students’ regional and historical identities—what they wish to preserve and transform in their own history—to become active agents in society, individuals capable of thinking and bringing about change, exercising their full citizenship, and  and to discern limits and possibilities in their actions and in their transformation of the historical reality in which they are embedded.

To foster students’ development based on their skills—such as language, writing, interpretation, expression, critical thinking, communication, creativity, and autonomy—and to provide opportunities for their education and personal growth is to facilitate students’ engagement with their history and regional identity, thereby encouraging them to explore and develop curiosity about the place where they live. This can be achieved through reading books that bring to life the legends, traditions, and customs of their region. Emphasizing and encouraging the reading of works by national and local authors contributes to a deeper understanding of their history.

This educational practice is important and necessary today, as we find ourselves immersed in new technologies and their use in our daily school and social lives, which often lead to a drift away from our own culture in favor of a global culture, eroding local cultures and their images, symbols, oral traditions, and written traditions in favor of the virtual world; rendering us powerless in the face of our own history and causing us to lose our role as protagonists in our own lives.

Twenty-first-century society is increasingly characterized by the intensive use of knowledge—whether for work, social interaction, or the exercise of citizenship, or for caring for the environment in which we live. Thus, education must be at the service of development, which goes hand in hand with the construction of identity, autonomy, and freedom. Being a teacher cannot be limited to merely imparting knowledge; it also involves facilitating and guiding learning, sparking students’ interest in the interplay between problems, knowledge, and experiences.

According to Freire, a good teacher is one who, while speaking, manages to draw students into the very heart of his or her thought process. His or her class is thus a challenge, not a lullaby. His or her students grow tired, but they do not fall asleep. They grow tired because they follow the ebb and flow of his or her thoughts, and are taken aback by his or her pauses, doubts, and uncertainties. (1996, p. 96).

From this perspective, the National Curriculum Guidelines (PCNs) can contribute to a challenging and critical education, provided that they develop in students their “sensitivity, perception, and imagination, both when creating artistic forms and when appreciating and understanding the forms produced by themselves and their peers, by nature, and in different cultures” (p. 19). This knowledge fosters an understanding of the world through a poetic lens, encompassing artistic creation, communication, aesthetic perception, appreciation, and the “exercise of thought, intuition, sensitivity, and imagination” (p. 40).

Thus, it is evident that the New Law on Guidelines and Bases (LDB) of 1996, like the National Curriculum Parameters (PCNs) of 1997, emphasizes the idea of cultural diversity and multiple perspectives on the culture and history of Brazil’s tangible and intangible heritage. This allows us, as teachers, to expand on these themes by incorporating critical readings of texts in the classroom, reviving regional legends and traditions, researching historical sources, studying literary texts, and facilitating discussions about cultural diversity and everyday narratives.

To know is to transform; it is to make it possible to conceive of the new and to reinvent thinking; to immortalize experiences that enable the development of citizens with new perspectives and a new understanding of others and of themselves. It is the need to engage in dialogue, to break paradigms, to seek new truths, and to reflect on the world in which we live and its contradictions.

Develop methodologies that offer students the opportunity to learn about the place where they live, the cultures that have emerged there, and their relationship to those cultures. This enables schools to become important venues for fostering debate and critical thinking about the effects of the media, while valuing the social, local, and ultimately regional identity of students within the global context.

From a methodological, pedagogical, cognitive, and ideological perspective, teachers can incorporate the concept of culture, the history of everyday life, local history, customs, legends, traditions, memories, and personal experiences through interdisciplinary projects that highlight culture in each specific context. From this perspective, education and culture are linked to a critical analysis of the events experienced by students within the various social groups to which they belong.

Students need encouragement, and it is up to the teacher to foster that interest, to show them that they are part of this history and that they can and should take an active role in societal change. Understanding in order to transform. Furthermore, we must provide opportunities for thought-provoking questions and stimuli to build pedagogical knowledge grounded in quality—knowledge that stems from the entire historical and cultural context experienced by students. By valuing their roots and history in this way, we will undoubtedly be fulfilling our social role—especially in the face of today’s education system, which is often averse to its critical social function!

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BRAZIL. Law No. 9,394, dated December 20, 1996. Law on Guidelines and Foundations of National Education. Brasília, DF: Senate, 1996.

_______National Curriculum Standards: Art / Secretariat of Elementary Education. Brasília: MEC/SEF, 1997.

FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogy of Autonomy: Knowledge Essential to Educational Practice. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1996.

GADOTTI, Moacir (1998): Pedagogy of Praxis, 2nd ed., São Paulo, Cortez.