“Teaching is not about transferring knowledge, but about creating the possibilities for its own production or construction.” (Paulo Freire). To know in order to transform is to make it possible to conceive of the new, to reinvent thinking; to immortalize experiences that enable the formation of citizens with new perspectives and perceptions of others and of themselves. Schools need to rethink their approach—an education capable of listening, engaging with reality, discussing it, and offering perspectives on how to change that reality. They must understand that human beings are historical beings, capable of shaping their own history by actively engaging with others in the world.

A transformative educationis capable of bringing about change through an interpretation of space; which bears all the marks of human life, constructed day by day and expressing both our utopias and the limits imposed upon us; it is to provide opportunities for reflection on our role as agents of our own history, guiding us toward paths of access to knowledge—linked to culture and a critical reading of reality—and challenging us to realize that the world can be changed, transformed, and reinvented.

The challenge facing schools today is to educate citizens so that they can participate consciously in social and political life and adopt critical attitudes toward the reality in which they live, empowering them to take action and transform the historical reality in which they are embedded so that they can live in society in an autonomous and responsible manner.

It is essential that society and the State recognize and accept that the school is a pluralistic social institution that educates for life and citizenship, serving as the fundamental educational and social agent in our lives. If necessary, we must rethink the meaning of social transformation in the educational context and thus strive to achieve a “Liberating Education” for our country—as Paulo Freire advocated and proposed—for, true to the principles of liberating education, he knew how to reinvent himself in the times and places in which he lived.

Thus, one of the challenges of education is to inspire, create, and recreate opportunities to combat prejudice, violence, alienation, and authoritarianism—in short, to redefine pedagogical practice so that it accepts and includes the differences of others and our own differences, and takes a stand against the differences produced throughout human history. From Paulo Freire’s perspective, the development of consciousness is linked to a pedagogical process—to a liberating education. This approach advocates for an education that is problematizing, consciousness-raising, and permeated by dialogue, one that stimulates creativity, reflection, and human action in society. (FREIRE, 2000, p. 102).

The educator and the learner reflect critically on reality, producing knowledge with and in the world, with a more critical and autonomous attitude, grounded in a critical awareness of humanity’s relationships with the world and with other people; these are important aspects of Freire’s theory.

The school we want is one that facilitates learning, with the goal and responsibility of helping students become fully formed individuals, thereby bringing about genuine social transformation. We must work toward finding ways to understand the world, generating knowledge that is legitimate; this is a challenge that motivates the school to spark curiosity, to learn and relearn how to be the protagonist of its own story, rather than simply a spectator of life.

Learning to strive for the kind of transformation that can make society more just, to build citizenship, and to develop the skills necessary for daily life—based on real-life experiences and the actions of the students themselves—are competencies that must be developed within a school.

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Education today must be rooted in life and everyday situations in order to be meaningful. Teachers must keep this in mind when developing the selected content. In this context, teachers need to devise and propose a variety of teaching-and-learning situations in which students will have the opportunity to develop solutions to these situations, test them, and reflect on and rethink them; With the aim of fostering the development of citizens so that they may engage in social and political participation and adopt critical attitudes toward the reality around them, learning to discern limits and possibilities in their actions and in the transformation of the historical reality in which they are embedded. According to Fonseca, they are people—historical subjects—who act, transform, struggle, and resist on a daily basis in various spheres of life: at home, at work, and at school. (FONSECA, 1997, p. 18).

To achieve a transformative education, it is necessary to foster interdisciplinarity in order to broaden the scope of teaching and learning, as well as the construction of knowledge. This specific knowledge is necessary for understanding the relationship between different time periods, which means recognizing the value of the past for the present and the future. Recognizing the importance of viewing the human being as a whole—establishing a connection between the individual and their environment—in the formation of citizens in their broadest and most democratic sense. In other words, this constitutes a fundamentally democratic educational process, through the development of capacities for perception, critical thinking, and self-knowledge among individuals of a specific time and place.

Understanding this process of social transformation means enabling people to write their own history, produce culture, and perceive themselves as historical subjects. Schools play a crucial role in fostering citizenship and in the social and political emancipation of individuals. Questioning facts means encouraging students to construct knowledge by consciously engaging with the world and becoming aware of themselves as historical subjects, thereby contributing to the construction of reality, inspiring an interest in inquiry and in a dynamic, evolving experience; and seeking to understand the workings of the universe that surrounds them.

Schools must educate for life and through life, starting at a very early age, viewing society as a space for achievement and encouraging students to develop a critical and civic consciousness. To this end, schools must have a clear understanding of their curriculum, their pedagogical approach, and their assessment system within the teaching-and-learning process and educational practice; they must discuss these elements and consider the possibility of changing this reality, rethinking the education of individuals capable of transformation—an education characterized by the transformative action of the world.

The understanding of being in the world, with the world, and for the world; the world can be changed, transformed, and reinvented. According to Paulo Freire, a school in which “the right to know better what one already knows, alongside another right—that of participating, in some way, in the production of knowledge that does not yet exist” (FREIRE, 2006, p. 111).

It is well known in the capitalist society to which we belong that education must be geared toward preparing young people for the job market. However, as education professionals, we cannot limit our work in the modern world to providing services solely to serve the interests of an economic system that exacerbates social inequalities and diminishes humanity’s role as the protagonist of its own history.

We must create opportunities for new knowledge and for reconstructing that knowledge, even if this requires us to deconstruct established truths, acting as an instrument of reconstruction in social transformation. This empowers individuals to be active participants in the society in which we live; to engage with new discoveries and ways of learning; and to critically question existing models, so that we may overcome the ills and challenges imposed by the world in which we live. In other words, to understand and make sense of the world around them.

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*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bett Brasil.

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