Blowtorching Freirean Thought Out of Bolsonaro’s Brazil: Alagoas’s Escola Livre Law

• Author: Thiago Pezzuto
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221147894
• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221147894

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 248, Vol. 50 No. 1, January 2023, 218–236

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221147894

© 2023 Latin American Perspectives

218

Blowtorching Freirean Thought Out of Bolsonaro’s Brazil

Alagoas’s Escola Livre Law

by

Thiago Pezzuto

The state of Alagoas’s Escola Livre law prohibited teachers from sharing with their

students opinions that are political, partisan, religious, or philosophical in nature.

Application to the analysis of its passage of the punctuated-equilibrium concepts of policy

image and policy venue suggests that mutual reinforcement of (1) the return of the right

in Latin America, (2) the rise of evangelicals, and (3) the advent of the School Without

Party movement in the larger context of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment process created a

unique window of opportunity that the law’s author perceived and seized upon.

A Lei Escola Livre do estado de Alagoas proibiu que professores compartilhassem com

seus alunos opiniões de natureza política, partidária, religiosa ou filosófica. A aplicação

dos conceitos de equilíbrio pontuado de policy image e policy venue à análise de sua pro-

mulgação sugere que o fortalecimento mútuo entre (1) o retorno da direita na América

Latina, (2) a ascensão de evangélicos, e (3) o advento do movimento Escola Sem Partido

no contexto mais amplo do processo de impeachment de Dilma Rousseff criou uma janela

de oportunidade única que o autor da lei autor identificou e explorou.

Keywords: Education, Education policy, Punctuated equilibrium, Latin America,

Brazil

In November 2015, the Legislative Assembly of the state of Alagoas in

Northeast Brazil, by a stunning unanimous vote, passed the law establishing

the so-called Escola Livre (Free School) program (ultimately Law 7,800 of May

5, 2016). Contrary to what its title might suggest, instead of fostering meaning

making, dialogue, and reflection, the Escola Livre law severely compromised

teachers’ ability to teach and, in turn, students’ ability to learn by imposing a

series of bans built on indefinable terms, the most (in)famous of them being

“indoctrination”: “The practice of political and ideological indoctrination and

any other actions by teachers or school administrators that impose or induce

political, partisan, religious, or philosophical opinions in students are hereby

forbidden in classrooms in the state of Alagoas” (Article 2).

Thiago Pezzuto is a Ph.D. candidate in international education policy at the University of

Maryland, College Park. His doctoral research draws on scientometric and visualization tech-

niques to map the field of comparative and international education. His research interests also

include the political economy of education and the role of ideology in education policy making.

Previous works have appeared in such publications as PS: Political Science & Politics and

Routledge’s Studies in Global and Transnational Politics series. He thanks the peer reviewers from

Latin American Perspectives, whose insights helped shape this article.

1147894LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221147894Pezzuto/ALAGOAS’S ESCOLA LIVRE LAW

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Pezzuto/ALAGOAS’S ESCOLA LIVRE LAW 219

The vagueness that permeates the text of the law is not the result of poor

drafting but deliberate and systematic.1 It is, at its most basic level, an attempt

at creating a system riddled with impenetrable jargon that, through the dis-

semination of uncertainty and fear, undermines the use of certain pedagogical

approaches, particularly those premised on critical inquiry. The practice of

“indoctrination,” for example, is not specified in law, nor is it a matter of con-

sensus (see Snook, 1972); there are simply no clear criteria for determining

whether a given instructional episode constitutes indoctrination. Accordingly,

without clear legislative standards against which to test claims against teach-

ers, virtually any action can reasonably be framed as “indoctrination.”2

Exploitation of vague language went beyond the spectrum of teachers’ actions

to cover the subjects not to be addressed in the classroom. Albeit limited (open-

ing the way for the disingenuous argument that the ban merely applies to “cer-

tain” ideas), the specific areas indicated by the Escola Livre law are so broad

that they could arguably be defined by what they did not cover, perhaps the best

example being “philosophical opinions.”

Failure to abide by the new rules could result in sanctions and penalties that

ranged from warning to dismissal, and posters listing “teachers’ duties” were

to be displayed in classrooms. Combined with the inability to predict whether

one’s actions in the classroom could or would be arbitrarily construed as

“indoctrination,” “propaganda,” or any practice otherwise deemed detrimen-

tal to students, such sanctions all but removed any incentive for inquiry, peda-

gogical experimentation, and collaborative learning. In practice, the program

created and indeed required what Freire (2005: 71–72) calls the “banking”

model of education:

The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmental-

ized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the

existential experience of the students. . . . Instead of communicating [emphasis

added], the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the stu-

dents patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the “banking” concept

of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only

as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.

Vetoed by Governor Renan Calheiros Filho in January 2016, the law came back

into force in the following April after that decision was overridden by a com-

fortable 10-vote margin. Predictably, its constitutionality was challenged before

the country’s Supreme Court by multiple petitioners, including the National

Confederation of Teaching Establishment Workers, the National Confederation

of Education Workers, and the Partido Democrático Trabalhista (Democratic

Labor Party—PDT).3

In October 2016 Attorney General Rodrigo Janot issued the opinion that the

law was unconstitutional in that it imposed a “disproportionate sacrifice” on

freedom of expression and was “excessive and unnecessary” in that state law

already had mechanisms to protect the students’ freedom of conscience. In the

same vein, in March 2017 Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso provi-

sionally suspended the law on the grounds that it was “so vague and generic”

that it might achieve the opposite of what was intended—“ideological imposi-

tion and persecution of those who disagree with it.” A conference was finally