Education As a Reflection of Tradition

The history of Brazil is divided into three periods: colonial (1500-1822), imperial (1822-1889), and republican (1889 to the present). From 2015 at 2024, there have been distinct definitions of what “education” is in Brazil. Therefore, I will examine the concepts of education presented by Dilma Rousseff in her Message to the National Congress (2015), by the National Common Curricular Base – BNCC, (2017), and by Jair Bolsonaro also in the Message to the National Congress (2019), respectively, focusing on the forms of humanist, technicist and elitist education. Having explained the definitions, I present the analysis of two Brazilian “unpublished documents” – a Compendium Philosophicum (1756) and Offended and defended Slavery 1840 – as examples of an education based on innovation and social commitment. From them I point out a critical reading of elitist and technicist forms and advocate for critical and emancipatory education, based on three elements: 1) the need to produce knowledge on a global scale with symmetry, reciprocity and recognition, 2) education thought as an action that transforms the human being, and 3) knowledge and education as the basis for the inclusion and overcoming social inequalities.