The school institution cannot abstain from the world of politics, because that would cause the total impossibility of citizenship and democracy. These words and actions come close. Knowledge of politics is based on a Greek word, polis (city) and citizenship is based on a corresponding Latin expression, civitatem. The two terms indicate that it is reflected in the performance of life in society.
When we talk about citizenship, we praise it as if it were a dimension superior to politics. We should not belittle politics, as if it belonged to a less expressive field and inferior to citizenship. Through politics it is possible to build citizenship and democracy, in the political definition of the term: common good, social equality and collective dignity. And, in this sense, citizenship and democracy are reinvigorated and reinvented. As Boff states: «the human being is a being of participation, a social actor, a historical and collective subject of construction of social relations that are as egalitarian, just, free and fraternal as possible within certain historical-social conditions».
Social knowledge and political development are two aspects that are increasingly being revealed as instruments for the emancipation and autonomy of citizens who want to understand society and act as authors, builders and reconstructors of realities.
When we think of democracy solely as an ideal of equality, we end up annihilating freedom. There is a great danger in conceiving all individuals as equal, as we will exclude the democratic right of difference, the possibility of thinking differently and being different.
When we talk about democracy at school, we must, at the same time, recognize the difference in social roles and look for those aspects in which all members of the school community have the same rights. Within the School Institution, respect for the hierarchy, treating colleagues with courtesy, configure equal rights, which in turn consider citizenship.
Education for citizenship is a fundamental component of democracy. The educational institution must contemplate in its educational project, the will, the intention of being a school that works the ideals of citizenship. Therefore, isolated actions, from one area or another (or group), may not have the mobilization force to initiate, carry out and give autonomy to the project of a citizen school.
“It is necessary that the citizenship of the other is a concern of each one. Citizenship is personal, non-transferable, no one will have more if the other has less”. (Amarildo Vieira de Souza).
We all need to be aware of what it really means to exercise citizenship. Citizenship is the courage to share in the efforts to establish a free, fair and solidary society, as provided for in the Federal Constitution.
References: Mario Sérgio Cortella
Amelia Hamze
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