PAULO FREIRE AND THE TRANSFORMATION ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE CRITICAL PRACTICE OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

ABSTRACT

Is Paulo Freire, a possible announcement? This study reflects about critical action in School Psychology, problematizing its effectiveness in materializing transformative actions at school. To this end, we sought in Freirean thought, in dialogue with School Psychology productions, theoretical-practical subsidies that would help us in the task of bringing the psychologists’ critical work closer to the needs of current public schools. Throughout the discussion, we present dialogue and politics as interesting starting points for the materialization of criticism into a transformation practice, guided by the dialectical action of professionals concerned with dialoguing with local subjects, as well as affirming the politics of education embodied by their engagement in defending the democratization of their praxis. Finally, our announcement is made based on the commitment to the development of reflections and practices from a critical perspective in School Psychology based on Freirean thought.

Keywords:
school psychology; critical thinking; Paulo Freire; public school

RESUMO

Paulo Freire, um anúncio possível? No presente estudo reflete-se sobre a atuação crítica em Psicologia Escolar, problematizando sua efetividade na materialização de ações transformadoras na escola. Para tanto, buscou-se no pensamento freireano, em diálogo com as produções em Psicologia Escolar, os subsídios teórico-práticos que nos auxiliassem na tarefa de aproximar o trabalho crítico das(os) psicólogas(os) com as necessidades da escola pública atual. Ao longo da discussão, apresentamos o diálogo e a política como interessantes pontos de partida para a materialização da crítica em prática de transformação, orientados pela ação dialética de profissionais preocupados em dialogar com os sujeitos locais, tanto quanto em afirmar a politicidade da educação corporificada pelo seu engajamento na defesa da democratização de sua práxis. Por fim, nosso anúncio se efetiva a partir da aposta no desenvolvimento das reflexões e práticas em uma perspectiva crítica em Psicologia Escolar sustentado no pensamento freireano.

Palavras-chave:
psicologia escolar; pensamento crítico; Paulo Freire; escola pública

RESUMEN

Paulo Freire, ¿un anuncio posible? En el presente estudio se piensa sobre la actuación crítica en psicología escolar, problematizando su efectividad en la materialización de acciones transformadoras en la escuela. Para tanto, se buscó en el pensamiento freireano, en diálogo con las producciones em psicología escolar, las subvenciones teórico-prácticos que nos ayudaran en la tarea de acercar el trabajo crítico de las(os) psicólogas(os) con las necesidades de la escuela pública actual. A lo largo de la discusión, presentamos el diálogo y la política como interesantes puntos de partida para la materialización de la crítica en práctica de transformación, orientados por la acción dialéctica de profesionales preocupados en dialogar con los sujetos locales, tanto cuanto em afirmar la política de la educación corporificada por su compromiso en la defensa de la democratización de su praxis. Por fin, nuestro anuncio se efectiva a partir de la apuesta en el desarrollo de las reflexiones y prácticas en uma perspectiva critica en psicología escolar sustentado en el pensamento freireano.

Palabras clave:
psicología escolar; pensamiento crítico; Paulo Freire; escuela pública

INTRODUCTION

The present article aims at reflecting on the practice of psychologists in the concrete reality of Brazilian public schools, taking the current critical perspective that predominates in the field of school psychology in order to think of it as a transforming practice, that is, praxis of action and reflection. In order to do so, there is an attempt at conversing with the pedagogical thought of Paulo Freire, with the following question: how can the criticism sustained in the history of School and Education Psychology materialize into transforming actions referring to the reality of public schools by professionals who are committed to education as a practice of freedom?

This historical criticism to the classic relay I was typologist with school happened after the epistemological rupture with the positivist presuppositions of science, Which formulated comprehensions that were adaptive, reductionist, and excluding regarding the educational phenomenon, as well as, psychological practices oriented by a logic of individualization, blaming, and the judicial perspective in school life (Botelho, Cunha, & Bicalho, 2020; Patto, 2015; Souza et al., 2014; Souza, 2018).

Besides that, researchers sought new methodological-theoretical contributions that would provide for the necessities of school everyday life, with special attention to their institutional, pedagogical, and relational constitution, while revealing their educational and social dimensions. In addition, there was the defense of the political commitment by psychology professionals in the fight for the protection of the public and democratic character of the school, regarding it as a potent social space for the construction of critical thought that promotes democratic values (Andrada, Dugnani, Petroni, & Souza, 2019; Souza, 2009, 2018).

With the new practical-theoretical mobilizations that were launched by the critical perspective in practice/formation in School Psychology it was possible to overcome traditional discourses regarding school complaints. It happened due to the construction of a psychological praxis that is based on the analysis of pedagogical-institutional networks that are present in everyday school life, trying to understand them as complex processes that are made up of historical, political, and social dimensions (Souza, 2009).

This trajectory of school psychology led to transformations in the established relation between psychologists and school. However, they are reproduction did not guarantee that effective changes had been realized in the everyday life of schools in the overwhelming context of capitalist society, based on the neoliberal discourse. Because the announcement of the critical word is not a converging dimension among psychology professionals, neither was it able to consolidate transforming actions referring to the concrete reality of public schools, providing guidance to practices that are coherent and revealing of the implications of actions that are fragmented and excluding while reproducing capitalist sociability. (Moreira & Guzzo, 2016).

In this essay, we formulated the critical position in school psychology as a product of the action of individuals that are involved with the transformation of social and objective reality at school, taking them as “producers of this reality and whether such reality, in the ‘inversion of praxis’, effects and conditions them. Transforming oppressive realities is a historical task” (Freire, 2005, p.41). In order to do it, we will regard it as authentic praxis, questioning how it can mistakenly disconnect itself from the dialectic process of action and reflection, engineering practices that are distant from the objective reality of public schools.

During this discussion, we presented the meaning of criticism in school and education psychology from the perspective of Paulo Freire in order to elaborate it as authentic praxis of action and reflection, by means of the formulation of critical practices that operate towards the inseparability of dialogical action and political action.

THE MEANING OF CRITICISM IN SCHOOL AND EDUCATION PSYCHOLOGY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PAULO FREIRE

In connection with the thoughts of Paulo Freire, the practice of school psychologists is considered a transforming praxis, by means of the problematization of the effectiveness of practices that are coherent and revealing of the historical meaning of criticism in school psychology. Thus, we question how the historical meaning of criticism can dangerously get confused sometimes with interpretations that are disconnected from the reality of school, and sometimes with actions that do not critically include school individuals towards transformation. Such context appears as a political reflection of psychological practices that reproduce the comprehensions that disconnect action and reflection from the school phenomenon.

We believe that the mere recognition of a critical perspective that does not mobilize concrete action by psychologists will not be able to produce a transformation of the objective reality of schools. Thus, we believe that the critical perspective can mobilize transformative actions in the reality of Brazilian public schools, while presenting new elements to think of it in a more powerful, creative, and the curious way, without disconnecting it from its historical value in the fight for a democratic school and social justice (Dias & Guzzo, 2018; Souza, 2009, 2018).

In this sense, the meaning of criticism will be based volume to critical and reflexive principles that are guided by practical and theoretical formulations of the thoughts of Paulo Freire, which are dialectically prosecuted towards the effectiveness of the practice of psychology in the objective reality of public schools, by means of an institutional and the collective work that materializes criticism in transforming actions.

In the first Principle (Dialogue): we demonstrate how the dialogue and the dialogical nature of Paulo Freire’s thought are guided by the dialectic relation between action and reflection, which is based on the praxis, or even on the authentic word. Next, we will point at dialogic action as the way to the materialization of criticism in actions by professionals who are committed to dialogue with the local individuals and to the recognition in the school groups of collective potentials for problematization of the institutional context.

In the second principle (Politics): we delineate the politicalness of education and its implication in the orientation of critical practices by psychologists who are committed to the investigation of the institutional conditions that make individuals at school the object of capitalist educational actions, in which they are not able to speak for themselves, and neither do they participate permanently and the management of problems that happen at school. Thus, we can emphasize how the effectiveness of a critical action by psychology at school recognizes the politicalness of corporate education by their engagement with the defense of the democratization of their praxis, engineering transformations that vote and affirm the social and political responsibility of public school.

Finally, our theoretical defense presents itself as a political movement aiming at deepening the trajectory of critical school psychology from the perspective of Paulo Freire, whose rich and profound practical and the theoretical production helps us “Reflect on what our practice at school must be like” (Guzzo, 2019, p.159). Thus, We believe that the reflections of Paulo Freire might produce interesting implications in the critical practice of psychologists who are committed to the democratization and social quality at public school, As well as with the recognition of their place as education professionals. Next, we will see that our announcement makes itself effective by means of a belief in the outlining of two reflexive and critical principles, which in combination reveal the materialization of the critical position of the school psychologists and transforming practices that refer to the concrete reality of public schools.

FIRST PRINCIPLE: THE DIALOGUE

The dialogical nature of education

In this first trajectory, the following questions can be asked: why dialogue? How does the dialogical nature of Paulo Freire’s thought present itself as the essence of education as the practice of freedom? Is there no freedom without dialogue? Or even, is there no dialogue without freedom? Would dialogue be the condition for men and women to educate themselves in communion? By reflecting on the dialogical nature as the essence of education as the practice of freedom, northeastern educators reveal a question that is not very often discussed regarding dialogical education, or even on dialogue in everyday life, that is: the word.

In the perspective of Paulo Freire, the dialogue is understood as a human phenomenon that is already word, and word is made-up of two dimensions, action and reflection. Thus, the word is action and reflection articulated in such a way that one dimension justifies itself in the presence of the other, and the word is constituted, as well as dialogue, By the Dialectic action and reflection unity. In other words, the work defended by the northeastern educator constitutes itself as praxis, action and reflection, whose apprehension happens not as separate parts that are disarticulated, they are rather interconnected in such a way that their sole meaning is to coexist, that is, “There is no true word which is not praxis. Therefore, true word transforms the world” (Freire, 2005, p. 89).

It is by means of the belief in dialogical praxis the instrument of transformation that the “inauthentic word”, which is a result of the dichotomy between action and the reflection, cannot change reality, simply because the word that is not true, and therefore not praxis, will not be able to denounce the world, by means of the commitment to change it by means of acting on reality. As a consequence, there is no possibility for dialogue.

Thus, the dialogical nature of education happens when men and women who are mediatized by the world in which they live can denounce it, and take in true words whose meanings makes it possible for them to act in worldly or reality in order to change it. Consequently, investing in dialogue, which is a word of action and reflection, consists of believing in individuals who do not become silent in the face of the problems that come up in the context in which they lead their everyday lives, because they happen in the pronounced word, that is, in the praxis of their action and of their reflection (Freire, 2005, 2007, 2011).

That is the reason why saying the authentic word, with which they can pronounce the word in order to change it, refers to the libertarian process in which individuals do not deprive themselves of their right to say it. At the same time, the act of signifying it does not constitute a privilege of a few because of the power and the knowledge that they believed to possess and then they take possession of the word and believe in the superiority that they supposedly possess to say it, while prescribing it, explaining it, and taking from them the right to the word. Thus, materializing the criticism in the realm the school by means of dialogue refers to the process that recognizes the word of the local individuals, although it is interesting to advance in this process to embody it in the concrete reality of the educational institutions as pedagogical and collective potential for transformation.

Education and dialogical action as freedom practice

According to what was previously explained, by means of the dialogical nature of a problematizing education, of a critical and liberating quality, the educator from Pernambuco overcomes the capitalist perspective that justifies itself by the contradictory, hierarchic, and fixating relation established between educators and students, whose dissertation and explanation of educational content reproduce and represent the world (Freire, 2005, 2007).

Contrarily, the educator from Pernambuco believes in the creation and invention of the world that takes place by means of the problematization of educators and students who dialogue with each other. Both based on an egalitarian relation of power and knowledge (Kohan, 2019a), that is, they all possess the critical conditions to learn and pronounce the true word, throwing it at the worldly reality and, consequently, creating new conditions to inhabit it.

Thus, dialogue does not present itself as the objective of education, as if classrooms had the responsibility to prepare individuals to dialogue among themselves a posteriori, that is, dialogue as a purpose of education. Contrarily, in Paulo Freire’s perspective, the dialogical character of a problematizing education must be the basis of school form, because only in the very process they feel they belong to, dialoguing among each other, will they seek the authentic word with which they can pronounce the experienced reality and by means of which they will find the discursive and objective conditions to change it (Freire, 2005).

The inventiveness of a dialogical education finds its meaning when, in the embodiment of the pronunciation of the pronunciation of the word, men and women ind meaning by means of the same process of problematization, which is product of the self-reflections of these individuals referred to educational reality. When they pronounce it , by means of the taking of the materialization of meanings and significations that engineer the dialogical encounter, questioning it, that is, asking it questions.

In the critical curiosity that such loving dialogue creates, the local actors and actresses might reflect collectively, and by means of the same process of reflecting, they act on the school reality to change it. At this moment, there is emphasis on a point that is little explored by Paulo Freire - although it is universalized in its defense of a dialogical action -, which would be the comprehension of the constitution of the groups, or even, a possible effect of the existence of these: the collectiveness.

In education, individuals interact and affect each other, collectively mobilize. Although the school finds itself divided into sectors, departments, segmenting themselves by the functions of each group, by the design of tasks, roles and objectives that are socially and institutionally pre-established, the groups find conditions to daily interconnect. The conditions are: groups of students, groups of students, groups of school management, technical and pedagogical groups, groups of staff workers and so on.

Thus, in the flow of school organization, these groups meet every day, and they pronounce words from the place they occupy institutionally. The discourse interchange of the words pronounced by the school groups refers to the process that reveals the dialogical action at school as freedom practice, that is, as action referred to individuals that are active and critically situated (Freire, 2007).

On the one hand, the dialogical encounter mobilizes recognizes in the groups the differences among the individuals that constitute them, even though, in many cases, they are silenced by policies of no problematization and mispronounces educational of reality (Freire, 2011). On the other hand, it makes it possible that together in collectiveness these individuals insert themselves critically in the everyday life of schools in order to change reality. Although the institutional conditions crystallize the groups, making it impossible for individuals to dialogue among themselves, they belief collectiveness happens by means of their emancipating power while ” deconstructing hierarchic structures that are inflexible in order to establish a model that represents the demands of civil society and of popular classes” (Dias & Guzzo, 2018, p.13)

A dialogical action that manages to consolidate dialogue among school groups, or even that overcomes the belief in fixed homogeneous groups, open new roots for interventions in the educational field. The result is that dialogical individuals, when they get together in Group actions, materialize their speech, as well as their act, and then signified the world in which they are inserted by means of the interchange of pronunciations regarding the problems that emerge in their reality. Regarding school groups and their collective constitution, Andrada et al. (2019, p.8) point at the fact that “it is necessary to create situations so that the contradictions be assessed by the groups and can be configured in a process of development of the collective consciousness. The contradictions are driving forces in the group processes and in the changes (...)”.

In this sense, individuals find in the groups Powerful instruments for transforming school reality, that is, collectiveness as the way to combined problematization and elaboration of everyday life contradictions, Because of the dialogical nature that is the basis of the collective dimension of school groups creates the perspective for interesting roots towards the materialization of emancipating educative action. In other words. It is a “continuous and interrelated movement in which collectiveness transforms and create individuals, who, on the other hand interfere in collective relations” (Zucoloto et al., 2019, p. 222).

Consequently, it is believed that dialogical action have transforming reverberations in school reality when it is sustained by the inseparability of groups and individuals.

Psychology and dialogical action at school

The present principle, by means of dialogue, provides reflexive and theoretical subsidies so that psychology professionals, when they are inserted in the reality of public schools, become able to start an institutional work that is effectively critical, because the commitment to dialogue with individuals is guided by the reverberations of the dialogical encounter in the concretization of emancipating practices in the everyday life of schools.

Thus, The materialization of criticism in dialogical actions reveals new institutional spaces for the practice of psychologists in the context of public schools, because “the contradictions and discomforts that happen in the school context become driving forces behind questionings and proposals for collective actions, and not only mere criticisms to the educational system or to one of its actors (Generally, students)” (Ferreira et al., 2019, p.212).

By being open dialogically the institutional reality, psychology professionals get involved in the mobilization of meanings and significations engineered by local individuals regarding emerging problems, recognizing them as active participants in school reality by means of dialogical actions (Ferreira et al., 2019; Gesser, Bolis, Cord, Oltramari, & Pereira, 2017). In other words, by embodying local narratives, by means of discourse interchange, the dialogical and critical practice of psychologists might reveal the emancipating potentials of collective action in the elaboration and problematization of matters that emerge in everyday life at school institutions.

That happens when dialogical action makes it possible to overcome the individual perspective either responsibility over institutional demands and when, collectively, it leads to the materialization of critical attitudes in order to change your reality, no longer oriented by comprehensions that fragmented or blaming in the educational phenomenon (Gesser et al., 2017; Guzzo et al., 2019)

In order to do it, God love will only become effective as dialogical action, that is, as authentic praxis of action and the reflection, When individuals are provided with the objective discourse conditions to say their word and with it act on local reality. Thus, sustaining dialogical praxis In school psychology practice refers to a critical movement in which, mobilized by dialogue individuals in education become critically able to find discourse possibilities, with which they become able to reveal the educational conditions that oppressed them (Dias & Guzzo, 2018).

the policies of discourse silencing make local actors become the subjects of others, and they get objectified by the anti-dialogical nature of the practices that do not see them as protagonists in their schooling trajectories, neither are they understood as thinking individuals that are inserted in the school reality. For overcoming this scenario, it is interesting to build intervention proposals that are based on the policies of the word (Kupfer, 2010), Which make it possible for school individuals to have the conditions to pronounce narratives on the world and on the reality around them, so that they become able, by means of the narrative process, the engineer expressions that denote the modes of their being in “situation”.

Based on their word as action, according to what was emphasized by Freire (2005), oppressed individuals are able to reflect critically on their actions regarding your reality, how’s your reflexive process mobilizes them to critically act upon it, because they understand it as the object hold their action and by means of which they recognize themselves as active individuals who think and get engaged.

The commitment with the word, that is materially situated, and with dialogue, demonstrates their belief in a critical practice by psychologists that stimulate school individuals to produce ruptures in the institutional body, As well as in objective discourse conditions that are crystallized, so that the institutional discourses tend to reproduce the repetitions, the same old things, in an attempt to preserve permanence. Against that, sometimes there is the emergence of speeches by individuals who try to “produce ruptures in what is crystallized” (Kupfer, 2010, p. 59).

That is the reason why, dialogical action as a beginning for the consolidation of actions that are effectively critical by psychologists at the public schools demonstrates the intervention of school psychologists as problematizing, that is, as emancipating action. In this scenario, it is not up to professionals to offer practices of dissertation and explanatory nature, or even say to local individuals how they should act or what they can and what they cannot do, by the lack of legitimacy in their narratives, and to produce discourses regarding matters about the everyday life of institutions.

On the other hand, there is the belief in and institutional work that appreciates interrelations, the everyday life encounters among diverse individuals, and recognizes and provides legitimacy to their words and to the way they announce their words as well as their difference and diversity. Nevertheless, there should also be an empowerment of groups and collectiveness for the promotion of less individualization and more collectiveness of the demands by individuals, and there should be attention, support, and inventiveness, in which there was a belief in the legitimacy of all the modes of being in the world” (Botelho et al., 2020, p. 3).

The defense that a critical practice that is mobilized by dialogue questions the supposed superiority of psychological knowledge in comparison with other knowledges among local individuals, and it also provides opportunities for psychologists to ask themselves whether their educational action is actually reproducing oppressive institutional conditions (Ferreira et al., 2019; Moreira & Guzzo, 2016).

Finally, the intentionality of dialogical action by psychology at school aims at promoting the critical insertion of school individuals in the institutional reality, by means of reflection mobilizations hand curricular activities, in classrooms, in informal and formal activities, and in the relations established at school, and at established changes that are possible as expression of awareness as active individuals in the schooling process.

SECOND PRINCIPLE: POLITICS

The political nature of education

in this second trajectory, they are raising outlining of the relation between politics and education and the ideological effects of the denial of the political nature ohh schools, as well as an outlining of critical action by school psychologists as an emancipating political action. In this sense, reflecting on the meaning of learning and the established relations regarding teaching in the pedagogy of Paulo Freire, educator Walter Kohan (2019b) develops an interesting point regarding the political character of education when he explains that:

For the author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Teaching and learning our political acts and cannot be understood only with the technical or pedagogical definitions. Education cannot be without politics, or politically neutral, or aseptic. (...) Not recognizing this political nature of education means assuming a political position, a position that contributes to the maintenance of the status quo. (...) The book is in fact a political and social criticism of geopolitics and also of the role played by intellectuals in the liberation of people (Kohan, 2019b, p. 230, author’s emphasis).

At the same time, it is possible to say that the denial of the political dimension of education is already a defense because there is an appreciation of certain political principles. And it is also known that Brazilian macro politics has reverberations in the everyday lives of public schools so it is possible to question whether denial of the political nature of education there’s not an implicit defense of the political principles of culture in a specific class, of the recognition of a predominant ideology, as well as of the reproduction of hegemonic educational discourses. The contradiction of the apolitical discourse of education appears precisely when its affirmation, at the same time, reveals certain political principles, by means of which it is possible to understand and constitute educational action, while assuming a political position (Freire & Faundez, 2011).

Therefore, that’s supposed to like neutral, aseptic, exempt education actually hides political principles that must drive pedagogical practice, the school institution; what and how teachers must teach; which students school curricula can or cannot appreciate and access; naturalize the trajectories of failure at school, and they also justify the inequalities between power and knowledge in the everyday lives of schools etc. Consequently, the defense of an apolitical education is in fact a demonstration of the political commitment with the maintenance of a certain way of teaching and learning, as well as a way to understand the educational phenomenon.

Contrarily, it does not consist of a refusal of education as a political action, but of the affirmation of a specific politics for education. According to Kohan (2019b), the Pernambuco educator did not specifically propose a new mode of teaching, or even a hello God you called method in “Pedagogia do Oprimido” (Freire, 2005) - as many people believe. The author justifies such affirmation by emphasizing that:

[...] The most fundamental thing in the book is the criticism of the political principles that permeate capitalist education and of the affirmation of new politics for education without oppressors or oppressed ones. What is at stake is not only a model of teaching, what you called the pedagogical relation that concerns not only teaching institutions, but with power relations that take place in the most diverse realms of the social field (Kohan, 2019b, p.20).

From this perspective, we dialogue with the meaning of the political word proposed by this author. Based on Paulo Freire’s thought, attempted to understand it not in its political party meaning, that is, ruled by the logic of political parties of representative democracy. But also rescuing the Greek origin, “polis”, to understand it “in a wider way, the exercise of power based on the relations that establish themselves in a social context, and more specifically, the ways to show power by learning and teaching” (Kohan, 2019b, p. 22).

In other words, the politics that is understood as the modes of exercise of power by means of which school education is practiced and there is an establishment of the relation between teaching and learning, as well as the everyday interaction within and without educational institutions. Concerning the issues in the present study, there is a reflection on how the matter precisely acts upon the ways the political dimension influences the activities and ideas in education, as well as in the critical practice of psychologists in the reality of public schools.Problematizing education: a new politics for schools

Sensitive to the implications of politics in the ways of education, Paulo Freire reveals political attitudes in order to understand and constitute politics. The wandering master leads us to reflection as to how the established relations in the school spaces are daily constituted by individuals that act in a conditioned way rather than otherwise, in the comprehension of the educational phenomenon that takes place from a perspective of knowledge than otherwise.

Thus, the “politicalness” of education demonstrates how, implicated in the school reality, we do not disarticulate ourselves from it as individuals, that is, regarding education we make it in order to humanize ourselves, and it is the reason why we are unfinished individuals (Freire, 2005). That is why, in the pedagogy of Paulo Freire,, there is no intention to use politics as educational practices; quite the opposite, it is about revealing in them something that constitutes in them an educational action, that is, the fact that they are implicated by individuals that are related among each other and educated themselves while politically mediated by the world.

Based on that, there is an explanation of how Paulo Freire’s criticism (2005, 2007) to the capitalist conception of education, there is another criticism to the specific modes of politically exercising the educational act. That is, the acceptation of the established contradictory relation between educator and student and is ruled by the inequality between power and the individuals who have access to knowledge and the ones who, objectified by these other individuals, do not have access to knowledge. Thus, reproducing pedagogical relations that reverberate social constructions whose determination for knowledge as power specifies who must take the place of the ones who teach, thus, a “donator” of knowledge for the ones who must occupy the place of the ones who learn.

In these power relations, the educational process constitutes itself by means of asymmetrical, hierarchical, and politically unequal positions, in which the production of knowledge is understood as a “donation by the ones who believe themselves to be wise and the ones they deem ignorant.” Donation that is based one of the instrumental manifestations of the ideology o oppression” (Freire, 2005, p. 67). Subsequently, the educator of utopic dreams adds that the overcoming of the capitalist perspective will take place by means of the inventive attitude of creating new ways to relate politics and education, which refers to the critical-liberating praxis.

Thus, the means, in the process of teaching and learning, the positions of teachers and learners get so radicalized that, by proposing new ways of learning the pedagogical relation as an attitude of overcoming the capitalist perspective, which is socially instituted, the educator of new hope reveals a new politics for education, that is, “nowadays, nobody educates anybody, neither does anybody educate themselves” (Freire, 2005, p.79).

By defending the problematizing and liberating conception of education, the northeastern educator points at a new politics for the educational act, that is, the problematization politics, by means of which the constitutive power of the pedagogical relation can be contested and do not fear the questions. Based on this politics, educators do in get inflexible facing the student’s questions. Rather, their implication creates opportunities for the creation, invention and problematization (Freire & Faundez, 2011).

In this sense, it is believed it is believed that the problematization politics can materialize the criticism in transforming actions that are mobilized by the action of political individuals, and they do not expect change to happen in order to act on school reality. Likewise, they don’t expect the objective conditions for the opportunity for transformation, so that they can start an emancipating and libertarian work at schools.

This belief refers to an ethical and political call that should start today with no delay towards the effective nation of humanization projects with which we dream and

by means of which we believe it is possible to produce social change (Freire, 2005; Souza, 2009). In general lines, in communion relations of dialogue with the local groups with the school community.

In general, you come here and relations of dialogue with local groups with the school community, psychology professionals can start an institutional and collective work that materializes actions that question and problematize the objective conditions in which school individuals perceive themselves as oppressed and by means of which new transformation proposals can be posed.

Psychology and emancipating political actions at school

The actions of psychologists in the reality of schools, by means of the materialization of a critical perspective in emancipating political action, problematizing attitude in which individuals are encouraged to question themselves the intentionality of their praxis: what effective changes do they project with their critical practice? In which context and how can they end up keeping actions that reproduce objective and discourse conditions that are oppressive and inauthentic and are established as standard in school spaces? Finally, with whom and with what did they commit by critically acting the problematizing political role played by education at school concretizes itself in the construction of a praxis of action and reflection (Freire, 2005), in accordance with the necessities of oppressed to school individuals as well as with their emancipation OK so that the effectiveness of criticism in the practice of psychologists finds transforming reverberations by ” de-naturalizing ideologies that are present in society, in the social history of human relations” (Dias & Guzzo, 2018, p.7)

That is why recognizing the political exercise of school psychologists as emancipating political actions reveals interesting principles, so these professionals can participate in school reality, oriented by the autonomy of local individuals. As well as the emergency of emancipating spaces in which school actors can say their words and signify the reality around them and engage in them in order to transform them.

The critical and political practice is concerns with the necessities that emerge in the everyday of everyday life at public schools, dialogically problematizing them as with the school individuals and perceiving them as objects of intervention, based on the act of becoming historically and collective aware of and able to recognize themselves as active agents who are engaged in changes. So, the emancipating political action of psychology can collectively mobilize a reading that is “critical of the social context in which they are inserted, the practice of psychology must be committed especially with the affirmation of the potential of individuals, with the reduction of reductionist and excluding practices at school” (Botelho et al., 2020, p.8).

In another perspective, the one of professionals, there is no place for the acceptance, neither does it have space for the refusal of the demands of the institution, as an attempt to “listen to it if it is needed that individuals in it are involved and effectively get to know what is at stake, wat they want, and what they cannot formulate all that. (Kupfer, 2010, p. 63).

Finally, the effectiveness of political action and critical practice by psychologists at school concerns the maintenance of the free circulation of discourse among individuals, which happens due to the commitment of popular individuals and with their social emancipation, based on a praxis that materializes the democratic character of education, as the social quality of public education, defending, that way the political and emancipating role played by pedagogical practices.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

This article has the intention to contribute to the development of reflections and practices in a critical perspective for school psychology, based on the perspective of a dialogical assay that is open and pays attention to the formulation that are theoretical and pedagogical by educator Paulo Freire. That is, a critical and reflexive dialogue between psychology and education, in which we can reflect together with the Pernambuco educator regarding the critical practice of psychologists in the objective reality of public schools, by the taking of a critical stance that is current in the history of School Psychology in order to base it on a transforming praxis.

In this theoretical defense the orientation was for the rescue of Paulo Freire’s thought as fertile soil for attempts to advance in the comprehension of critical school psychology as authentic praxis of action and reflection, by means of the recognition of the way of thinking and acting by local individuals as potential for concrete transformation, this choice leads to the possibility to outline a dialogue and politics as interesting principles for the mobilization of psychological practices that are effectively critical, and that lead to the fight for the transformation of our social and objective reality at schools, as well as the emancipation of school individuals with educational conditions that are oppressive and inauthentic.

This way, we announced the commitment that is political and dialogical by school psychologists with the effectiveness of educational actions that materialize the fight for the democratization of education, for the right to school education and for social justice, while affirming the critical position of these professionals of psychology with the everyday construction of a school as an interment space with social quality.

We finally emphasize that by the outlining of our object of study and the reflection we cannot contemplate aspects related to the interface of the thought of Paulo Freire with the educational policies. The trajectory that we try to follow with this essay is not finished because among such limitations we can point at the little articulation between transforming practices at school and its concrete possibilities in the public policies of education.

Thus, we suggest that debate regarding the transforming effectiveness of dialogue and politics in the concretization of educational policies in the everyday life of public schools as well as the formation of critical practice among school psychologists. In a nutshell, this is our defense: the announcements of transformation in the cortical practice by psychologists at school with a present Paulo Freire!

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  02 June 2025
• Date of issue
  2025

History

• Received
  25 Feb 2022
• Accepted
  27 Oct 2023