A educação pública brasileira: um estudo sobre as contribuições de Anísio Teixeira

Abstract

Anísio Spínola Teixeira was a great advocate of public, secular, universal, and free education in Brazil. It is no coincidence that he is considered the patron of Brazilian public education. Conducting research on Anísio Teixeira, therefore, means learning about a man who fought for rights that would later (in 1988) become a constitutional achievement of Brazilian society, although in his time this was a challenging endeavor. The importance of this author to Brazilian public education motivated the development of this thesis, which aims to analyze and present the significant contributions of Anísio Teixeira to public education in Brazil. This work, based on bibliographical research focused on Teixeira’s writings, centers on the trajectory of this great defender of public schooling, who is regarded as the patron of secular, universal, and free education in the country. Born in 1900 in Caetité, Bahia, into a family of politicians from the local elite, Teixeira initially considered a religious vocation. He earned a degree in Law in Rio de Janeiro and, at the age of 23, became the General Inspector of Education in Bahia in 1924, thus beginning his career in education. He traveled to Europe and the United States to study the educational systems of those countries. During one of his visits to the United States, he met John Dewey, who would become his great academic inspiration. From that encounter, Teixeira began to advocate for a democratic and comprehensive education aimed at forming critical and participatory citizens. He was one of the signatories of the Manifesto of the Pioneers of the New School (1932) and also conceived innovative projects such as the Centro Educacional Carneiro Ribeiro (Escola-Parque). Furthermore, he played crucial roles in the creation of major higher education institutions, actively participating in the founding of the Universidade do Distrito Federal (UDF) and the University of Brasília (UnB), in collaboration with Darcy Ribeiro. His influence also extended to federal agencies, where he served as director of the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP) and contributed to the formulation of the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB) of 1961 and the National Education Plan (PNE). Anísio Teixeira died in 1971 under mysterious circumstances—his body was found in an elevator shaft in Rio de Janeiro. The case was later investigated by the National Truth Commission (CNV), which indicated strong evidence of political assassination. The conclusions of this research emphasize that, for Anísio Teixeira, defending public education is intrinsically equivalent to defending democracy. His thought links education and democracy as inseparable, with education serving as the main instrument for building a free, just, and egalitarian society.