Grupo Escolar Mendes Gonçalves: vicissitudes no processo de escolarização republicana na fronteira Brasil-Paraguai (1889-1931)

Abstract

This paper relates an investigation into the thematic history of schools is Brazil, looking principally at Mato Grosso, and analyzing specifically the Mendes Gonçalves School Group in Ponta Porã, MS (GEMG). The GEMG was begun because of edict N. 752, February 9th, 1927, adopting the name of Mendes Gonçalves in honor of Comendador Francisco Mendes Gonçalves, president of the private enterprise Mate Laranjeira, who donated the building lot and the building for this school. Beginning with the establishment of School Groups in Brazil (1889-1931), we try to characterize the growth and the roll of an educational institution which is directed toward proclaiming the ideas set forth during the first years of the Republic, aiming at reaching the publicized modernization of the Nation. Related to the positivist, nationalist, liberal and secular principles of the sociopolitical institutions and culture, the GEMG was erected on the frontier between Brazil and Paraguay as a transmitter of modern ideas. To support our investigation, we close two categories for analysis; the implantation policy of the school in the region, and the dynamics of its functioning, considering the different subjects in their daily practice. These categories permitted us to visualize the regional aspect within the national scene, the frontier city of Ponta Porã in the beginning of the Republic, the physical space of the group and the social actors in the context of the emergence of these School Groups in Brazil. These are recurring questions in the study of school culture, though from a historical objective, whose support was sought, above all, in the formulations of Julia (2001) and Forquin (1992). In the historical aspect we took as a base the references Souza(1998), Vidal (2006), Saviane(2007), Nunes (1992), Nosella e Buffa (2002), Siqueira (2000), Sá (2006), Jacomeli (1998), Carvalho (2004), Camargo (2000) among others. Besides these, we searched through various primary documents, archived or edited, (official accounts, state government acts, newspapers of the period and accounts of the General Director of Public Instruction of Matto Gross) which are available in regional and local libraries. Besides this official documentation, we also referenced precious sources such as photographs, newspaper supplements and flyers, which are gathered in the files of GEMG. Part of the history pertaining to the process of construction of the buildings and the changing fortunes in social life (community, administration, teachers, students) and material used (in the buildings, and didactic aids) during the time this school group was functioning, was gathered from an analysis of the sources already mentioned. A concern for cultural practices, which are part of the society, led us to the reflections of Williams (1969), Thompson (1987) and Hobsbawn (2010). Led by the dialectie investigative method, we studied cultural actions, not only as outcomes of economic phenomenoa, but, above all, as inseparable expressions of social and political life. Considering all these aspects, we believe that this research into the GEMG can contribute to the advance of historical studies concerning the Brazilian School.