The objective of this text is to discuss the relations between the institution

(school), teacher and pupil. The theory is from Orlandi (1999) The Discourse Analyse.

Nowadays, the ideology and the history of the pupils are different from the

teacher’s and the institution represented by teachers. This difference has been the

source of conflicts and failure in schools. When I say conflict, I mean the difficulties

in relationship between teachers and pupils, and failure in school the fact that pupils

do not have his needs and expectations answered. Not long ago, these conflicts and

failures used to lead to and school drop outs and unsuccessful achievement. Due to the

new educational policies, which say that pupils are not supposed to be failed in the

end of the school year, the rate of evasion has fallen down.

When pupils first come to school they expect to live the ordinary situations of

the institution. These are typical situations known by society. The pupils have an idea

of the social purpose of school. This idea was probably learned from the family.

From the historical point of view, the school has no longer played its role ‘efficiently’.

At present the role of the school is supposed to be different from that of some years

ago. The new educational policy aims to solve, or at least to soften the educational

problems in Brazil. By adopting a national curriculum, the policy makers intend to

lead teachers towards rewriting the curriculum into an active teaching program, in

addition, subject contents are supposed to be more than a mere list of topics.

From the pedagogical point of view, this new policy aims to consider the pupil

in all his dissimilarities. Orlandi calls it “the identity movement, to recognise the

differences”. However, the school as an institution is out of place in relation to the

proposal of constructing the identity, valuating the human being and his capacity of

communicating, learning and answering to the society changes creatively. Although

the new educational policy has been spread, the practice has been the same as it used
to be in the past. Not only in the classroom practice, but also the government

continues testing the students knowledge by standard exams through out the state

(SARESP – for elementary schools) and even the whole country (ENEM – for

secondary schools).

All the formal subjects must be centred in the pupils, but this new model will

be achieved successfully only when teachers, pupils and family get the same gestures

of interpretation about the school and its role in this new social contexts. The

functions and positions in and out of school have been dislocated. Nowadays the

school is supposed to be responsible for teaching pupils more than the formal contents.

For instance, the school has to assume the responsibility to teach basic rules like

‘social’ behaviour, hygiene, etc, which should be taught by the family. As a

consequence of this gap, pupils are starting to hold the control of the happenings in

the school. There are situations when the pupils compel the member of the institution

empowered by the theory of rights, which meaning, in my opinion, is not as clear as it

should be for them. They have the right to be in the school without having any

responsibility as a member taking part in the discursive chain in which each member

has his function.

There are people from the government engaged in creating policies to

construct an ideal school, in order to extinguish the chaos we sometimes are in. The

problem is that, creating new policies will not bring about a new setting. The teacher

also needs new formation and a discourse change. The teacher is also constituted by a

discourse about school in the same way of the pupils, that is, before being part of the

school as a student or as a teacher.

I have noticed through my professional experience that changing policies have

reached the institutions, but, in general, the practice of its members has not changed at
all. According to these changing programs the school education “can not be restricted

to a mere knowledge transmission, it must contribute to form a citizen able to

elaborate his point of view about facts and phenomenon of life and change his own

point of view if he thinks it is necessary (communicative competence), besides

becoming conscious and critically able to assume technical and political functions

required by the society (social competence)” (PROCAD, p.260). There is a policy of

defence about modernity; education for citizenship, respect of pupil’s right, but in

most of the situations the school focus on subjects like science, language,

mathematics. The linguistic identity of school is formal (technical) and empiric

(parrot talk) repetition (Orlandi, p.208)

There is a proposal of working with educational projects which involve several

study areas grouping thematic blocks: natural and constructed environment, human

being and health, technical and technological resources, Earth and universe. All of

these concerns together can/could lead to develop a kind of work with the historical

memory (access discourses to reflect not only to reproduce). I argue that teachers, in

general, are not well prepared to change their role in the context we are living in

nowadays. Teachers must be prepared through continuing education to assume

different roles in the school context, in order to have their identity recognized in the

new social order.

The school has been changing the last decades and these changes have led to

the illusion that the educational opportunities are the same for everybody, but it is not

true. The discourse denies the existence of differences (“school to everybody” – but,

what kind of school). The ideological discourse of the institution sets up the

dissimilarities through a circle that ‘prune’ the citizen to access knowledge. Because
of all these changes of values, the role of each participant is not very clear. The result

is frustrated pupils, who do not have their expectations answered in different fields,

for example, punishment and disciplinary control.

Trying to reverse this unsuccessful picture, the institution tries to give voice to

the pupil and his fellows. However, due to his historical and ideological constitution

what we see is a dislocation of power and values inversion, which lead us to a kind of

disorder.

In conclusion, teachers need to have educational programs which enable them

to reflect and question themselves as agents of their practice. These programs must

prepare teachers to promote thinking abilities leading them to produce more meaning

for both, teacher and pupil.

Andrea de Souza, M.A. Sao Paulo

REFERENCES
FIORIN, J.L. Linguagem e Ideologia. São Paulo, SP: Ed. Ática, 1998
ORLANDI, E. Análise de Discurso. Campinas, SP: Ed.Pontes, 1999
Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais. Brasília, DF: MEC l996
Programa de Melhoria e Expansão do Ensino Médio: diretrizes gerais.
Brasília, DF: MED, 1999
SIGNONRINI, I. Lingua(gem) e identidade: elementos para uma discussão
no campo aplicado. Campinas, SP: Fapesp, l988