História da educação primária na Atenas Norte-Rio-Grandense: das escolas de primeiras letras ao Grupo Escolar Tenente Coronel José Correia (1829-1929)

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the importance of Primary Education in building the identity of the city of Assú (RN) as Athens North-Rio-Grandense. Within this work proposal, we considered the motion of interaction that is established between cultural and literary practices developed in the city and its schooling process. In the studied period (1829-1929) we highlight the implementation of the Schools of first letters during the imperial regime and the Lieutenant Colonel José Correia School Group, on the republican government, places of schooling which refer to the object of our research: Primary Education. Our sources used were: newspapers from the time, related documents to educational institutions and works of memorialists such as Francisco Amorim and Pedro Amorim who portray the socioeconomic, cultural, literary and educational context of the city of Assú. As a methodological procedure, we resorted to documentary and bibliographical research in order to base the reconstitution of the historical course of our object of study. The theoretical methodological orientation is anchored in the reflections of Frago (1993), Magalhães (2004) and Saviani (2013). These theorists respectively developed research on the history of literacy, the history of educational institutions and the history of pedagogical ideas, themes that have a direct relationship with our work and which contributed to the way in which we conduct research on the object. The city of Assú, originally called Vila Nova da Princesa, is located in the interior of the State of Rio Grande do Norte and has developed since Portuguese colonization in the region. In addition to the behavioral habits, these colonizers also left as an inheritance the bases for an important cultural and literary development that was evident in the city from the second half of the nineteenth century through the circulation of newspapers, the production of poetry and various texts and theater, practices that make the city receive the cognomenation of Athens North-Rio-Grandense. Allied to this, the local economy also expands with the production of cotton and the extraction of carnauba wax. In the educational field, a school of male first letters was implemented in the city in 1829, by influence of the October 15, 1827 Law during the first years of the imperial regime. Counting only on this model of primary education until the first decades of the twentieth century, it will prove significant in the process of elementary education of children of the local elite who participated in the cultural and literary life of the city. With the institution of the republican government in 1890, a new model of Primary Education appears in the country with the implementation of the school groups. This new model will be installed in Assú through Decree No. 254, authorizing the creation of the Lieutenant Colonel José Correia School Group, inaugurated on September 7, 1911. A space that expresses a modern and innovative form of primary education schooling, this institution will also actively participate in the cultural and literary life of the city of Assú through the performance of a few teachers and the students themselves with their production of practices that circulate inside and outside of the Institution.