A escola que os índios querem: experiência escolar indígena Potiguara no Catu dos Eleotérios em Canguaretama/RN

Abstract

Brazilian Constitution of 1988 is clear when it ensures brazilian indigenous peoples about their right to difference. Some of the threats that extend over the autonomy of brazilian indigenous peoples in the construction of its own history are public policies “to Indians", among them the education in indigenous territories. The school, being an institution external to the historical reality of the indigenous, can threaten the groups to whom it covers becoming, as Gallois says, a "trap for the domestication of knowledge". On the other hand, if this school is inserted in the situations lived by the indigenous peoples attending their demands and respecting the differentiated character, where each people chooses the school that wishes, this institution can be a tool of empowerment for the exercise of the autonomy. Due to the effects of a comprehensive indigenous policy, this research sought to analyze the impact of an indigenous school on its potential differentiated character for an indigenous people. The institution chosen for analysis was the indigenous school João Lino da Silva among the Potiguara of Catu dos Eleotérios, located in the municipality of Canguaretama - RN. This school is the first differentiated indigenous school in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, and began activities with a differentiated character in 2009, when then, a whole didacticpedagogical policy was reformulated in order to fit the legal provisions of Education for indigenous peoples; in this sense, it is justified the temporal cut of this research, from 2009 to 2018, since the actual functioning of the current João Lino da Silva indigenous school. This study was carried out based on the so-called "new indigenous history" and on the educational legislation regarding it, besides the accompaniment of the Indigenous School Education.