Making the Critique with “Barefoot”

Approximations between School Psychology and Paulo Freire

Abstract

This text, in the form of a theoretical essay, takes up Paulo Freire’s conceptual propositions about critical thinking in education, recovering theoretical elements that can contribute to the development of the complex task of critically situating the practice of psychology in the Brazilian school reality. Initially, the question arises as to how critical thinking, historically conducted in the field of school and educational psychology, can authentically engage with the popular reality of schools, promoting critical practice as an ethical and technical instrument of liberation of educational subjects from the conditions of oppression inside and outside educational institutions. The theoretical horizon of the discussion is a critical praxis of liberation that takes as its starting point the conception that the understanding of the world by the subjects refers directly to the concrete materiality of their daily existence and is constituted, historically and socially, through collective actions and discursive practices that give meaning and significance to everyday life in schools. To this end, psychologists need to problematize school reality, investigate local particularities and critically dialogue with individuals and school groups, seeking in them the transforming forces of their critical praxis. Finally, we emphasize the importance of critical thinking in school psychology, assuming the aspects of a pedagogy of the oppressed, authenticated in dialogue with the oppressed, as subject and collective, in the historical and loving struggle to recover their humanity.