Florestan Fernandes National School and MST pedagogy: a dialogue with Rosana Fernandes.

Abstract

The article exposes one of the most significant popular education experiences in Latin America and the rest of the world: the National Florestan Fernandes School of the Landless Peasant Movement (MST) in Brazil. The paper elaborates and comments analytically on an interview with the school’s coordinator, providing reflections on some of the key features of the MST’s pedagogy and of the school itself: the non neutrality of education, the theory-practice dialectic, the unity of manual and intellectual work and social engagement as an educational principle. The paper provides the historical information on the MST’s development and the National Florestan Fernandes School’s Constitution.