The culture industry and educational policy in the military regime: the case of Escola magazine

Abstracts

This work presents a study of the dissemination in Escola magazine of the Teaching Reform established by Law 5.692/71. Launched by Abril publishers in October 1971, 27 issues were published before it disappeared in April 1974. Its target audience consisted of primary school teachers, for whom it was offered as 'a tool for dialog and cooperation', a tool which was used to 'on behalf of the reform' established by the military regime. In this article reports and editorials referring to the reform are analyzed, as well as the main material devices around which the magazine was organized. The objective is to highlight the publisher's strategies to spread a new commercial product associated with the reform and its publicizing. It is concluded that this new periodical, therefore, tried to forge a new reader in the educational field, who was accustomed to the standards of the cultural industry.

5.692/71 Brazilian Act; military regime; educational magazine

Este trabalho apresenta um estudo sobre a difusão, pela revista Escola, da Reforma de Ensino instituída pela Lei 5.692/71. Lançada pela editora Abril em outubro de 1971, a revista circulou em 27 números e desapareceu em abril de 1974. Seu público-alvo era o professor de 1º Grau, a quem se oferece como "instrumento de diálogo e cooperação", como instrumento a "serviço da reforma" instituída pela política educacional do regime militar. Neste artigo são analisados editoriais e matérias que aludem à reforma, bem como os principais dispositivos materiais que organizam a revista. O objetivo é evidenciar as estratégias da Editora para difundir um novo produto comercial associando-se à reforma e à sua divulgação. Conclui-se que esse novo periódico busca forjar no campo educacional um novo leitor, afeito aos padrões da indústria cultural.

Lei 5.692/71; regime militar; periódico educacional

DOSSIER: HISTORY, EDUCATION AND INTERDISCIPLINARITY

The culture industry and educational policy in the military regime: the case of Escola magazine

Maria Rita de Almeida Toledo^I; Daniel Revah^II

^IUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Departamento de História. Estrada do Velho Caminho, 333, Bairro dos Pimentas. 07252-312 Guarulhos - SP - Brasil. [e-mail]

^IIIPhD, Universidade Federal de São Paulo. [e-mail]

ABSTRACT

This work presents a study of the dissemination in Escola magazine of the Teaching Reform established by Law 5.692/71. Launched by Abril publishers in October 1971, 27 issues were published before it disappeared in April 1974. Its target audience consisted of basic education teachers (1º Grau), for whom it was offered as 'a tool for dialog and cooperation', a tool which was used to 'on behalf of the reform' established by the military regime. In this article reports and editorials referring to the reform are analyzed, as well as the main material devices around which the magazine was organized. The objective is to highlight the publisher's strategies to spread a new commercial product associated with the reform and its publicizing. It is concluded that this new periodical, therefore, tried to forge a new reader in the educational field, who was accustomed to the standards of the cultural industry.

Keywords: 5.692/71 Brazilian Act; military regime; educational magazine.

The reform of teaching created by Law 5.692/71 brought to an end a long cycle of debates about Brazilian public school. After the end of the dictatorship set up under the Estado Novo (1937-1945), the discussion about the necessary changes for the expansion of secondary school, about its function and articulation with primary school, the training of teachers, the organization of their careers and their work days, continued throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Even after the approval of the Basic Education Law (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação - 4.024/61), the debates did not cool down, rather they were intensified by the student movement, both university and secondary school, and expanded to take into university reform.

The Constitution established by the military regime in 1967 legislated on some of these questions, including the redefinition and length of primary school for eight years. The educational policy created under this Constitution was consubstantiated in Law 5.692/71, which reordered the relations between secondary and primary school, as well as teachers' careers training, imposing solutions for determined content groups, under strong vigilance and repression from the military regime that had been established. The debate around the new education policy, written by Jarbas Passarinho, the Minister of Education, was, on the one hand, gagged and on the other bundled under the label of the democratic expansion of the school.¹ Strategies for the implementation, advertising and accommodation of opinions related to reform appear to have been numerous and little investigated. In this article it is proposed to take as an object the diffusion strategies of reform 5.692/71 used and ordered in publications. For this we chose the magazine Escola, published by the Abril Group, which was preferentially distributed on newspaper stands, unlike what was observed in the other periodicals aimed at teachers at that time, such as those published by public bodies, teacher associations and other commercial publishers. The Abril Group was born as an important business group, a large-scale publisher which invested in the production of printed material to be sold on newspaper stands.

Escola magazine, launched in October 1971, lasted for 27 issues before disappearing in April 1974. Its target public were basic education teachers, to whom the magazine was offered as an "instrument of dialogue and cooperation," as a vehicle which "enthusiastically put itself at the service" of the reform, as "a permanent bridge of communication between all Brazilian teachers," in order to collaborate with their work in the classroom (Escola, no. 0, Oct. 1971, p.3 and 21). In this article editorials and reports on classroom activities will be analyzed in which teaching reform is implied, as well as some of the material devices that organize the magazine. The aim is to show the strategies of the published to diffuse a new commercial product associated with the reform and its publicizing.

The perspective adopted in the investigation emphasized the relationship between the pedagogical culture and the materiality of its processes of production, circulation, imposition and appropriation by the agents involved. It is understood that the processes of the constitution of publications, as well as the forms in which they are put into circulation, reveal intervention strategies in the field of pedagogy and teacher training, because these processes are instituted by the representations of agents of production in the field of pedagogical knowledge, by the teachers and their reading capacities, and the policies of ordering teachers' culture. Thus, they reveal the agents who, in specific places of power, mobilize and put into circulation different models of publications. In this investigation, it is intended to "analyze publications with a pedagogical aim from the perspective of their production and distribution, as the product of publishing strategies in tight correspondence with the uses modularly prescribed for these"; this also involves "analyzing it as a support material for classroom practices." In the second case, therefore, its aim is to "think about the uses of printed material in the configuration of a school mode of regulation of teaching' learning activities."²

Abril Publishers are taken here as a place of power and wanting because it has specific knowledge about the other - the reader. For Cereal, this knowledge and the power acquired with it permits its own place to examine the spaces in which it acts, transforming foreign forces into objects, because the movements of the other can be observed, measured, controlled and included in its field of vision: a place capable of predicting the time by the reading of space, of its field of action.³ In this case knowledge is materialized in the editorial strategies of the magazine, which stamp on its pages the frontiers between the fields of knowledge, operates the inclusion and exclusion of authors and works in delimited territories, prescribes the location of pedagogical practices in different fields of knowledge and situates its public in the reading space that it designed, constructing a geography of the school culture. The meanings of the publishing practices of Abril can be detected in the articulation of the representations that sustain the reading and the readers at whom its magazines and other publications are aimed, as well as the selection of authors, knowledge and reading practices that are put in circulation.

It is not intended to deal with the empirical reader - the one who takes the objects of reading and possibly subverts their order -, but the ideal recipient: the one for whom the editor carefully constructs the architecture of its publications, separating, classifying, distributing knowledge and practices in its pages, ordering reading times and spaces; producing covers, paratexts, explanations and complaints aimed at the publishing market in which it is inscribed.⁴

AN EXPERIMENTAL MAGAZINE?

In October 1971, in the month in which teacher's day was corrected, the first issue of Escola magazine was launched. The date chosen for the first edition called attention to the type of public that the magazine aimed to reach and (re)configure:

Dear teacher,

You must find it strange to receive a zero, when your efforts to spread education deserve top marks. Nevertheless, thinking of you, and as a tribute to you, Abril Publishers is launching this publication, whose experimental number - called number zero - is reaching you today. (Escola, no. 0, Oct. 1971, p.3)

With these first lines from the inaugural editorial, Victor Civita, the editor, announced the experimental nature of this number, which is extended to the magazine itself. At first sight, this characteristic is due to the fact that Abril Publishers did not have a magazine aimed at teachers among its publications beforehand. The reading of this editorial, nevertheless, indicates other meanings involved in this representation. One of these corresponds to the materiality of the magazine and is present in the description made by Civita of the editorial formula used in this new experiment by Abril:

We believe for the first time in Brazil that a pedagogical magazine will be published with the resources of journalism, or in other words with a journalistic format in service of pedagogical content. It is the means of making it not only more attractive, but also using the resources of communication in a sector that is characterized by more insistent archaism. (ibidem)

Another dimension related to the experimental attributed to the magazine concerned its function: to be a vehicle that "enthusiastically put itself at the service" of the reforms implemented by Law 5692/71 (idem, p.21). Abril's was hoping with this new publication to attract readers who the magazine and the reform would jointly (re)configure: the primary school teacher. To justify the new publication, Civita argued, in answer to a question he himself asked:

Why primary teaching? Because it is in this sector that the biggest teaching problems are located; because it is in this sector that a pedagogical publication can be useful to the greatest number of those who have the responsibility to teach and, finally, because in the implementation and improvement of primary teaching that there resides the hope for the success of the gigantic effort of the Federal government and the states to give the country teaching suited to their present and future needs. (ibidem)

According to the magazine, Law 5692/71 meant "something more than just reform: it is a new concept of school and teaching" (ibidem). By placing itself as an instrument for the diffusion and propaganda of this 'new concept' that it itself configured, Abril was aiming at the market allowed by the law which created the position of the primary school teacher. The publisher was betting on the simultaneous expansion of the primary school, teaching positions and the magazine itself.⁵

In this analysis, therefore, Escola is understood as a specific modality of publication which carried in its materiality a dual strategy of cultural intervention: editorial intervention which appropriate pedagogic knowledge in a journalistic manner to expand Abril's product market; and as an intervention in the educational field, divulging, organizing and prescribing the practices understood as necessary for the implementation of reform 5692/71.

EDITORIAL FORMULA

Escola magazine had a short duration. In total 26 numbers were published (excluding number zero) between March 1972 and April 1974, on a monthly basis from no. 1 onwards. Various issues had inserts that composed two books: O Livro da Reforma (in the issues between October 1971 and June 1972) and Recursos auxiliares do ensino (between November 1973 and April 1974).

The editorial formula followed some guidelines: the coupling of the magazine to the reform created by Law 5692/71 as support for its diffusion, through the divulgation of its legal structure, the discourse and opinions of its producers and the theoretical and practical basis for its implementation, as well as the debate around it; the adaptation of pedagogical language to journalistic language; the selection of successful teaching-learning experiences; the centrality of the discourse about the figure of the teacher and his or her work in the classroom.⁶

Of these elements of the editorial formula, we will only deal with journalistic language here, which the magazine highlights as a great differential in relation to other educational periodicals. As it emphasized in the editorial of issue no. 1: "To the contrary of conventional publications, Escola places at the service of Pedagogy journalistic technique, which has been shown to be efficient as an instrument of communication in all fields of knowledge" (Escola, no.1, Mar. 1972, p.3).

Boasting of the use of "modern and dynamic resources of journalism," Abril transformed Pedagogy into news, in a chronicle of present time (ibidem).⁷ Their characters are teachers, students, directors and supervisors, amongst others, not to mention the authorities at that time. In the magazine the discourse of the pedagogical tradition, of its intellectuals, tends to be replaced by the reformers and by the present instituted in the educational policies of the dictatorship, qualified, above all in the early editions, by adjective created by the propaganda of the regime. According to the editoral, with the reform "one of the most ambitions phases in the entire history of teaching in Brazil was starting" (Escola, no. 0, Oct. 1971, p.3), it is the "moment when Brazil initiates the implantation of the most audacious teaching reform in its history" (Escola, no. 1, Mar. 1972, p.3). Here resonate the slogans of Brazil as great and as the country of the future promised by the dictatorship. Abril thus synthesizes the reader with the changes in the military regime and involves him or her in its promises, conferring on him the place of witness and the agent of the 'great' transformations then underway.

The journalistic language also implies criteria for the production of reports. Some correspond to what were show at the time, for example, in the manual entitled Técnica de jornal e periodic by Luiz Amaral.⁸ Among other aspects he highlights: actuality, truthfulness and human interest.

Reform in this case is an appeal to the reader to keep himself up-to-date in relation to what should be directly related to his actions. In various editorials the importance of the 'moment' was highlighted as being a turning point in national education, and the 'moment' is the reform, remembered with insistence, especially at the beginning, when the magazine bet on the growth of its editorial market:

Readers will observe the insistence of the magazine in questions related to the reform of teaching. This intentional placement of the theme of Escola is precisely aimed at seeking to collaborate in the debate and the divulgation of what is most important at the moment in the sector of education, which is the implementation of a new concept of school and, as a result, a new concept of teacher. (Escola, no.1, Mar. 1972, p.3)

Promising the permanent updating of readers with the most pressing subjects of the time is a characteristic of commercial magazines and of the editorial formula of Escola, with a language that used various resources to renew this promise every edition. This is the case of the propaganda of the magazine present in its own pages: "You will find out what other teachers are doing, their successful experiences, new teaching techniques, everything that is important within a school" (Escola, no.0, Oct. 1971, p.21).

The sensation of veracity is created by a set of devices, such as: the anonymity of reports,⁹ which gives the impression of neutrality and of a direct relationship with those who participate as teachers, directors and teaching authorities, whose discourses and comments appear every so often in a direct form and highlighted with inverted commas, the abundant use of photographs, as if certifying the information described and presenting the people named. In the editorials this sensation of veracity is produced by the citation and by comments about reports related to experiences carried out in particular schools and municipalities, with the reform being implemented in the classroom:

Still in this number, we call attention to the series of reports, from the first to eight grades, carried out by the Municipal Institute of Education and Research from São Paulo, which has pioneered the introduction in its establishments the norms of reform, and to be able to implement the eighth grade, as it did at the beginning of 1972. (

Escola

, no. 2, April. 1972, p.3)

Human interest is explicit, it can be said, in the constant presence of the Reader on its pages, since the focus of the magazine is on the teacher and the classroom, students and questions which concern them. It is thus sought to create a strong identity between readers and the publication, similar to what occurs in the advertising that appears in the magazine. For example, in the magazine's own advertising published in issue no. 3, it was stated: "Escola puts all the teachers of Brazil on its pages: their experiences, their problems and their solutions" (Escola, no. 3, May 1972, p.32). The editorial also produce this effect when they start with a repeated 'Dear teacher.' Similarly, among possible readers, the editorial focuses on those privileged by the magazine and who are named in the expression which complements the magazine name: Escola for teachers. It was aimed at teachers, showing itself sensitive to their problems and bringing solutions within its pages, which are attributed to teachers themselves, of whom it is the spokesperson and interpreter.

NEWSPAPER STANDS AS A CIRCULATION STRATEGY

As already mentioned, an important aspect of the differentiation of Escola magazine in relation to other educational periodicals was the strategy adopted by Abril in diffusing this periodical and the reform in newspaper stands, in which it shared space with the mainstream press and with magazines such as Claudia, Veja and Quatro Rodas, from the same publisher. Offered to the glances of passersby in search of novelties, this sales and circulation strategy of an educational periodical tended to radically alter the place where the teacher sought and meet what nurtured his professional culture. This place of circulation corresponds to the alteration of the standard of materiality of educational periodicals, which until them were usually presented in smaller formats, with austere covers, with small or no images. The Abril magazine was almost twice the size of its competitors, with many photos and reading devices, which made it similar to newspaper stand magazines, promoting in this way unusual reading practices in this type of periodical. Reading for moments of leisure and less committed to work requirements: reading interspersed with subtitles, boxes and images that allow readers to jump from one part of the text to another, inciting exploratory, agile and rapid reading, and for this reason not exhaustive, in texts that sought to reduce the aridity of the treatment of certain issues, that were part of the tradition of most of the periodicals aimed at primary and secondary teachers.

In an initial comparison between Escola and the educational periodicals already renowned in the educational environment, what is immediately striking is the contrast in relation to the quantity of images, especially photos. Comparing only the covers of this type of periodical, what can also be noticed is the multiplicity of colors used in the Abril magazine. If we consider old publications, such as Atualidades Pedagógicas and Revista do Magistério, or even of the same period as Escola magazine, such as Didata, EBSA and Educação Hoje, the use of only one color other than black and white can be noticed. The color of the covers of Escola was an important lure for magazine stands for a reading public which, although it is the same, is being reconfigured without the reader-teacher realizing this. In Brazil, in particular since the 1960s, we have entered the epoch of the image, with television climbing to a place that was ever more preponderant in the habits of families. Color television, color magazines, moving images. This is what the photos of Escola magazine also have. In the first ten covers of this periodical, for example, what dominated were photos of children doing some activity. Inside the magazine were reports, also with many photos suggesting movement; to the contrary of what predominated in older periodicals, in which movement is rarely suggested, with posed photos of students and teachers, photos of school buildings and others. On the pages of these same periodicals, both the older ones and the majority of those contemporary to Escola magazine, there were few photos.

The lure of colors and images in movement is also what was emphasized into a competition organized by the magazine in issue 14, from April 1973 (p.21-22): "Who wants to win a color TV?" With this title which covered two pages, Escola incited teachers and students to participate in a "nationwide competition" on the following theme: "The importance of television for the improvement of teaching in Brazil." In this announcement there are also photos. In one of these students are watching a television placed close to the blackboard in a classroom, alongside the teacher's desk, which in fact is absent. In its place is though the television, placed on a column which has the height similar to the stature of an adult and an image which apparently is of an artist, as if it were the teacher.¹⁰ Confused with the new technology, the artist-teacher still appears there, in this figuration of a human that the column and the television compose, but it is clear that its place was taken by the new apparatus which Escola introduced - to which we add all those that are configured in other pages and editions - and the magazine offers them as a prize. The periodical states that in the competition primary school students can participate, with works that had to have a minimum of sixty lines. Both the student who won first place and their teacher would win a color television, but in second place only a black and white one. Images in movement and colors are the prize destined only to the best. In this advertisement, through the same game of mirrors observed in other advertisements, the same points are stressed: the teacher, Escola and the color television - the latter representing what was most modern in communication technologies and in this way the military regime itself, to the extent that it touches on an area that the regime used to boast its greatest deeds.

In the Abril publication it can be noted that the photos follow criteria that are those of photo-journalism. They appear to be the result of a procedure in which the photograph, as Mauad says, adopts the role of the ocular witness, positioning itself as the "unperceived witnesses of events," in order to transmit a certain naturalness, a certain spontaneous air of the scene which should be photographed, even when they need to be mounted.¹¹ Another characteristic of this new form of photography, which corresponds to a tendency that comes from the 1940s, when an important change in the technical and aesthetic standard of illustrated magazines started, is the association between the text and the image, as it is possible to note in Escola magazine.¹² In this the photos themselves become central elements in the narrative, to the extent that their disposition reproduces a sequence of actions that written texts, alongside each photo, seek to clarify, expand, redimension.

The form of photographing and displaying photos allows the photographic image to prepare a narrative about facts, as Mauad indicates in dealing with the transformations processed with photo-journalism. When this is not possible, history is staged (ibidem). What matters, after all, is the sensation of veracity, as has already been mentioned; the reader has to believe in what he is seeing, and his look has to be captured by movement and the reality that the photos are supposedly reproducing. All of this is very distant from the role attributed to photos in journals aimed at teachers which predominated in the same period or before the 1970s. In general the primordial role of "capturing the reader's attention" is still not as strong, nor counts on the variety of resources observed in Escola magazine (ibidem). In these there is no great concern with the editing of the images, nor articulating them with the word, as can be noted in the Abril magazine, in which an intimate articulation can be perceived between image and writing. These aspects are highlighted by Mauad when she looks at the history of the transformations that occurred in illustrated magazines, in relation to which it is important to stress the emergence of the photographic editor - related to the specialization of functions - and also the fact that the reports required the presence of a photographer alongside the journalist. In the case of Escola magazine, the credits mention various photographers and also a sector responsible for photography, initially called 'Photographic Services' and later 'Photographic Studio.' In this Abril publication there is an evident concern with photos, with the effects that they produce in readers - effects of reality and movement.

The movement is not just in the photos. It is in the reading habits that commercial magazines create, flicking through without commitment is encouraged by the attraction of the photos, the color, the rapid encounter with novelties and the opportunities offered to whoever wants to remain up-to-date. With Escola magazine, the teacher - most often female - is inserted in this circuit and in it mixes with "Sancreme, the thin fat," "Koleston, the first cream dye," Capricho, and other products that the Abril magazine offered in its pages, in advertising that was also part of the color of the magazine and full of colors. The teaching reform entered in this same circuit, also becoming an Abril product offered with great enthusiasm to their reader-teachers.

In this wave of modernity in the 1970s, during the bitterest years of the dictatorship, Escola promised to keep its readers up-to-date and for this is regularity is an important element. Every month it offers a gallery of events so that, like a flâneur, the reader-teacher can stroll through the photos and names. With their distracted gaze, wandering through the magazine, readers can be captured by the pedagogical event, by photos their recreate their place, the place of students and of school. Also recreated is a materiality that also defines this place. In this respect the photos fulfill a fundamental role. They produce a permanent sensation of movement, letting a certain naturality and spontaneity appear in the activities focused on, with children and young people very involved in what they are doing, all presented in an agreeable, colorful and attractive form, as if this characteristic was the reality in which the reader exists, although in first place it is an attribute of a material form. This reality is part of the reform. And Abril did not seem to spare any efforts to make it attractive. There is a strong investment in its publicity from the very first moment until this option is found to be problematic, as would later be observed in its editorials.

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE REFORM IN ITS EDITORIALS

In the editorials - appearing until no. 19, in September 1973 -, usually mentioned was what was shown on the cover, the content of the reports in the issue and an evaluation of what the implementation of the reform was reform. The editorials articulate the announcements of the titles of the reports, as well as the introductory texts which are summarized, ordering the reading expected for periodical.

As has already been indicated in relation to the early issues, the magazine refers to the teaching reform in an enthusiastic manner. Furthermore, it began to present reports about classroom work in different teaching establishments as if this were a result of the reform. By presenting examples of classes, pedagogical activities, methods, exercises, lessons or work and resources developed by the teachers with different classes and in different areas (communication and expression, science, mathematics, etc.), involving literacy, physical education, oral language, corporal expression and modern mathematics, among other disciplines, Escola magazine inserted all of this under the scope of reform. In the reports, the selected schools are briefly presented, with their names, location and public being mentioned, without any reference to their history or pedagogical perspective, as in this example:

"Today we are going to talk about people and this little figure represents each one of you."

The students think that the drawing that their teacher Suely Arradi drew on the board is funny. It will remain there until the end of the class.

In the fifth class of the Antônio Carlos de Abreu Sodré Municipal School in Vila Sabará (a neighborhood of São Paulo) the social studies classes are interesting. The theme itself is a motivation and the children participate actively.¹³

The focus of these reports are classes accompanied by the magazine's reporters. They include photos which present different aspects and moments of the class, and the actions of teachers and students are described and their talk reproduced:

"Do you know who is older: Hermes who is seven or the birthday boy who is six?"

"Hermes", the children reply in a chorus.

The children do not know that through the relaxing and enjoyable chat the defined objectives were met.¹⁴

From the first to the eleventh issues, these reports are clearly distinguished because they are part of a fixed section indicated in the content which can be rapidly found by simply flicking through the magazine, thanks to a device that consists of a side strip, either black or orange in color, placed on the page on which each report in this series starts. All these numbers of Escola, with the exception of no. 5 (Jul. 1972), and which corresponds to a 'special edition,' have a report for each series. In the upper part of the strip that opens each report readers can quickly visualize to which level the class describes refers.¹⁵

The emphasis given to this section, with the material device that allows its rapid location, is principally aimed at the teacher concerned with the activities to be carried out by their students. It sought to show teachers that the reform had reached the classroom. For this the box present in these reports was essential. Each report about a particular level finished with a small box where the class objectives, the function of the teacher, and the relationship between the class and a particular curricular area were mentioned. This box is a reading device located at the end of the report, and its principal function is to adapt the class described to the terms and concepts created and mobilized by the reform. The silence about the characteristics and the history of the chosen teaching establishments is the device that allow the resignification of what is described in the report as part of the reform process. Here are two examples about the type of text present in the boxes:

At this level the central theme of what students study is life in their city. The area of social studies, aimed at the personal and social adjustment of the student to the community, can become the nucleus that irradiates all areas of the curriculum.¹⁶

The class integrates content of communication and expression and social studies. Its objectives were: acquire knowledge related to aspects of historic, economic, folklore and art in Bahia, using this knowledge relates facts and characters in geographic dimensions...¹⁷

What in these extracts figure as 'areas and objectives of the class described' correspond to what also appear in the magazine in interviews with authorities and in serial inserts with texts from the reform. There is a language disseminated in the pages of Escola which operates in an imperceptible mode, imbedding the reader-teacher in the ambience of the reform, with its terms and modes of understanding the teaching in the school. The actual areas covered by the reform are discussed, such as social studies and communication and expression; while the same terms and phrases are used: 'conscious exercise of citizenship,' 'cooperation,' 'experience,' 'solidarity', 'adjustment' of the student to the 'environment' or to the 'community,' etc. The device of the box, present in the reports on activities carried out by teachers, fulfills the function of adapting the class described to the curricular model established by the reform. Subtly, this reading devise reading (re)orders the school knowledge according to the new curricular matrix.

The tone that predominates in the editorials of the first numbers of the magazine, of praise and enthusiasm about the reform, soon starts to fade due to the 'controversies' it caused. Obliged to be attentive to changes in its target public, Escola echoes the first dissent, as observed in this editorial:

History and geography teachers are alarmed about their professional perspectives, due to the problem caused by the integration of these disciplines in Social Studies for the eight classes of primary school. Do history and geography have a future?

Escola

presents a wide-ranging debate about this, showing the amplitude of the controversy and seeking to locate it in the objectives of the reform law. Another controversy arising out of the reform is widely examined in this issue: it is dependency, a subject intimately linked to the failing and repeating of remedial students. (

Escola

, no. 4, June 1972, p.3)

In the reports corresponding to these editorials arguments in favor and against are presented, as can be observed in a report with the suggestive title: "Do History and Geography have a future?" In this the magazine raises the criticisms of different authorities from the areas of history and geography of the new law.

This does not mean that the magazine no longer was in favor of the reform, it justified this by comparing it with the 1961 LDB, as can be seen in this editorial:

The 1961 Basic Education Law, containing the expectations of the government and the teaching organization, was very ambitious in what it intended in relation to the training of teachers responsible for primary teaching. Unfortunately, time showed that its objectives would be hard to reached, which in fact they were not. The new Basic Education Law, Law 5692, more adapted to the national reality, intends to achieve more modest targets in relation to the training of new teachers and to the qualification and updating of those already working, and has opened new and more feasible perspectives to achieve its objectives. (

Escola

, no. 6, Aug. 1972, p.3)

From issue 8 of the magazine onwards a growing distancing could be noted in relation to the reform, noticeable in the editorials. In this issue, during the month in which teacher's day was commemorated, Escola decided to carry out 'research' among its readers. According to the editorial, always directed at the 'Dear Teacher,' in this research "it wanted to get to know its readers," "discover who you are and what you expect from our magazine" (Escola, no. 8, Oct. 1972, p.3). More than this, Escola wanted to have the teacher alongside it, producing the magazine, as the title of the research form contained in the issue: "Teacher, shall we make the magazine together?" (idem, p.23). After this the teacher was invited to choose ten subjects in order of preference, out of a total of forty, to be the object of its reports. These are the initial extracts of the invitation made by the magazine:

This magazine is yours. Therefore, it is fair that you should also be part of the team that selects the subjects for publication in Escola.

What is most common is that we open the magazine with articles and reports that we did not choose. And we do not always read what we would like to read. (ibidem)

Evidently they are talking about their own magazine, which perhaps was not achieving success among its intended public. As the announcement explained, the reports and articles appear not to have met the expectations of teachers. By carrying out this survey, the magazine was using a strategy similar to the one it used when it was launched, seeking to indentify itself with readers and involve them in a change in its editorial line, which apparently sought to distance itself from the reform. This distancing can also be observed in the subjects listed by the magazine to be chosen by teachers. Of the forty themes, only two were related to the reform: "professionalization and reform", "the reform is going well." Despite the invitation to participate in the survey having been made in the editorial of this issue, in subsequent editorials there are no further references to it.

After issue 10, December 1972, the reform is no longer mentioned in the editorials. Coincidentally, the magazine highlights in its editorial the 'controversial presence' of Professor Dermeval Saviani. In the interview with Saviani the principal theme is Law 5692/71.

From issue 15 onwards the editorial loses its function of reader interlocution, and becomes a complement of the contents. It is no longer signed by the editor, Wladimir Araújo, who remained as editorial director until issue 20 when he was replaced by Chico Santa Rita in the following issue. Also in issue 15 (May 1973) the 'Dear Teacher' ended, an indication of the disappearance of readers and short life of the periodical, which ended the following year after issue 27. 'Dear Teacher' reappeared only in its final issue when the magazine said goodbye to its readers.

Escola magazine, despite its attempt to tie itself to the educational policies of the military regime and to seek to adapt to its public, was a failure from the commercial point of view and its impact on the educational field. The available data show this: the initial print run was 67,000 copies, while for its final number only 25,000 copies were printed.¹⁸ The letter from the editorial director, when the publication ended in April 1974, shows this:

In suspending the publication of

Escola

magazine, we have the same frustrating feeling of the teacher who does not manage to give a certain class due to the lack of necessary materials. In our case this interruption is caused, on one hand, by the violent rise in the cost of paper, resulting from the world crisis in raw materials, and on the other by the need to redefine the objectives and the editorial policy of the magazine. (

Escola

, no. 26, April 1974)

In relation to the editorial policy of Escola, there is no doubt that its attachment to teaching reform did not guarantee the good reception expected by the magazine. It is very probable that the effect was the opposite, due to the resistance of teachers to the reform, with everything that this implied, the unification of distinct traditions and levels, not to mention rejection of the dictatorship itself. However, it is also necessary to consider the difference of this periodical in relation to the standard of periodicals then aimed at primary and secondary teachers (in the 1950s and 1960) and its similarity to Abril's other commercial magazines. For example, in relation to authorship, the reports in general did not identify the author and were produced by journalists, to the contrary of what was observed in the majority of educational periodicals of the time or before, with texts produced by teachers and other education professionals, with a clear identification of the author. Another characteristic is the type of reading practices that the Abril publication favored. Was its rejection due the reading practices created by its editorial formula, with a clear profile of a commercial magazine and which confused frontiers, erasing distinction and hierarchies that periodicals aimed at teachers demarcated? During this period, with the type of publication that Abril Publishers produced and propelled a new teacher-reader of educational periodicals was forged, a reader sympathetic to the cultural industrial, which would only really take off the following decade. Proof of this is the successful magazine which succeeded Escola in the 1980s, whose name, Nova Escola, was very suggestive of this inheritance.

NOTES

¹ See, for example, NAGLE, Jorge. A reforma e o ensino. São Paulo: Edart, 1973.

² Cf. CARVALHO, Marta M. C. de; TOLEDO, Maria Rita de A. A constituição da "forma escolar" no Brasil: produção, circulação e apropriação de modelos pedagógicos. São Paulo: Edusp; Ed. Unifesp, 2003, p.4. Sobre modelos de impressos pedagógicos, ver CARVALHO, Marta M. C. de. A escola e a República e outros ensaios. Bragança Paulista (SP): Edusf, 2003.

³ Cf. CERTEAU, Michel de. L'invention du quotidien. 1. Arts de faire. Paris: Gallimard, 1990, p.60.

⁴ For Chartier, "on the one hand reading is a creative practice, an activity that produces singular sense, meanings in no way reducible to the intentions of the authors of the texts or those who make books... On the other, the reader is always thought of by the author, by commentators and by editor as subject to a single sense, to a correct comprehension, an autonomized reading. To look at reading is, thus, to consider at the same time the irreducible liberty of readers and the conditions that intend to curb it. This fundamental tension can be tackled by the historian through dual research: identify the diversity of old readings through their sparse traces and to recognize the strategies through which authors and editors try to impose orthodoxy on the text, a forced reading. Of these strategies, some are explicit, resorting to the discourse (in prefaces, notices, glosses and notes), and other implicit, making the text machinery which must impose a proper comprehension." See CHARTIER, Roger. A história cultural: entre práticas e representações. Lisboa/Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand/Difel, 1990, p.123.

⁵ It is understood here that the creation of a new teaching category was due, on the one hand, to the conversion of elementary school teachers and gymnasium teachers into primary school teachers; and on the other, to the reorganization of teacher training with short licentiates (in the case of teachers for the fifth to eight grades) and the suppression of normal teacher training schools.

⁶ The analysis and the detailing of the editorial formula presented here are based on the work of REVAH, Daniel; TOLEDO, Maria Rita de A. O regime militar na (des)memória da Abril: a revista Escola e a difusão da 5692/71. In: História da educação. Pelotas (RS): UFPel, 2010. (In print)

⁷ An expression of this transformation is the fixed section entitled "Teaching is news," in which small reports were printed about current events, such as 'school census,' 'school calendar,' and 'seminars for teachers.'

⁸ See AMARAL, Luis. Técnica de jornal e periodical. Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 1969, p.60-61.

⁹ Only the editorials and the special numbers had authorship attributed, such as Escola no.5.

¹⁰ See Figure 1.

¹¹ MAUAD, A. M. O olho da história: fotojornalismo e história contemporânea. Available at: www.comciencia.br/reportagens/memoria/12.shtml, 2004. Accessed on 15 Oct. 2009.

¹² Mauad attributes the pioneering role to the magazine O Cruzeiro. In the 1940s this publication "reformulated the technical and aesthetic standards of illustrated magazines by presenting itself in a large format, with better graphic definition, international reports prepared through contacts with foreign press agencies and in strictly technical terms the introduction of rotogravure, allowing a more precise association between text and image" (idem). In relation to photo-journalism, see: GODOY, Alexandre P. Ver para crer: naÚltima Hora. In: Histórica - Magazine eletrônica do arquivo público do Estado de São Paulo, no. 31, 2008; COSTA, Helouise L. Aprender a ver as coisas: fotojornalismo e modernidade na revista O Cruzeiro. Master's Thesis - ECA-USP. São Paulo, 1992.

¹³ Cf. "A vida de cada aluno é um ótimo exemplo", Escola, n.3, maio 1972, p.54.

¹⁴ Cf. "Veja como você pode conhecer seus alunos", Escola, n.2, abr. 1972, p.47.

¹⁵ See the example in Figure 2, where a page from issue no. 0, Oct. 1971, is reproduced. Later, from no. 8 onwards, the strip is replaced by an oval form placed in the upper left part of the page, with a size that made its visualization less immediate. Either just below the oval or inside it the class level is indicated. This fixed section, from pre-school to eight class, which presented a report for each level, finished in issue 12. However, from no. 13 (Mar. 1973) onwards, there was a 'teaching plan' section which seems to replace the previous one, also having a similar device for its rapid location in the magazine: a rectangle with the name of the section written inside it, on the upper left of the page. This fixed section disappeared in issue 22, in Dec. 1973.

¹⁶ Cf. "De onde vem essa comida?", Escola, n.10, dez. 1972, p.47.

¹⁷ Cf. "Até Caymmi entrou nesta transa", Escola, n.10, dez. 1972, p.53.

¹⁸ Cf. ROSENBERG, Lia; BARBOSA, José J.; PARRA, Márcia L. V.; CARBONE, Célia R. Publicações para professor: um estudo de caso. Cadernos de Pesquisa, São Paulo: Fundação Carlos Chagas, n.30, p.57-64, 1979.

Article received in October 2010.

Approved in December 2010.

• ¹ Ver, por exemplo, NAGLE, Jorge. A reforma e o ensino. São Paulo: Edart, 1973.
• ² Cf. CARVALHO, Marta M. C. de; TOLEDO, Maria Rita de A. A constituição da "forma escolar" no Brasil: produção, circulação e apropriação de modelos pedagógicos. São Paulo: Edusp; Ed. Unifesp, 2003, p.4.
• Sobre modelos de impressos pedagógicos, ver CARVALHO, Marta M. C. de. A escola e a República e outros ensaios Bragança Paulista (SP): Edusf, 2003.
• ³ Cf. CERTEAU, Michel de. L'invention du quotidien 1. Arts de faire. Paris: Gallimard, 1990, p.60.
• ⁴ Para Chartier, "por um lado, a leitura é prática criadora, atividade produtora de sentidos singulares, de significações de modo nenhum redutíveis às intenções dos autores de textos ou fazedores de livros ... Por outro, o leitor é, sempre, pensado pelo autor, pelo comentador e pelo editor como devendo ficar sujeito a um único sentido, a uma compreensão correta, a uma leitura autonomizada. Abordar a leitura é, portanto, considerar, conjuntamente, a irredutível liberdade dos leitores e os condicionamentos que pretendem refreá-la. Esta tensão fundamental pode ser trabalhada pelo historiador através de uma dupla pes quisa: identificar a diversidade das leituras antigas através de seus esparsos vestígios e reconhecer as estratégias através das quais autores e editores tentavam impor uma ortodoxia do texto, uma leitura forçada. Dessas estratégias, umas são explícitas, recorrendo ao discurso (nos prefácios, advertências, glosas e notas), e outras implícitas, fazendo do texto uma maquinaria que, necessariamente, deve impor uma justa compreensão". Ver CHARTIER, Roger. A história cultural: entre práticas e representações. Lisboa/Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand/Difel, 1990, p.123.
• ⁶ A análise e o detalhamento da fórmula editorial aqui apresentada baseia-se no trabalho de REVAH, Daniel; TOLEDO, Maria Rita de A. O regime militar na (des)memória da Abril: a revista Escola e a difusão da 5692/71. In: História da educação Pelotas (RS): UFPel, 2010. (no prelo)
• ⁸ Ver AMARAL, Luis. Técnica de jornal e periódico Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 1969, p.60-61.
• ¹¹ MAUAD, A. M. O olho da história: fotojornalismo e história contemporânea. Disponível em: http://www.comciencia.br/reportagens/memoria/12.shtml, 2004. Acesso em: 15 out. 2009.
• ¹² Mauad atribui o pioneirismo dessa mudança à revista O Cruzeiro Na década de 1940, essa publicação "reformulou o padrão técnico e estético das revistas ilustradas apresentando-se em grande formato, melhor definição gráfica, reportagens internacionais elaboradas a partir dos contatos com as agências de imprensa do exterior e, em termos estritamente técnicos, a introdução da rotogravura, permitindo uma associação mais precisa entre texto e imagem" (idem). Sobre o fotojornalismo, ver: GODOY, Alexandre P. Ver para crer: na Última Hora In: Histórica Revista eletrônica do arquivo público do Estado de São Paulo, n.31, 2008;
• COSTA, Helouise L. Aprender a ver as coisas: fotojornalismo e modernidade na revista O Cruzeiro Dissertação (Mestrado) ECA-USP. São Paulo, 1992.
• ¹³ Cf. "A vida de cada aluno é um ótimo exemplo", Escola, n.3, maio 1972, p.54.
• ¹⁴ Cf. "Veja como você pode conhecer seus alunos", Escola, n.2, abr. 1972, p.47.
• ¹⁶ Cf. "De onde vem essa comida?", Escola, n.10, dez. 1972, p.47.
• ¹⁷ Cf. "Até Caymmi entrou nesta transa", Escola, n.10, dez. 1972, p.53.
• ¹⁸ Cf. ROSENBERG, Lia; BARBOSA, José J.; PARRA, Márcia L. V.; CARBONE, Célia R. Publicações para professor: um estudo de caso. Cadernos de Pesquisa, São Paulo: Fundação Carlos Chagas, n.30, p.57-64, 1979.

¹

See, for example, NAGLE, Jorge.

A reforma e o ensino. São Paulo: Edart, 1973.

²

Cf. CARVALHO, Marta M. C. de; TOLEDO, Maria Rita de A.

A constituição da "forma escolar" no Brasil: produção, circulação e apropriação de modelos pedagógicos. São Paulo: Edusp; Ed. Unifesp, 2003, p.4. Sobre modelos de impressos pedagógicos, ver CARVALHO, Marta M. C. de.

A escola e a República e outros ensaios. Bragança Paulista (SP): Edusf, 2003.

³

Cf. CERTEAU, Michel de.

L'invention du quotidien. 1. Arts de faire. Paris: Gallimard, 1990, p.60.

⁴

For Chartier, "on the one hand reading is a creative practice, an activity that produces singular sense, meanings in no way reducible to the intentions of the authors of the texts or those who make books... On the other, the reader is always thought of by the author, by commentators and by editor as subject to a single sense, to a correct comprehension, an autonomized reading. To look at reading is, thus, to consider at the same time the irreducible liberty of readers and the conditions that intend to curb it. This fundamental tension can be tackled by the historian through dual research: identify the diversity of old readings through their sparse traces and to recognize the strategies through which authors and editors try to impose orthodoxy on the text, a forced reading. Of these strategies, some are explicit, resorting to the discourse (in prefaces, notices, glosses and notes), and other implicit, making the text machinery which must impose a proper comprehension." See CHARTIER, Roger.

A história cultural: entre práticas e representações. Lisboa/Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand/Difel, 1990, p.123.

⁵

It is understood here that the creation of a new teaching category was due, on the one hand, to the conversion of elementary school teachers and gymnasium teachers into primary school teachers; and on the other, to the reorganization of teacher training with short licentiates (in the case of teachers for the fifth to eight grades) and the suppression of

normal teacher training schools.

⁶

The analysis and the detailing of the editorial formula presented here are based on the work of REVAH, Daniel; TOLEDO, Maria Rita de A. O regime militar na (des)memória da Abril: a revista

Escola e a difusão da 5692/71. In:

História da educação. Pelotas (RS): UFPel, 2010. (In print)

⁷

An expression of this transformation is the fixed section entitled "Teaching is news," in which small reports were printed about current events, such as 'school census,' 'school calendar,' and 'seminars for teachers.'

⁸

See AMARAL, Luis.

Técnica de jornal e periodical. Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 1969, p.60-61.

⁹

Only the editorials and the special numbers had authorship attributed, such as

Escola no.5.

¹⁰

See

Figure 1.

¹¹

MAUAD, A. M.

O olho da história: fotojornalismo e história contemporânea. Available at:

www.comciencia.br/reportagens/memoria/12.shtml, 2004. Accessed on 15 Oct. 2009.

¹²

Mauad attributes the pioneering role to the magazine

O Cruzeiro. In the 1940s this publication "reformulated the technical and aesthetic standards of illustrated magazines by presenting itself in a large format, with better graphic definition, international reports prepared through contacts with foreign press agencies and in strictly technical terms the introduction of rotogravure, allowing a more precise association between text and image" (idem). In relation to photo-journalism, see: GODOY, Alexandre P. Ver para crer: na

Última Hora. In:

Histórica - Magazine eletrônica do arquivo público do Estado de São Paulo, no. 31, 2008; COSTA, Helouise L.

Aprender a ver as coisas: fotojornalismo e modernidade na revista

O Cruzeiro. Master's Thesis - ECA-USP. São Paulo, 1992.

¹³

Cf. "A vida de cada aluno é um ótimo exemplo",

Escola, n.3, maio 1972, p.54.

¹⁴

Cf. "Veja como você pode conhecer seus alunos",

Escola, n.2, abr. 1972, p.47.

¹⁵

See the example in

Figure 2, where a page from issue no. 0, Oct. 1971, is reproduced. Later, from no. 8 onwards, the strip is replaced by an oval form placed in the upper left part of the page, with a size that made its visualization less immediate. Either just below the oval or inside it the class level is indicated. This fixed section, from pre-school to eight class, which presented a report for each level, finished in issue 12. However, from no. 13 (Mar. 1973) onwards, there was a 'teaching plan' section which seems to replace the previous one, also having a similar device for its rapid location in the magazine: a rectangle with the name of the section written inside it, on the upper left of the page. This fixed section disappeared in issue 22, in Dec. 1973.

¹⁶

Cf. "De onde vem essa comida?",

Escola, n.10, dez. 1972, p.47.

¹⁷

Cf. "Até Caymmi entrou nesta transa",

Escola, n.10, dez. 1972, p.53.

¹⁸

Cf. ROSENBERG, Lia; BARBOSA, José J.; PARRA, Márcia L. V.; CARBONE, Célia R. Publicações para professor: um estudo de caso.

Cadernos de Pesquisa, São Paulo: Fundação Carlos Chagas, n.30, p.57-64, 1979.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 May 2011
• Date of issue
  2010

History

• Received
  Oct 2010
• Accepted
  Dec 2010