In higher legal education , currently taught to law students in its traditional and vertical form, there is a growing need for innovation in the pedagogical process.
This process will only be overcome with authentic liberating practice, which is humanization, where student and teacher, learner and educator, disciple and master exchange experiences for an active and protagonistic pedagogy, thus understanding that the practice of teaching is a communion of knowledge.
In this sense, the traditionalist and archaic view maintains, in the words of Freire (2019), an oppressive and hierarchical conception, creating a distance in the relationship between teacher and student.
This distancing points to a failure to learn in its fullest form, where the student closes themselves off to possible new knowledge, distancing themselves from the dialogued and shared knowledge between educator and learner.
Paulo Freire aptly points out that "knowledge does not imprison, but liberates." In other words, the student becomes the protagonist of the learning process, capable of learning and teaching alongside the teacher, thus creating a new, liberating, and innovative teaching relationship.
Furthermore, with the advent of new technologies, the Social and Legal Sciences have shown themselves open to new pedagogical practices, but their respective absorption and applicability in the teaching profession has been slow and gradual.
Next, the article aims to demonstrate the relevance of innovative practices for a more humanistic perspective and an education led by law students, thus encompassing a critical analysis of traditional higher legal education.
Education as a Fundamental Right
Fundamental guarantees play a crucial role in defending citizens, being a legal duty of the State. In this sense, Canotilho (2003) points out that fundamental rights are the rights of man, legally and institutionally guaranteed.
Thus, such is the importance of education that it is conceived as a fundamental social right by our Constitution in its combined articles 6 and 205, which follow:
Article 6. Social rights include education, health, food, work, housing, transportation, leisure, security, social security, protection of motherhood and childhood, and assistance to the destitute, as provided for in this Constitution. (BRAZIL, 2017). Article 205. Education, a right of all and a duty of the State and the family, shall be promoted and encouraged with the collaboration of society, aiming at the full development of the person, their preparation for the exercise of citizenship and their qualification for work.
(BRAZIL, 2017).
In the context of social services, the right to benefits, strictly speaking, means the right of an individual to obtain something through the State – health, education, social security . (CANOTILHO, pp. 393, 407 and 408. 2003).
Therefore, for a better understanding of the topic presented here, let's look at the meaning of the words "student" and "pupil":
Student. Noun. Person who studies; disciple; pupil; schoolchild (AURÉLIO, p. 592. 1975)
Aluno. [From Lat. Alumnu, originally “child who was given to be raised”.] Noun. 1. Person who receives instruction and/or education from a master, or masters, in an educational establishment or privately; student, pupil, disciple, pupil. 2. One who has little knowledge in a certain subject, science, or art. Apprentice.
3. Ant. Individual native to a certain land, country or place; native, son […] (AURÉLIO, p. 77. 1975).
It is clear that as long as there are students, there will be oppression , since they are merely passive in the learning process and the "bearers of knowledge" act as superiors.
Ultimately, the etymology of the term "student" can be traced back to the Enlightenment, where the word "student," originating from Latin, means absence of light, with the prefix 'a' corresponding to "absence or without" and 'luno' being the word signifying light . Therefore, student: without light, without knowledge.
Legal education and domination in learning.
Currently, when addressing domination in teaching methods, between professor and student, in Law, another aggravating factor becomes apparent: Law is still linked to a very strong notion of power , perceived in the hierarchical relationships of the Judiciary and its respective instances.
This domination is present in Foucault (1976), who states that it is not merely power; this domination becomes so strong that the individual loses their essence and becomes a mere subject of the oppressive force. For the French philosopher, power must be understood as "a multiplicity of power relations that are immanent to the domain where they are exercised and are constitutive of their organization" (FOUCAULT, 1976, pp. 121-2).
Even today, when discussing the educational process, particularly in light of Paulo Freire, the patron of Education, it becomes clear that the process of reproduction, symbolic violence, and domination in legal education persists in this interaction.
Certain that violence is symbolic and, in legal education, is exercised by professors, being strictly linked to the (more traditional) teaching method, they reproduce learned concepts, aiming to fulfill schedules stipulated or dictated by the Ministry of Education (MEC).
It is observed that the teacher himself, in the words of Freire (2019), who uses the term "oppressor," is also a party who suffers from oppression, since he was taught by another in the same way.
Thus, by suffering from the cycle, the "oppressor" becomes, in this way, a product of the same oppression, continuing to oppress and perpetuate it, treating the student as a mere "bank" of education.
The educator appears as its indisputable agent, as its real subject, whose inescapable task is to "fill" the students with the contents of their narration. Contents that are fragments of reality disconnected from the totality in which they are engendered and whose vision would gain meaning. The word, in these dissertations, is emptied of the concrete dimension it should have or is transformed into an empty word, into alienated and alienating verbosity. Hence, it is more sound than meaning and, thus, better not to say it.
(FREIRE, p. 80. 2019)
Often, the teacher, as an authoritarian figure, fails to realize that their actions impose knowledge and disrupt the student's spontaneous and free expression of thought and ideas.
First and foremost, the educator is the one who encourages dialogue, the exchange of experiences and life stories that the student-learner possesses. In this way, they can and should contribute their diversity to the classroom as a whole; otherwise, they become mere objects of education, supporting actors, and oppressed.
While the learner must be an active subject, "being in the world and with the world" (FREIRE, p. 98, 2019) and fully capable in the sum of education, acting together with the educator.
The humanization of contemporary education
This process will only be overcome with the humanization of education, where student and teacher, learner and educator, disciple and master exchange experiences for an active and proactive pedagogy, understanding the communion of knowledge.
In this liberating practice, Paulo Freire (2019) states: “no longer educator of the student, no longer student of the educator, but educator-student with student-educator”.
With the historic and tragic event of the COVID-19 pandemic, the implementation and realization of virtual teaching fell upon education, a process that had been slow and gradual. The pandemic "forced" the implementation of remote teaching and the distance learning system.
This was certainly no different for legal education, which had to break with centuries-old tradition and adapt to the new reality.
Currently, during this remote learning period, teachers have returned to learning new pedagogical methods for teaching. For example, virtual classes offer a vast field for learning, such as asynchronous classes, interactive applications, and virtual platforms like Moodle or Google Classroom.
Remote learning and distance education cannot be considered enemies , in other words, responsible for the destruction of the face-to-face teaching-learning process. They are co-participants in methodologies for new ways of learning and teaching, which never subtract from each other, but rather complement one another.
New techniques are often important tools for improving the student-teacher interaction. After all, there are countless technological advances, applications with quick and easy access, and information available at the click of a button.
Given this, the question arises: what could be taught to students who have this opportunity for knowledge in cyberspace? And furthermore, in an increasingly technological world, what should be taught?
Harari (2018) has the answer to this question. The Israeli historian proposes that pedagogical teaching should be what he calls "the four Cs" – critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.
In such a world, with knowledge at our fingertips, the last thing a teacher needs to give their students is information, certain that they already possess it.
Thus, the teacher's role becomes that of extracting meaning from information, perceiving the difference between what is important and what is not, combining the many fragments of information into a broad picture of the world. (HARARI, p. 322. 2018).
With the realization of such liberation in this context, education moves away from traditional reproductive dogmatism and, through dialogue in which the student occupies a central position , becomes active in the learning process, as much as the teacher, and especially learns in the company of the teacher.
This is stated in Paulo Freire (2019): "the educator is no longer just the one who educates, but the one who, while educating, is educated, in dialogue with the learner who, while being educated, also educates".
In short, it is important to know that we never learn in isolation; we learn in the plural, collectively, and in groups. Learning always happens in the plural, and just like Freire's (2019) freedom of expression, education is an achievement, not a gift; it requires a constant pursuit.
Conclusion
Therefore, this article aimed to demonstrate the need to update teaching methods. New technologies have arrived, and with them, it is of utmost importance that teachers and students update themselves , both in terms of technology and methodology.
Therefore, while acknowledging that such updating is gradual, the advent of COVID-19 has led many educators to become educators-learners, and this change is crucial for understanding the new teaching methods in classrooms, especially in law classrooms.
Finally, it is evident that access to education for all, for the full development of the individual, is the State's duty and must be effective. However, the failure is easily verifiable, since access to education is seen as a privilege. New teaching methodologies could be a way to guarantee the effectiveness of knowledge.
References
BRAZIL. [Constitution (1988)]. Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil : promulgated on October 5, 1988. 54th ed. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2017.
BUARQUE, Aurélio. New Dictionary of the Portuguese Language . 1st ed. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1970.
CANOTILHO, JJ Gomes. Constitutional Law . 7th edition. Coimbra – Portugal: Livraria Almedina, 2003.
FOUCAULT, Michel. Histoire de la sexualité I: la volonté de savoir . Paris: Gallimard, 1976.
FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed . 71st ed. – Rio de Janeiro/São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2019.
HARARI, Yuval Noah. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century . Translated by Paulo Geiger. 1st ed. – São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018.
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Author: Eduardo Alvim Passarella Freire
Bachelor of Laws – Vianna Júnior Integrated Colleges (FIVJ); Postgraduate student in Constitutional Law at IDP.
This article was published through the IDP Student Editorial Project.