Cabana School

Studies in Colombia, Brasil, and Argentina have shown a strong link between dropping out of school and youth homelessness. Street children always talk about the day to day oppression in school, the exclusion they feel, and the lack of learning -- one Colombian boy insisted “The teacher never teaches anything, but the street always teaches!” The Cabana School project of the Belém Education Department attempts to prevent youth homelessness and improve education by integrating the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and the “Pedagogy of Desire” into the public school curriculum.

The project offers a new training for teachers in poor schools. Cabana begins with the idea that teachers are natural allies and that they want the best for their students, but they work in such difficult circumstances that they can’t teach in the way that they want. The first step is to help teachers research their own communities: what is life like for children in the favelas? What are the family dynamics? What is the economy based on? In workshops with Education Department trainers, teachers think through how this research can help their teaching.

Trainers also teach children about their rights and how they can become actors in their schools. Students and teachers then form an alliance to improve the quality of education -- children teach their teachers as well as the other way round.

The program methodology comes from Piaget and Freire. Children are considered as equal participants in the educative process, and justice is the final goal. Textbooks and workbooks, hated by children all over Latin America, play a very small role. Children learn reading an writing by reading literature and by writing poems. Then, they publish poetry books and give them to their parents. Math is taught in reference to poor children’s experiences, whether that of the street vendor or the child who goes to the store to buy bread for h/er mother. The same is true in social studies or history -- teachers base their lessons on the lives of poor children.

Though there are still problems in the Belém schools, there is a new attitude among teachers, administrators, and students. One statistic indicates the level of impact that Cabana has had: schools matriculate voluntarily in the program, and now 40 of the 55 municipal schools have applied to participate.


Escola Cabana
Secretaria Municipal de Educação, Coordinação de Esporte, Arte, e Lazer
Avenida Almirante Barroso 2174
Marco, Belém, PA 66060 230

91 276 3493