Round table: “The conservative fallacy: the myth(-ideo)logy of neutral school science” brought together a good audience in the NEPSA auditorium

A project by deputy Rogério Marinho (PSDB/RN) presented on 05/13/2015, classifying the crime of ideological harassment in the context of education, has been causing a reaction in several academic sectors, with the subject arousing the interest of countless human sciences students, who filled the NEPSA auditorium, on the afternoon of this Wednesday, the 12th, at UFRN.
The students responded to an invitation from the social sciences department of the Center for Human Sciences, Letters and Arts at UFRN and attended the round table “The conservative fallacy: the myth(-ideo)logy of neutral school science”, which had as speakers professors Alípio de Sousa Filho, from the social sciences department, and Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Junior, from the history department.
The duo's objective was to offer a discussion about the current conservative offensive which, according to them, aims to prevent the construction of critical thinking in the production of knowledge and teaching in Brazilian schools, showing that there is no neutral science and school and, at the same time, demonstrating the fallacy of conservative thinking.
Professor Alípio de Sousa began by talking about the effects of ideology on societies, addressed the issue of the set of mechanisms of power and subjectivity, cited different authors such as Marx, Hegel, Foucalt, among others and highlighted that ideology is omnipresent and crosses all social spaces.
In the end, he cited Congressman Rogério Marinho's project, criticized it and placed him as responsible for a possible criminalization of critical knowledge if it were to be approved.
The historian, Professor Durval Muniz, gave a history of the freedom of teaching, freedom of expression, warned that we may be moving towards a state of exception and said that teachers' choices cannot be penalized, citing laws that protect teachers in their autonomy to teach and decide what suits them in the classroom, defending the plurality of ideas and the right to learn for students, who must have the right to choose.
At the end, they answered various questions and clarified aspects of their thoughts regarding the question proposed for the round table.
Professors Alípio de Sousa Filho, from the social sciences department, and Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Junior, from the history department, gave the lecture to a large audience of students. Photography by Flávio Rezende.