The lesson ritual in pedagogy: performative aspect

Abstract

In the pedagogy field, one recurrently treats lessons as tools for teaching and learning. In this article, I argue that, beyond that aspect, the lesson translates into one of the most important rituals of the educational process due to its performative character. Under the assumption that it is in the field of pedagogical discourse that the stabilization of the lesson ritual occurs, I have developed a study in which I analyze the ritualistic aspect of this educational practice, that is, as a ritual and a research path which observes the importance of understanding current discursive school practices focusing on discursive practices, produced in the context of modernity. I have chosen an analysis corpus arising from two discursivities: Jesuit pedagogy and modern pedagogy, which greatly impacted on the educational discourse of the twentieth century, in the texts Ratio Studiorum, of the Society of Jesus (1599-2009), and Primeiras lições de coisas [Primary object lessons], by N. Calkins, adapted by Rui Barbosa (1861-1886). In these texts, analyzed as discourses, I have given visibility to the lesson ritual in its performative aspect, that is, to what marks positions, gestures and behaviors. Analysis indicates a regularity which remains with regard to the rectorial utterances of these ritualistic aspects, one of the first sacred aspects arising from the Christian religious discourse. Another aspect of these discursivities is the ritualistic function in the production of the discourse of truth.