The Merity Regional and handicrafts: sculpting as a craft and creation as a profession

Abstract

The present article addresses the is sue of the subject of Manual Work at the Merity Regional School (1921-1964) in the period from 1954 to 1964. Keeping the tradition of a scholastic elementary school, it had, as its main agent, the teacher José Montes, a teacher from the Heitor Lyra worksho p. Besides the concerns with certification and training for work, his pedagogical practice focused on tools and knowledge activities to stimulate students toward manual practices centered on experience. The Manual Work classes held at the Regional proposed an action focused on the development of sensibilities, within the scope of labor practices. From 1954 on, the school started the “sculpting” classes in the students' instruction, centered on "learning by doing". From analyses of documentary sources such as the school's annual reports, we visualize that this discipline sought, before any work force qualification, to stimulate the will and creative capacity of each individual. As the students were dropping out very early in order to support their families, it was understood that they needed to have extra knowledge for such a social position. We sought to focus on the relationship between education and work in our analysis of the activities carried out at the school.