Quando o Brincar Ensina

In Cape Verde, where the majority of the population is young, children use olive oil cans, bits of sandals, leftover tires and pieces of cardboard to build their own toys. The absence of a consumer society and the challenges posed by insularity have led them to invent their own recreational independence with almost nothing.

In a Europe traumatized by the First World War, educationalists point the finger of blame: the school, which produced “brave soldiers”. The task now is to build peace and develop a new education for a generation of children who, it is hoped, will never wage war again. How can we educate them without surveillance and punishment? How can we help them to emancipate themselves? To make children happy is to make them better adults, according to those who embarked on the adventure. Their names are Rudolf Steiner, Maria Montessori, Célestin Freinet, Alexander S. Neill, Ovide Decroly, Paul Geheeb or Janusz Korczak, each of them inventing educational methods. A Swiss pedagogue, Adolphe Ferrière, brought them together in the Ligue internationale de l'éducation nouvelle.

Over a dozen students at this school in Quebec were radicalised. To tackle the issue, a pilot project was launched to heal divides within the student body. It's a hybrid cultural model, made up of the many cultures of its students.

An analysis of the logics of modern schooling and the way of understanding education, while showing different, non-conventional educational experiences that raise the need for a new educational paradigm.

A portrait of indigenous childhood: Guarani Kaiowá, Guarani Ñandeva, Baniwa and Khisetje.

The analysts featured in this documentary contend that psychoanalysis has a long history as a progressive movement devoted to the common good. Psychoanalysis asks us to examine the processes of self deception that perpetuate both individual unhappiness and social structures that are inequitable and oppressive. Yet psychoanalytic education has for the most part focused on training and treating the relatively privileged. The Black psychoanalysts here examine this dilemma and engage in a vibrant and thought provoking discussion about race, culture, class and the unrealized promise of psychoanalysis.