Colégio Liceu Pasteur, in Vila Mariana, turns 100 – 05/17/2023 – Educação

The soundtrack of the interview with Liceu Pasteur directors was the sound of a pile driver working on another building under construction in Vila Mariana, in the south zone of São Paulo. And the topic of conversation was the centenary of the college, founded on May 17, 1923 in that same location, a region then far from the urban area of ​​the capital, on land that belonged to the famous architect Ramos de Azevedo.

It was he who designed the school building, after having placed his signature on architectural landmarks in São Paulo, such as the Pinacoteca do Estado (1905) and the Municipal Theater (1911). Then came, among others, the Faculty of Medicine of USP (1931) and the Municipal Market (1933).

In 1923, when the Lyceum appeared, there was almost nothing in that open part of the peaceful city, with less than 600 thousand inhabitants, apart from a tram station. The Brazilian and French intellectuals and businessmen who, with the encouragement of the French government, had founded the Liceu, soon managed to have an extension of the tram line pass in front of the college, on the street that would be named Mairinque.

The episode illustrates the role that the school would play in the urbanization of Vila Mariana. One hundred years later, something to celebrate is that the 15,327 m^two that the Liceu occupies have survived the real estate speculation in what has become an upper-middle-class neighborhood in the most populous metropolis in the country.

While walking through the school with the reportage of the Sheetthe former mayor of São Paulo Gilberto Kassab (PSD), 62, president of the foundation that manages the Liceu, points to buildings in the surroundings that did not exist when he was a student there, from 1965 to 1978.

His father, physician and writer Pedro Kassab, was the general director and enrolled his seven children there. The family lived in Pinheiros, in the west zone, but, without today’s traffic, the distance weighed less, and the class was taken to school by their mother, teacher Yacy Kassab, in a Kombi.

Former mayor and current government secretary of Tarcísio Freitas (Republicans) says that, despite his father being the director and the climate of authoritarianism in Brazil under the military dictatorship, he sat “at the back”. But he does not recall any political militancy. “The only election I took part in at Liceu, and which was the first of my life, was for captain of the football team. And I won”, he jokes.

He and five of his brothers left Liceu directly to study at USP (University of São Paulo). Training that would prepare students to enter the best Brazilian colleges was among the goals of the founders. An old school newspaper, called A Voz, addressed, in a 1938 edition, the “demand of discipline” and the “rigority of studies”, necessary to keep students “well above most other schools” so that they “prepare to enter higher schools”.

From Kassab to singer Rita Lee, the list of illustrious alumni is long, and among them are maestro João Carlos Martins, banker Walther Moreira Salles, doctor Drauzio Varella, economist Paul Singer and journalist Lillian Witte Fibe.

The Liceu project is part of a post-World War I French strategy to expand its political and cultural influence in Latin America. The initial intention was even to found a university in Brazil, which did not materialize.

That idea is no longer on the horizon, according to Cláudio Kassab, 52, brother of the former mayor and general director of the school. What is sought today is to consolidate the pedagogical unification of the original school, the one on Rua Mairinque, the other inaugurated by the same group in 1964, on a plot of 11,000 m2.^two on Vergueiro Street. In the first unit, teaching has always been the Brazilian standard with a strong load of French classes; the second started a bilingual Portuguese and French curriculum, with a valid diploma for Brazil and France.

Since 2019, both form the plurilingual Grand Lycée Pasteur: in addition to Portuguese and French, there is mandatory English teaching and optional German, Spanish, Greek and Latin. The units are gradually being pedagogically merged and divided into classes, so that, with the conclusion of the unification, the Vergueiro building will house children up to the 7th grade and the Mairinque building will house the 8th grade until the end of high school .

The unification aims at the survival of the Lyceum amid the wave of new Portuguese/English bilingual schools in Brazilian education. Currently the college has 1,500 students. The schedule is full time, and the monthly fee, thanks to a subsidy given by the government of France, costs around R$ 3,500, a value below that of other elite schools in São Paulo.

The new project merged Brazilian and French teachers and students more profoundly, not without some tension in the face of cultural contrasts. Recently, the uniform is no longer mandatory, as has been the case since 1968 in French public schools – in early 2023, in France, the far right caused controversy by proposing that the uniform become mandatory, which was rejected by Parliament.

At the Liceu Pasteur, not wearing a uniform, at first, sounds antagonistic to that traditional architecture of large windows, high ceilings and central patios. The school maintains nearly century-old furniture, made of dark wood, and is not moved by the “startup aesthetic” that has taken over schools, with a clean look, light walls and colorful ottomans on the floor.

The so-called innovative teaching methodologies, in vogue in expensive schools (actually included in the pedagogical project or used only as marketing) seem to pass by the Lyceum. The pedagogical director, Stella Palmisano, 75, turns her nose up when the report asks about these methods, such as maker teaching (hands-on) and student-centered education. She sees no problem with the fact that the school’s pedagogical line is called traditional.

Cláudio Kassab agrees that the college remains, in part, conservative, but says that the protagonism of students, yes, is something that was adopted. “We certainly listen to students more today than what happened years ago.”

But there is no concern about selling this or that image. Unlike other famous schools, Liceu does not have a press office or marketing department. The mediation between Sheet and the director of the school was made by Suelene D’Alkimin, 72. Mother of former students and secretary of the college for 34 years, she keeps historical photos of the Lyceum on her computer, which she proudly shows to the reporter.

The Liceu had not yet invested in work to organize its memory, which is relevant to the history of São Paulo and Brazilian education. But this is being done now, on the occasion of the centenary.

Historian and USP professor Marisa Midori is preparing a book about the school, alongside two other researchers, Roney Cytrynowicz and Monica Musatti Cytrynowicz. “We are organizing the documentation, which was scattered in both buildings, and discovering fantastic stories,” she says.

She has read testimonials from former students who speak of extreme rigidity, but says she believes that this characteristic, far from being exclusive to the Lyceum, predates the Second World War.

“Education was very old-fashioned until the end of the 19th century, mostly religious and even using physical punishment”, he recalls. “And the Lyceum was part of a more modernizing proposal, of secular education”, he says. “We can say it was strict but progressive.”

The historian draws attention to “a humanist vision, not of ‘by heart’ education, but one that teaches thinking, in addition to a concern with the idea of ​​socialization of students, including through sports, something new for the time”.

There was, says Midori, a look at health, at the idea of ​​a healthy body, healthy mind. And the school even advertised it. In the early years, when it also functioned as a boarding school, it advertised a pamphlet with a photo of the bathrooms and the advertisement “hot baths in winter”. Likewise, an ancient record recorded the decision that students would be required to shower after sports. Rigidity, shall we say, justifiable.