Introduction

Pierre Faure joined the Jesuit order in the 1920, dedicating himself for 60 consecutive years to education in various functions: university professor in Lebanon and France, director of primary school and teacher training school. From 1937 onwards, he began to intervene in the school field, when he created, in Vanves, the Center d’Études Pédagogiques and began collaborating in several pedagogical magazines. Three years later, in partnership with Hélène Lubienska de Lenval, he began teaching summer courses for teacher training and later established a center for pedagogical studies, three normal schools and an application college in Paris. In 1945, he created the Pédagogie magazine and directed it until 1972, becoming the main means of disseminating his educational experience - the Personalized and Community Pedagogy (^{AUDIC, 1998}).

Faure found the pedagogical bases of his educational proposal in classic readings, such as Ratio Studiorum, Escola Nova, Plano Dalton, among others. Influenced by the French postwar educational reforms (^{KLEIN, 1998}), Faure also appropriated the Montessori method and, through Catholic lenses, dialogued with the Sacred Pedagogy of Hélène Lubienska de Lenval (^{AVELAR, 1978}, p.11). As a member of the Society of Jesus, he supported himself in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola and defended an education that provided the student with interiority and action. Furthermore, it emphasized the richness of its structure for work in the classroom and emphasized the educational and personal work of the student. Father Pierre Faure's pedagogical proposal constituted a hybridism of matrices of New School that defended student activism, but filtered in the Catholic-Jesuit perspective.

^{Silva and Dallabrida (2020}), they say that Pierre Faure's started relationship with Brazil began in 1951, when the priest was in Rio de Janeiro where he gave a speech at the 4th Inter-American Congress of Catholic Education, held in Rio de Janeiro. After that, the priest was invited to publish texts in the SERVIR Bulletin of AEC do Brasil. years later, this association itself decided to promote two pedagogical weeks with the aim of renewing the educational practices of teachers in Catholic schools. The first in 1955, in Rio de Janeiro, and the second in 1956 in São Paulo. To teach these weeks aimed at training teachers for a new conception of Catholic education, Pierre Faure was invited to be personally in Brazil and talk about his pedagogy. In this sense, this article analyzes the report on the two pedagogical weeks promoted by the AEC do Brasil, which are compiled in a single printed source that summarized the contents worked by Pierre Faure, special guest of the Center d’Éstudes Pédagogiques de Paris. An analysis unfolds in presenting the themes worked by Faure in the lectures of each day, as well as identifying a way in which these pedagogical weeks were being thought by the organizers of the AEC.

During the 1950s, more specifically in 1955 and 1956, Pierre Faure was invited by the AEC to teach in Brazil two training courses for Catholic teachers. These courses, which took place in Rio de Janeiro at Colégio Sacré Coeur and, in São Paulo at Colégio Sion, were intended to train primary school teachers for a renovating Catholic education that could accompany the New School discourses that were said to represent modernization for the school public, universal and secular. In short, the idea of the pedagogical weeks organized by AEC do Brasil was to advance the necessary discussion on a new idea of the Catholic School in Brazil in the 1950s.

Pedagogical Week in Rio de Janeiro of 1955

The first pedagogical week happened on the 8th and 12th of July 1955 at the Colégio Sacré Coeur, in the capital of Rio de Janeiro, and was taught by Pierre Faure. This training week aimed to offer educators, especially religious educators, the opportunity to debate questions related to the new perspectives of Catholic Education. That's why the week was divided into five themes, worked one each day, they were: Conditions of a Christian Pedagogy, Awareness raising, The formation of the Spirit, Religious formation at different ages and The awakening of social sense. On the first day, Conditions of a Christian Pedagogy, Faure began his speech by stating that the duty of educators was to transmit true Christianity to students, “to have this end in view, and to live it in our activity”. (AEC, s.d., p.7). In the document published by the AEC (s.d.), Faure questioned whether the education system would, in fact, correct the evils that teachers complained about. Therefore, he pointed to the fact that homogeneous training did not meet the needs of individuals, and that the educational reform intended by Catholic teachers and educators should be carried out gradually and with discernment.

From this perspective, the father started a long debate about the need to reform education through new methods and whether this was the necessary solution for education, bringing negative and positive points of changes in educational methods. For him, the change in methods alone was not a assurance of success, as well as the adoption of a method without philosophical foundations just because it was considered good. However, all human beings, belonging to their own time, received specific influences from each historical context that should be considered for the solution of their educational problems. And an authentic way to think about this would be to research the methods that present an authentic and effective form of education. As an example of an effective method in education, Faure referred to the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas citing some of his basic education concepts:

What is to form a man? Neither seeing nor feeling distinguish a man from an animal, but the possibility that man has of being conscious: when he acts, he knows he is acting. From childhood, man learns to be conscious, in play, in study, and in all his acts. What is valid for man before God is not just to act, but to act because he knows, to act because he wants to act. Acting on oneself, desiring to become better, is not content to act for the sake of acting, but aiming for progress; everything must be a response to a call from God for the best. (AEC, s.d., p. 9).

In this sense, for Faure, an effective method or pedagogy would be very similar to Christian pedagogy that highlights the need for the child's active and conscious cooperation in the work of his education. Thereby, the active activity of the child involved: the inner activity, where the educator would lead the child to act in a conscious and voluntary way, and the pedagogy of effort, helping the child to examine his own conscience. The pedagogy proposal pointed out by Faure was not to offer a pedagogy of success, because failure, for him, could be part of the development os studentes, as well as part of the mystery of the Cross, with it the spiritual value of the effort made. Furthermore, he ended the day emphasizing that the conditions of that period led to the offer of an education that gave students a vision of the future, a sense of family, the sanctity of marriage, the sublime duty of educating children. Thus, teachers would need to prepare children for an integral education in a Christian spirit, warning them of the illusion of expecting an easy life, and preparing them for what they could do in the future.

On the second day Faure spoke about awareness raising. According to him, two theories can educate students to become aware: a functional theory advocated by Claparède and a spiritualist theory by Ferrière. The first advocated an education that advocated the sense organs, that would be driven to act by a necessity of nature. The second advocated the idea of ​​interest that should begin with students. These two theories would need to go together, as education could not be done without the interest and effort of students. An effort that was not just physical energy, but also vital energy. It would then be necessary to give students motivations that would make them act, arousing not only sensitive interest, but also of a rational order, rooted in an ideal. The conscious student would be capable of effort and action, oriented towards an objectively good act, free from the restraints of passions and instincts. For Faure, the moral value of action lay in the intention that conscience was made. In this sense, school teachers used students' awareness raising through close observation. Only then would they be able to find what was good for themselves and for others. At the end of the second day, in the Work in Groups session, Faure questioned the teachers on how to educate children for awareness, opening this theme so that they could express themselves and present their perceptions and perspectives.

The responses selected and published in the AEC document (undated) were that to educate for a conscience: a) teachers would need to use education according to the sense of order and its why, designating each one of its place, making it the person responsible for their objects, their wallet and their material; b) assign grades or points to students for maintaining order, objects, place and dealing with people; c) refer, at opportune times, to the respect due to the objects of other students, using conversations and debates among the students themselves; d) combat the transcription of excerpts without proper reference, careless corrections, forgery of notes; e) not be too demanding for the queues, reminding students that it is respect for the school that constitutes the discipline and that, therefore, the queue can be an aspect of this respect; f) provide opportunities for students to bring an artistic sense to the lessons by bringing, for example, a flower vase as a decoration; g) conduct marathons with students and h) use notebooks for correspondence with families. In addition to these indications, finally, there is the need to give children personal and social responsibilities, creating the habit of leading them to conscience and personal spiritual life.

The third day was the turn of the theme on Formation of the Spirit. On the day, Faure began by commenting that the essential thing was not to transmit the know to students, but a method. For him, the essential was to give students a working method so that they could seek know in books and documents. With that, the method would form the student's spirit so that they would learn to work for themselves, acquiring the possibility of personal work and enriching themselves. The formation of the spirit should be done through personal work, which would take place through self-effort research and instruction. In this effort for students to come to personal work, teachers should not fear the appearance of wasted time. The spirit would form little by little and with time the fruits would appear. To help with the personal work, it would also be necessary to present to the students the idea of ​​a guideline that would, in a nutshell, be an exposition about the work of annotation and organization, seeking to encourage and encourage them to independent productions. Once this was done, students should assimilate their work as their own, translating the writing into words, living a mystique of the subject and creating a center of interest around the subjects.

At the time of group work, aimed at opening the dialogue with the teachers present, ask whether the students were interested in school work. At the time, the responses published varied, with some responding that few students were interested in the study, to the detriment of the overload of the materials and the extension of the programs. Others answered that this interest could be stimulated by the teachers themselves, hence the need for those responsible for education to make an effort to establish this game of interests in the classroom. Asked about the nature of the work in which the students were interested, the teachers answered that they were the ones that generally required the least intellectual effort, such as drawing, experimental part of science, national literature and languages. Furthermore, about the formative work, the teachers answered that, without a doubt, they were work related to religious and moral sciences, and mathematics and Latin, as they encouraged students to exercise reflection and reasoning. Also writing in its different forms and different subjects, as it requires an awareness of observation, logic of ideas and order of disposition. For the rest, as mother tongues and foreign languages, which are studied in depth and not simply reduced to a few vocabularies or arrangement of sentences. Among the means examined to achieve these formations, the following methodological resources were cited: lectures, paintings, visits to museums and groups in specialized groups.

On the fourth day, the theme of religious formation at different ages raised the question of the need for religious formation not only to instruct, but also to make what was taught live on an objective basis. Thus, for this training to take place in a positive way in the practical life of students, teachers should think of different strategies for saying Mass, for example, such as retreats, work in the open air and in nature, and so on. Thus, in giving instructions to students, teachers would also try to apply them to practical life, helping the child to “live Christianly, speak to him familiarly about Our Lord and, through the liturgy, show him the fundamental Christian truths: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost, etc”. (AEC, s.d., p. 25). For this, the school should strengthen the liturgical movement, linking teaching to Christian life, and Christian life to profane life, with religious formation being thought of from the ages. In preschool, for example, you couldn't impose long prayers on children before they had understood who it was for. In primary and elementary education, it would be necessary to proceed with standardization, so that students would understand that there was an order outside of them and would personally penetrate the domain of consciousness.

In this sense, as a path to a more experiential religious formation, Faure differentiated what would be understood prayers and lived prayers. For him, the communication of a religious truth should represent life. Therefore, one should not start with religious traditions and the Bible would need to be introduced from the early years until the role of religious characters led children to a progressive initiation of the Mass. Religious training could then begin with the presentation of biblical characters, leading students to become interested in biblical history as they also knew the profane history, “For example: when you do a study of profane history it will show itself the transcendence of the Jewish people over other more materially advanced civilizations, especially Egypt”. (AEC, s.d., p.28). To end this day, in the document published by the AEC Faure signaled to teachers about the place and role of catechism in school education that it should be accompanied by an awakening of religious sentiment before the recitation of various literatures and dogmas by heart. To do so, the teacher could provide a central idea of ​​the religious text and propose to students a common discussion, asking students for a notebook on religion that could include class summaries, illustrations, and so on the religious foundations linked to human themes, such as love, nature, death, among others. Such a feat would form a Christian sensitivity in the students and make possible a Christian education together with school education.

The awakening of the social sense as the theme of the fifth day was discussed by Faure in order to criticize communism in the document published by the AEC (s.d.) Faure suggested that communism did not have a social spirit. That's why the awakening of the social sense would not be based on this theory, being, in turn, necessary for teachers to teach this training to students taking into account the following observations:

A few years ago here, as elsewhere, the word social was synonymous with socialist. The word itself was not accepted - the social man was the dangerous man. Today she is in fashion. The word easily takes on political or philanthropic coloring. And yet it has a much wider range. Belonging to several works does not always mean having a social spirit or a social sense. There are people who under these pompous titles hide a lack of authentic social spirit. We must courageously denounce these difficulties. The thing in itself is simple. And because it's simple, it's difficult. Being social is simply living in society. Man cannot live alone. It necessarily fits into the organized life of society. But there are different ways to live in society. First by exploring others. Roman life, for example, had many strong institutions, very well organized, but what did they live on? The energy of the slave, sadly exploited by the masters who provided them with a livelihood, but what a life! It was this organization that caused the ancient city to crumble, a phenomenon observed in other pagan civilizations as well. (AEC, s.d., p. 30).

Based on these observations for social formation, Faure defended that this composition should be directed to a minimum of social life, where the duties of justice and charity between individuals, in relation to each other, were highlighted. The duties of individuals in relation to the group would include the responsibilities of students in relation to family and school. The notion of duty, of responsibility, was what constituted the social meaning in Pierre Faure's vision. And this notion could be observed in different groups, in parishes, in congregations, in different classes, nations, races. The idea of ​​duty would be an essential social characteristic and would enable individuals to deal with the different ways of being, acting, dressing and thinking intrinsic to groups. The exact notion of duty would develop habit and social sense.

Thus, in the collective life of the school, training students for the social would be equivalent to saying training them for a sensitivity to the social, where “[...] another exists with me. And before I act I'll ask: won't I be bothering you? Will it be pleasant for each other what I do? If we don't do that, we'll be rude, we won't have a social sense”. (AEC, s.d., p. 35). In this sense, school life would offer a series of possibilities to train students to think collectively, directing them to the perception that the other exists, since the classroom would be the sum of many students. In this way, each student would be involved in taking responsibility for the collective spirit, participating in group life. Each and every one of the students would then constitute a community unit and an awareness of the common good. The awareness of the existence of others and their relationships with them should start at school. Thus, if the child acquired this perception at school, it would help them later in their profession and in group relationships, in order to reach the understanding that it was necessary to work not only for themselves or to earn money, but also to work with the others, thinking of the common good of all.

However, the formation of social meaning would require a personal altruism from all involved, where group interests should prevail over individual ones. It would be necessary to understand that differences were an enriching good of society and that they would need to be respected as such, as long as they did not contradict the common good. Social life would demand harmony within the existing diversity, within the means of collaboration. Unfeasible feat, for example, in totalitarian regimes. Social life would help everyone to reach the true human dimension and awaken a sense of solidarity in achieving their own ends. Otherwise, schools would be laboratories of social life. Workshops where the first teachings on the social spirit, so necessary for life in society, would be forged. “If at school you don't experience true social life, how can you expect it to be lived later, outside of school?” (AEC, s.d., p. 37). Such a feat could not be achieved in isolation, it would be necessary for teachers to think about this training for collective life with students. Furthermore, a questionnaire was made to the teachers about which attitudes of the students showed a lack of social sense and the answers varied, and those published said about isolation and denial in collective movements or interest in colleagues as characteristics of this absence of the social.

At the end of the day, the speaker Faure concluded the theme of the last day stating that instead of talking about Christian formation, it would be necessary to say about social formation, since these two terms meant the same thing even if they had different names. Furthermore, social formation could exist without a Christian meaning, but Christianity did not exist without a social meaning. With this idea, it can be said that the priest defended social formation based on Christianity and the catechism of the gospel. The basis of the formation for the social sense defended by Faure and published in the AEC document found its bases in:

Making sense of the “other” means teaching the second commandment. We consider Our Lord's answer to the Doctor of the Law who asked him: "What is the greatest commandment?" His answer was "To love God, and the second commandment is entirely similar to the first: to love your neighbor as yourself." If I forget that I have a neighbor the first commandment becomes impossible to be practiced. The more a soul loves God, the more it turns to the next. To make sense of the other means to teach the Dogma of the Communion of Saints. We are united to one another, participating in the life of God, in the same society: the Church. One cannot belong to the Church without being a child of God, and consequently without being in solidarity with the “other”. It is necessary to be aware of this and live this truth. Giving meaning to the other leads us to the Holy Trinity, as Our Lord revealed it. God is not selfish. God is trinity. There are three different, distinct people, facing each other, sharing all that exists in Their Divine Nature. People are so loved that they are no more than ONE. We, who are the image of God, will make this image shine, as we respect the differences that separate us. The inspiring Holy Spirit calls us, loves us, makes us respect the nature of others. True love translates into service to others for the benefit of others. It is impossible to be truly Christian without developing the social spirit. Where there are Christians, communities arise. The history of Communities is the history of the Church itself. (AEC, s.d., p. 40).

The Pedagogical Week of 1955 brought together several teachers who formed working groups to discuss and dialogue on different topics. In this sense, the general criteria of the event were required based on the perspectives of some of the professors present who affirmed the need they were (AEC, 1955): to obtain a conscious effort from the students; the need for the educator to have Christian education as a final objective, of elaboration, choosing methods and improving them; present them as school practices so that they could be experienced by students not only at school, but at home; address urgent issues related to the school environment in teachers' meetings, in order to recognize and work on these themes also in the pedagogical weeks, in the periodic meetings of the AEC. This achievement demonstrated the desire of these teachers to continue participating in these weeks if they continued to be organized in other years. Also as a final result of the training week experienced, the teachers (AEC, s.d.) commented on the need to introduce into their daily practices the training work for the students' social sense, seeking to know and live more and more an evangelical pedagogy.

The pedagogy of the Gospel, according to the document (AEC, s.d.) would be based on loving each child to help him or her improve as Jesus did with his apostles. And it was explained in some passages of the Gospel, in the passages that told the stories of John the Baptist, Formation of the Apostles, Temptation of Jesus in the desert and Multiplication of the loaves. Thus, comparing the educator's vocation with the passages from John the Baptist that demonstrate him preparing the way for Jesus, the teachers would give testimonies of search, personal discovery and sacrifice. Search and research as signs of humility, since “I am not the Master. He is among you”. (AEC, s.d., p. 42). Personal discovery because “That is the Christ” (AEC, nd., p. 42), so teachers should give students the certainty of discovery. It is a testimony of sacrifice because just as John the Baptist prepared the disciples and handed them over to the master, the teachers should decrease so that the students could grow, not being obstacles for them, but steps. Already the passages of Jesus in the formation of the apostles demonstrate that the Master does not make speeches at the first contact with the disciples, out of respect for their souls. In the gospel accounts about this, the idea could be taken away that Jesus does not force the apostles to learn, but expects them to manifest a desire to learn and want to become better. The evangelical account of the temptation in the desert, on the other hand, demonstrates about the human temptations that wanted things to be easier, that there were advantages or shortcuts in the construction of the educational work, also about the temptation of prestige that would sacrifice the student's interests, forgetting that the model educational is always meek and humble. As for the temptation of authority, which would seek to teach from the outside, not conveniently stimulating the students' personal work. Finally, the passage in the gospel about the multiplication of the loaves demonstrated the compassion of Jesus and the apostles for the hungry crowd. Thus, this excerpt taught about how the sense of generosity (the true bread of life) would awaken new energies and even multiply them. In short, the gospel account of the multiplication of the loaves demonstrated that there would be a deep connection between the gospel and Christian pedagogy.

The Pedagogical Week of 1955 (AEC, nd.) brought themes related to Christian pedagogy. In this direction, the discussion of the themes was proposed in five days, in order to present to Brazilian teachers the pedagogical currents and Catholic theories that could mix and form a new method of education for children of different ages, from pre-school to teaching secondary. It was possible to observe the imminent concern of lecturer Pierre Faure to demonstrate to teachers the possibility of an educational practice anchored in the gospel and Christian pedagogy. Thus, in the document published by the AEC (s.d.) Faure cited both modern pedagogy theorists such as Ferrière and Claparède as excerpts from the Gospel in an attempt to demonstrate to teachers that these two theories could go together, which would form a new Catholic pedagogy. In the construction of a renewing pedagogical practice anchored in Catholic precepts, the speaker presented both the theories, techniques and methodologies that could be achieved in the formation of the students' Christian life. Which meant training young people and children who, respected in their educational needs, would be able to work in groups, cooperating with the collective. The theme of social education demanded a larger number of pages in the document, which demonstrates the speaker's concern to train students for the collective, for life in society through religious education, more specifically Christian and Catholic. Furthermore, the professors present also received space for discussion each day, bringing questions and answers, proposing new perspectives for the analysis of the themes in question.

Pedagogical Week in São Paulo of 1956

The second Pedagogical Week took place from 22 to 29 July 1956 at Colégio Sion in São Paulo. Once again it was Pierre Faure who led as a team reserved for the formation of Brazilian Catholic teachers. It is worth mentioning that Colégio de Sion, in São Paulo, was founded by a French congregation in 1901. In the neighborhood of Higienópolis, it became a traditional school and its philosophy was to unveil the republican precepts, both in structure and in the posture of the students, valuing the discipline and moral training of the São Paulo elite. In her project for a women's confessional college, the target audience was as elite girls for the training of future mothers and wives. The education offered highlighted a perspective of care along with the preservation of Christian values, discipline and morals. (ACHNITZ, 2008). Catholic female education was the main guiding assumption for the foundation of the college, which should appear in a series from the 1950s, Pierre Faure to learn about his perspectives on Christian pedagogy.

The first day of training was on Christian Teaching. In the document published by the AEC (s.d.), Faure began his speech by asking those present if the teaching truly formed Christians. According to the priest, teachers alone did not educate, as the school and society in general also had a great influence on the education of students. Therefore, working with education would mean going beyond the idea that the central figure was the teacher to work together, as this would bring greater results. With this, the defense that students should speak more, express themselves and communicate their ideas, because to the extent that their speech needed to be built, it would better assimilate the content. Christian teaching would be one that advocated the integral nature of the child, not neglecting, therefore, the personal formation of the student. In this way, it would be necessary to start thinking about Christian pedagogy that would prescribe personal participation at the same time as common participation. This Christian pedagogy, which would respect the nature of man, would teach students the ability to reflect and judge the contents found in books, feeding their spirit and action. What was essential was not just the teaching of school content itself, but the formation of the spirit through teaching.

In this sense, the formation of the spirit should take place through internal notions that would make students capable of learning. It would mean training students internally, through interiorization and silence. “It is in silence that they will find themselves”. (AEC, s.d., p. 52). However, three difficulties could be found for this formation: the first of trying to reach the total number of students, without neglecting any. The second, the short time to develop extensive programs and the third, the dispersion of students. With this, teachers should create at school an environment of calm and concentration of the spirit, seeking to offer activities that aim at the balance between body and mind, since “It is unity and not dispersion that brings balance”. (AEC, s.d., p. 53). This interior work would come from the consecration to an ideal, to a divinity, hence the need for a Christian education that would defend the development of students' awareness and generosity. Furthermore, in response to the question whether teaching truly formed Christians, some criticisms were made about Catholic education, among them that religious teaching was often still too formalistic; that the study of religion was given less importance than other disciplines; that the study of religion did not form for life, did not provide contact with God, hence the lack of religious convictions. As a counterpoint to these statements, the following suggestions were pointed out: “[...] specialized religion teachers, mainly for higher education courses. It was also suggested to create a special religion course to adapt new students to the class level. Mainly, the need for personal contact between teachers and students was emphasized.” (AEC, s.d., p. 56). Furthermore, Christian education could take place through self-denial and self-control, a sense of effort, formation of loyalty, and the subjects of literature, history, geography, science and languages.

The subject about the choice of Teaching Methods and Techniques was brought as the axis of the discussions for the second day of the conference. In this sense, the true criteria for this choice would be: “What makes the child more adult, more aware, more responsible, more capable of action and ideal. What internalizes the child and makes him deeper. What fosters the child's true good; like God, society, the Parents and herself”. (AEC, s.d., p. 59). In this sense, the priest defended that it was the teachers' task, in the task of choosing the methods, to consider the phases of students' development, as well as the essential means to achieve it. Thus, for a child aged between 3 and 5 years, it would be up to the teachers to choose a method that takes into account learning through imitation and repetition, senses and mobility. A 5-7 year-old student, on the other hand, would be interesting to observe which methods or techniques would enable the child to situate himself in space and time, which would take him/herself into consideration, moving from external to internal activities. The developmental stage from 7 to 9 years old would be the one in which children would assert themselves physically and intellectually. It would be the age of exterior objectification, "Hence the interest in maps, weavings, collections, and ect." (AEC, s.d., p. 59). Therefore, teachers could choose methods and techniques that favored the content presented by classifications.

The age from 12 to 15 years would demonstrate a new period of interiorization, where the student would feel in relation to other students or adults, “They feel enigmas to themselves” (AEC, nd, p.59). Therefore, teachers would need to provide methods and techniques that convey security, trust and affection and, above all, the advantages of effort, motivating students towards an ideal. Finally, from 15 to 18 years old, “they would be more than teenagers” (AEC, s.d., p.60), therefore, at this stage, students are curious to know the reason for things as a whole. It would be the age of metaphysics favorable to the study of reason, philosophy and the discovery of things. Hence, the need for teachers to place the subject within a general context, encouraging students to reach both synthetic and globalization. Furthermore, at all stages of development it would be necessary for teachers to seek to make students more mature, treating them as a person and not as a number with their responsibilities and progressive freedom. The method suggestion proposed by Faure was the Socratic method for philosophy and religion classes. In short, it would also be up to teachers to have greater personal contact with students.

On the third day, the question was raised: "How to create favorable psychological conditions for teaching?" (AEC, s.d., p. 61). In the document, Faure commented on the need to abandon the illusion that by speaking the teacher would be understood. For the priest, it would be necessary to create, before that, a favorable environment that would allow him to see things. “Example: In an agitated child, nothing penetrates, because either he doesn't hear or he doesn't pay attention and he learns nothing. She needs to pay attention, attention both internally and externally” (AEC, nd., p. 61). With this, from the first day of class it would be necessary to let the students talk so that even the most shy ones feel at home and acquire respect for the school. This specific integration of the student's first day of class into the order of the school environment would prepare for the standardization activities that would follow. In addition to this, Faure also suggested that on the first day of class, teachers should not talk about the program, nor explain about the lessons, but receive the students individually, applying survey exercises in order to verify the level of development of each one. This is because the students' first contact with the teachers would be decisive to know if they would let themselves be dominated by the class or would have a controlled attitude, "never show a bad mood, be in such a calm way that the agitated calm down and encourage the shy ones". (AEC, s.d., p. 61). From this perspective, the ideal class would have the number of 30 students, and it is important for the teacher to help students develop an attitude of self-control. The teacher should train the student to control and control his own work, since the class would never end and would always continue for the student's personal and intellectual work.

The notion that the child must take on their own work, with the objective of helping the child to understand and correct their mistakes, allowing them to start again. As an example of practical activities, in the document published by the AEC, Faure suggested:

1- Look in the dictionary, in the book. Give the child the habit of controlling his work by self-criticism. 2- There are cases where the child is not able to discover the errors. Then prepare, alongside the questions and answers exercises. When it comes to language, it is not enough to give the material answer, but it is necessary to relate it. 3- Make the child be controlled by another. This is excellent, joining the personal work with the confrontation with others. The DM will reserve his time for more important things, for example, particular cases, always worrying about the progression of the difficulties presented. (AEC, s.d., p. 63).

In addition to these suggestions, the issue of affectivity appeared as one of the central points in Faurian discourses. For him, the problem of affectivity was real, since only through an affective climate would the spirit and spirit prevail. The favorable affective climate should prevail both among teachers and students and among students among themselves. Another point discussed by Faure in this session was the collaboration of parents in the education of their children. The family's relationship with the school would collaborate not only with the development of the students, but also with the true Christian conception. Furthermore, when trying to answer the initial question of the third day, Faure pointed out the importance of the means of self-control that would help the child to acquire self-criticism for himself as an attitude of appreciation of his own values and contribution to the development of a spirit of solidarity.

The theme of the fourth day was about how to create favorable conditions for Social and Christian Formation which, according to the Faurian perspective, would involve using teaching materials that would encourage students to reason and reflect, “The material is a means, whose end it is to give work to the spirit”. (AEC, s.d., p.66). In this sense, creating an environment with the provision of teaching materials was important, even for younger children, as the materials, by putting the spirit into action (body, memory and imagination) would guide the child to develop skills to judge and reflect. The materials would bring with them, “For example: comparisons with what they had already seen. Notion of major and minor, grammatical categories, value, meaning, etc.” (AEC, s.d., p. 66). However, it would not be enough to have the materials for children to act. It would also be necessary to foresee goals to be achieved with each material. Such objectives should be explained to children who, after understanding their reason, would do it themselves, handling the material, “acting on their own initiative, without whimsy”. (AEC, s.d., p. 67). Furthermore, the Montessori method was mentioned in Faure's lecture as an excellent indicator for a teaching that went from the simple to the complex, where the child - who had initiative as a natural prerogative of personality - would gradually understand the meaning of things, reaching the most complex topics.

In addition to learning through the sensitive, through the use and manipulation of objects, another condition for Social and Christian Formation was the organization of the classroom environment. The arrangement of desks and/or chairs in a circle was identified as beneficial, as this would facilitate the collective work, putting everyone on the same level for activities that involved guided debates, mutual assistance and self-criticism. It is deeply formative and capable of forming conscious beings. By using the physical space in this way, students would move freely, but exercising their duties of tidying up and cleaning the room. Furthermore, the arrangement in a circle would enable students to see themselves in relation to each other, guided by constructive criticism and by the spirit of healthy solidarity in the construction of their own values. “It is the arrangement of the room a way to rest the spirit and the body”. (AEC, s.d., p. 69). Added to this, it was necessary to give different tasks to the children, varying the functions and different activities such as: games, walks, visits, help for those who needed help, guilds, etc., so that they could gradually learn to assume social responsibilities. The idea was that:

The great team is the whole class where each one provides service. This understood, it will not be necessary to insist that students live the doctrine of the mystical body. It is everyday life that shapes and not the mere docility of a better mood day. It only serves to the extent it is capable of serving. It is the entirely Christian notion: “Do not act only for yourself, but for others”. (AEC, s.d., p. 70).

As highlighted in the course of 1955 in Rio de Janeiro, the social formation defended by Piere Faure had a close relationship with Christianity, since the true Christian would be the one who would have developed the social spirit and that “The history of Communities is history of the Church itself”. (AEC, s.d., p. 40). The social formation proposed by Faure was based on the dogma of the Trinity - in which God was Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is, three persons - and on the passage of Jesus Christ with the doctors of the law who questioned him about the greatest divine command: "To love God, and the second commandment is entirely similar to the first: to love your neighbor as yourself." (AEC, s.d., p. 40). Social formation would be coupled with Christian formation offered in schools, with Christianity forming the social meaning. As final conclusions of this day, the priest listed that the favorable conditions for a Social and Christian Formation permeated the offer of a school work whose motivation was not selfish, the capacity to organize mutual help within the class, where the more advanced students would help the students. needier, for giving a sense of community to religious acts and prayers and for encouraging students to take charge of responsible activities, such as cleaning the classroom floor, providing help, among others.

On the fifth day of the seminar, Faure worked on the subject of Learning from Effort and the Meaning of the Cross. In this sense, the first law would be the organization of effort as a means of leading students to true success, "For the correct Christian pedagogy, what we want above all is the formation of conscience, and that the formation of conscience is done, through all school activities.” (AEC, s.d., p. 72). This would mean that the teachings of common life should be incorporated into the teaching disciplines with the aim of awakening and forming consciousness, obtaining conscious effort from the child. This attitude, of the child putting himself in action through an inner activity, through his own conscious effort, would be essential for a work of individual improvement and constitutive of the common, which was called in the document published by the AEC the pedagogy of effort. The effort would be essential for the realization of an inner work that would lead the child to moral progress and an increase in psychological capacity. In this way, the effort directed towards a valued objective that could not be of one's own and should surpass the student's personal interest, such as charity, concentration, will, etc., which would make him a being. Of success. Effort and success would go together, being encouraged by the teachers to depend on: the number of hours of the day - morning being more favorable than afternoon, meals that could slow the spirit and the body heavy, as well as the times of the year when the effort is always more difficult. In summary, in the first law on the Learning of Effort and the Meaning of the Cross, the effort should be organized based on the level of development and the rhythm of life of the students.

The second law would be that of maturity, which would be the balance between periods of acceleration and stability. In this way, just as there were periods of acceleration and stability in the stages of physical growth, so would mental development. For this reason, progress would not take place in a regular and horizontal way, but in stages. In other words: “Successes only appear after a certain time of experiences, advances and setbacks, of multiple efforts of struggle that seems disproportionate, considering the effort made at a given moment”. (AEC, s.d., p. 74). Therefore, teachers could not demand immediate results from students and should respect their sensitive, physiological and maturity periods. Teachers would need to put students in the best conditions so that they could produce their best effort, understanding them, loving them, and giving them guidance at organized times. Respecting with this, the laws of maturity. However, for this law to be produced in daily school life, teachers would need to be aware of the occasions when they could give students the opportunity to acquire new notions through their own personal management. This would be like giving students short exercises to work on, making use of the lesson, solving problems and issues without referring solely to class explanations. Time would be the indispensable factor for maturation. This maturation of intellectual notions would only end when the notion became a familiar thing, studied under all aspects and content learned from the notions that the student already knew. The teacher would be the one who would stimulate the student to carry out this work, giving the necessary time for the students to assimilate, that is, the maturation of the new contents learned.

On the sixth day, the topic of the Role of Emulation was discussed by Faure with the intention of raising positive and negative points. The beginning of the lecture was intended to collect data on the understanding of this concept which, in the Faurian view, meant a means of making progress, “Not necessarily every means that leads us to surpass others, but every means that leads us to surpass ourselves” (AEC, nd, p. 80). As an example, he mentioned the sport that was a means of competition that was not about getting ahead of the other, but about improving one's own individual result. In this sense, personal emulation, that is, competition in relation to oneself would be “the march towards the ideal”. (AEC, s.d., p.80). Defended by Faure as a natural condition of personality, the emulation practiced in the classroom could not fail to take into account the individual and social nature of human beings as well:

We are not able to become SOMEONE except with the help of others. We are born into a family, into a society. Society obliges the association with other families to form a wider society. We are made in the image of God who is the TRINITY. There is no personality without a social nature, without conviviality. This is true even in God: what constitutes each of the three divine persons are the relationships that the three divine persons have among themselves. (AEC, s.d., p. 80, emphasis in original).

The document published by the AEC clearly demonstrates Faure's intention to relate competition to the divine image. For the proponent, the desire for progress was a desire inherent in the human condition and, therefore, could not be taken away. However, this improvement and improvement can only be achieved insofar as people relate to each other. Only in the exchange relationship between equals would it fulfill this function. Emulation, that is, a competition, would have a social character that allowed people to exchange knowledge, knowledge, help, charity and so on.

On the other hand, there could be a collective emulation that reinforced the vanity of those who were already in front, that is, those who were the object of competition. This would be contrary to the emulation proposed by Faure in the document, as it did not provide each member of the collective with the possibility of progressing more and more, of moving towards a goal or goal with the awareness that everyone can get there. This would be what Faure called in the document published by the AEC “team spirit” (AEC, s.d., p. 81), where everyone wants to reach the goal, helping each other. This atmosphere of enthusiasm would benefit everyone, so encouragement and example with each other could be enough to create the spirit of teamwork. In this way, when teachers change their concern with the students' grades, which would not necessarily indicate satisfaction with the result, they should be concerned with developing an attitude, a spirit of emulation that would lead students to want to improve and progress. In short, an emulation should be aimed at charity, being something that contributes to the common good of the group.

The theme of the seventh day, How Can Teaching Form for True Devotion, began in the form of a question to those present. To answer the question, it was once again Pierre Faure who led the session, dialoguing with the teachers about religious education, which, in his view, “[...] is the synthesis of human life”. However, for religious teaching to be transmitted in such a way as to achieve good results, teachers would need to know how to establish good relations between Old and New Testaments, between Church history and sacred history, in addition to living the sacraments of the Church, making prayers and give examples. In addition, teachers would need to gain the attention and collaboration of students so that they could assimilate this moral formation, with all information offered as a means of contact between the soul and God. Faure considered this formation in schools important because he believed that in families, in general, the orientation to the faith took place automatically and without in-depth formation. Besides, in other families, faith was often exploited in a hateful way. As an advice to teachers, Faure suggested that they avoid grotesque images and representations in religious teaching, as the idea was not to preserve erroneous ideas about a bearded old man or a dove, but rather to bring children closer to God in a simple way. In other words, “It is necessary that, from childhood, students become aware of a Creator of all things, but that is love”. (AEC, s.d., p. 88). With this, the notions of religion that were related to the child's nature (body, mind and spirit) would be more easily accepted, so that the understanding of liturgical acts and gestures would be based on internal feelings, in a manifestation of respect for the creature to its Creator.

Thus, prayer should begin with the body, with the gesture, and continue with the word, and contact with God, with whom one speaks through an elevation of the soul, should prevail. At the time of the child's first individual encounters with God, it would be up to the parents to teach the first prayers at home and the school to help foster this sense of God. Regarding the best time for the religion lesson, the morning shift was appointed as a suggestion, as it would be necessary to establish calm and introspection beforehand and when possible “[...] a place for prayer and at least in the classroom, on the one hand, a song is destined for prayer”. (AEC, s.d., p. 89). In addition to these observations, it would be necessary for teachers to also teach devotion to mass as a central point of religion, as the idea was to rely on the personal work of students in this matter, in order to awaken their taste and personal interest in this subject. Ideally, students would attend Mass not just as a mere assistant, but as a Christian turned to Christ, to the Church and to others.

Continuing this question, the theme of the last day of the São Paulo Pedagogical Week discussed which methods would correspond to religious teaching and secular teaching. With the initial premise that “Profane teaching instructed and becomes useful. Religious teaching is an appeal, it demands collaboration in the present and in the future”. (AEC, s.d., p. 91), the method for teaching religion should be based on the great work of the Church, of enlightening and strengthening human reason. In this direction, freedom would be a great asset of the human personality that would make human beings “the image of God” (AEC, s.d., p. 91) who would develop in society for the divine purpose of the Trinity. The method for teaching religion could be the deductive one, having as its starting point the idea that students should be left to their reason to draw, by induction, their logical conclusions. Through the inductive method, the student could obtain a balanced formation by building their own knowledge. Through small problems, students would be guided until they could reach the order that their own spirit achieved in their studies. The advantage of this method pointed out by Faure in this conference was that teachers would not give students the false idea that they had the truth, nor would they limit the child's inner work in search of the truth. the achievement of progress” (AEC, nd, p. 92). Furthermore, with the teaching of religion, students could find answers to problems that would go beyond natural knowledge, in the security offered by the Church.

As for the so-called profane subjects, such as history and geography, the essential thing would be for students to place the dates according to the events, without leaving aside the idea that these were subjects in constant movement and living dynamics. In relation to grammar, the method would be that of logical analysis, which was nothing more than the relationship between language and words, words and functions; the child should take ownership of the matter little by little, taking time to assimilate the functions and working with the system of records. In Literature, it would be necessary to encourage students to get in touch with the texts, asking them to compare them with each other, "The essential thing is to have the text, knowing how to choose what is beautiful in it, highlighting thoughts, ideas". (AEC, s.d., p. 93). For literature, the goal was for students to come to compare literary genres. In mathematics, the collaboration of students would be necessary, more than in other subjects, since it would not be enough for students to know formulas or means of solution, but for them to have assimilated them to be able to apply them in their resolutions. For the teachers, it would not be important what program to follow, but rather the development of the subject in an adequate way at the level of the class. In addition, teachers would need to transmit the content in a simple way, returning to basic content, if necessary, so that students could learn, showing them what would be interesting to learn and having time for them to assimilate.

Regarding the teaching methods for profane subjects, it would be necessary to avoid making the mistake of asking students to repeat what the teachers said, as the child should be given the opportunity to express their own understanding in their own way. Thus, it would be up to the teachers to help, stimulating the student's work of judgment, in order to obtain real collaboration from him. With the work well oriented, the student would be able to learn what is essential for their development, with the condition that the teachers try to meet their needs for education, concentration, unification, and correction of mistakes. In addition, they should avoid apparent discipline, such as signs, lines, etc., and seek discipline in day-to-day work with an orderly objective, delegating their responsibilities to children from an early age. This duty of status would be what would help the child to enjoy working, taking initiatives and not wasting time. The vehement sense of responsibility, when guided from an early age to children, made possible a motivated formation, gradually accustoming the students to reach the superior objectives of Christian humanism. With this, deeper and more realistic bases would open for students to find themselves in the study of sacred and profane matters.

The conference in São Paulo of 1956 explored themes related to school work that would lead children to consciously make personal effort. Such feat would have the intention of preparing the teachers to teach a formation that would be scholastic and, at the same time, religious. In addition, the need to know the child better, use inductive methods ranging from simple to complex, sacred and profane formation, Christian and social formation was indicated. Also in the didactic-pedagogical actions of teachers, there should be an effort to encourage in students a need for emulation, that is, for collective competition as something healthy for individual development. This emulation would be a work aimed at the collective reaching a certain goal or objective, with the perspective of the need for team effort, where everyone could advance in the schooling process and count on help if needed to achieve it. The emulation would not be aimed at a vanity, characteristic or a specific behavior for everyone to follow. That's why education should be guided by the community, social assumption, where each student would personally constitute an important part of the collective. That's why this formation would also be religious and spiritual, to help students acquire an answer, a certainty of responsibility to work for the collective. Thus, religion would be intrinsically related to awareness, Christian values and Christian pedagogy. Furthermore, the formation defended by Faure, in this document that represented the conference of the Pedagogical Week of São Paulo in the year of 1956, was that of Christian pedagogy justified by the purpose that this formation would be able to lead students to the moral and religious precepts of Catholic Church for the formation of a society focused on the family, on God and on the community.

Final considerations

The two Pedagogical Weeks taught in Brazil by Pierre Faure for the training of Brazilian teachers had some points in common. Firstly, the fact that both the 1955 week in Rio de Janeiro and the 1956 week in São Paulo were published by the AEC and compiled in the same document. Second, that both had the same organization structure for the event, starting daily with the mass and, after that, continuing with the lectures and dialogue with the professors present about the topics studied. At the end, after a moment of exchanges, some of the professors' statements were gathered for the concluding notes and closing at 5 pm. In addition, according to ^{Makowiecki (2020}), the pedagogical sessions held in Brazil had as a methodological strategy to concentrate the lectures of Father Pierre Faure in the morning and carry out group activities according to the specificities of the participants and the age of the students to whom the teachers taught the classes. And in the afternoon, a time was set for groups of teachers to form and draw up conclusions from the discussions that emerged. After that, the works resumed with the application of the themes studied from the first moment, ending the event with a lesson on the pedagogy of the gospel. A box of questions was also provided where participants could ask questions anonymously in order to resolve doubts that occurred in the practical context of everyday school life and meetings in general. For this reason, the names of the professors were kept confidential and did not appear in the document.

The Pedagogical Weeks brought together Catholic teachers and educators from different religious congregations in order to unify relationships and strengthen ties for the reflection of themes related to Catholic pedagogy, as well as for the adhesion of new school practices in elite Catholic schools. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning the fact that Faure returned to Brazil in 1959 to teach a new teacher training course, this time for secondary school teachers. This training was carried out at Colégio Sion in São Paulo as this was the place where the first course was held in 1956, bringing together teachers from several schools besides Sion, such as Des Oisseux and Santa Cruz.