Introduction

"A dream that did not come true”. With this phrase, Magda Soares, professor emeritus of the Faculty of Education of Universidade Federal Minas Gerais (Education department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais), who was part of the Working Group responsible for the original project of education reform during the civil-military dictatorship, summarized the intention of the specialists responsible for preparing the bill No. 5,692/71. According to her, the high school reform intended by these specialists aimed to ensure that a base of general studies would prepare young people who wanted it for higher education, whilst a high school qualification would enable them to take up employment, which would benefit, above all, the poorest" (qtd. in ^{BELTRÃO, 2017}). Among the inference of the idealized reform, the defense of a single proposal for high school education for the whole country, capable of integrating the adolescent's intellectual development with their professional or university education, stands out. Unlike the approved law, which made the professionalization of high school education mandatory, the bill provided space for general and academic training of students as an alternative to professional training. In this article, we present the experience of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG (Integrated school from the pedagogical center of the UFMG), held in 1971, which approached that “unfulfilled dream”. However, the project was interrupted by the approval of the federal law nº 5.692/71.

What were the conceptions of teaching and education that grounded the realization of this experience? How was the pedagogical and curricular organization of this course? Were there any similarities between these conceptions and those that guided the work of the group of specialists responsible for the 1971 Reform? What was the involvement of educators who acted in executive and advisory functions for this policy? How did this innovative experience go against the educational policy instituted by the 1971 law, resulting in its interruption?

In theoretical-methodological terms, this research is inserted in a specific field in the history of education, which is the history of educational institutions. On the one hand, we seek to understand the internal dynamics of a school institution which identity is configured within the university context. On the other hand, we seek to understand it in its multidimensionality, overcoming a merely descriptive history, but offering an interpretation that locates it in the historical movement of a general development of the country (^{GATTI JÚNIOR, 2002}; ^{BUFFA, 2002}; ^{MAGALHÃES, 2004}). Thus, in order to answer those questions, we used relevant documents and legislation prevailing at the time, as well as sources that were part of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico, such as meeting minutes, manuals on school organization directed at students and their families, official letters, as well as press sources, interviews and autobiographical reports. The latter contributed to the understanding of the professional trajectory of agents responsible for both the planning and organization of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG, and also the drafting of the bill that resulted in the Reform of Elementary and High School Education at that time.

The title of this research communicates with two books with a similar theme. The first, “Uma experiência interrompida” (An interrupted experience), by Henriette ^{Amado et al, published in 1972}, about Colégio Estadual André Maurois (CEAM), in Rio de Janeiro. The second, “Uma experiência de educação interrompida” (An experience of interrupted education), by Terezinha Rosa ^{Cruz, published in 2001}, about Centro Integrado de Ensino Médio da Universidade de Brasília (CIEM-UnB). Both experiences intended to develop innovative educational proposals in the 1960s, in the context of the civil-military dictatorship, and were suddenly interrupted in 1971. The history of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG that we discuss here links to those experiences in their similarities and differences.

Elementary education in the university context

The history of what would become the Centro Pedagógico da UFMG (UFMG's Pedagogical Center) began in 1954, when the Application Gym was opened. Its creation complied with a decree signed by then-president Eurico Gaspar Dutra that established the mandatory creation of a gymnasium of application in the philosophy federal Faculties destined to the teaching practice of students enrolled in the didactic course of those faculties.¹ At that time, however, the Faculdade de Filosofia de Minas Gerais was still a private institution, linked to the teachers of the traditional Colégio Marconi, in Belo Horizonte, and was not subject to that decree. Only in 1948 was it incorporated into the Universidade de Minas Gerais (UMG), starting to operate in the building of the traditional Instituto de Educação (Educational Institute) during its stateization, having it been federalized the following year, in 1949.

Therefore, following the determinations of that decree, the faculties of philosophy created or incorporated into the federal universities after its expedition, should be responsible for putting into operation the application gyms from the moment they had students enrolled in the Didactics course. In Minas Gerais, these conditions were reached in 1954, when the UFMG Application Gym was inaugurated on the premises of the former Colégio Afonso Arinos, located next to the Philosophy Faculty, in Belo Horizonte. After four years, in 1958, when the 47 students in the first gymnasium class finished the 4th grade - equivalent to elementary school - the Application Gym was transformed into Application School and started to offer the Classic and Scientific courses, equivalent to high school.

In 1968, in the wake of the university reform and the restructuring plan at UFMG, the Application School of the Philosophy Faculty was transformed into a Pedagogical Center. Originally, according to the statement of the dean at the time, Gerson de Brito Mello Boson, the Pedagogical Center was “idealized to be a center for the training and preparation of teachers of all levels, including higher education” (^{BOSON, 1998}, p. 91). The proposal was presented to the University of Houston on a trip by the dean to the United States, invited by the government of that country. The idea was to form an association of universities in the American continent, coordinated by the US University, which would be in charge of maintaining an Inter-American Postgraduate Center at UFMG. Each associated university would have a specific number of openings for the training of their professors at this center. According to the former dean, "professors would be recruited from all over the world, because there would undoubtedly be sufficient resources and the projection of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais would be extraordinary" (BOSON, 1998, p. 91). However, his trip to the United States for the negotiations of this agreement was interrupted by the news that the Military Board that held the Presidency of the Republic in October 1969 had revoked his term in the rectory of UFMG.

By the 1971 UFMG statute, the Pedagogical Center officially assumed the attribution of bringing together all pre-elementary, elementary and high school education activities at the university. Thus, this center would be administratively linked to the rectory and would be integrated into the newly created Faculty of Education for the purposes of research and teacher training at all levels. In fact, the changes undertaken and the effort to implement them were supported by the idea of progress associated with the university's own modernizing project. On the one hand, the motto of this modernizing perspective of the institution, according to ^{Oliveira and Faria Filho (2019}), was precisely in the valorization of research and in the establishment of an integration policy between the university and the community. On the other hand, the implementation of this modernizing project also involved the integration of faculties scattered across a university campus. Therefore, the restructuring of basic education inside the university within the scope of the Pedagogical Center, was part of this modernizing project. The work to the construction of its building in the campus started in 1969.

But the proposal to create a center to bring together all activities of basic education at the university was not carried out without obstacles. Since 1966, Colégio Universitário (Coluni) had operated at UFMG alongside with the activities of the Application School. University schools were created when the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional - LDB (Guidelines and bases of national education law) from 1961 made it optional for universities to establish schools designed to lecture the 3rd year of the so-called collegiate cycle to prepare high school students for the entrance exam. At UFMG, Colégio Universitário was implemented in 1965 with the Dean Aluísio Pimenta's enthusiasm for the proposal. Soon a commission was formed with professor Magda Soares², from the Faculty of Education, and with Professor Hélcio Werneck³, from the Faculty of Medicine, to develop the pedagogical and didactic conception of the new school. A custom-made building was built on the campus to meet this proposal, where in 1972 the Faculties of Education and Library Science were transferred, putting an end to that enterprise.

Also in 1966, the students from the application school signed a petition requesting exemption from taking the entrance exam to Colégio Universitário, as they were part of the same teaching modality, at the same institution. However, the claim was not met by the school's direction on the grounds that the admission test would allow a "panoramic view of the sample needed to adapt the programs and teaching methods, aiming at the success of the numerous courses” and that the tests for admission to the Application College would not aim to assess the same aspects.⁴ In addition, the letter addressed to the dean also mentioned the risk of making an exception in front of other educational institutions that could supposedly make the same request. The refusal made explicit the distinction between the initiatives that aimed at assisting basic education students within the university, even going so far as to equate the demands of the Application School with those from other schools without a link to UFMG.

These differences became even more evident after the studies for the 1968 reform and the reorganization of university courses, including those in basic education. In 1969, when a decision by the rectory kept Colégio Universitário running with the same structure as the previous year due to the lack of definition as to the format of its incorporation into the Pedagogical Center, the director of the center at the time, professor Hélio Pontes, asked the Coluni collegiate that Students from the Application School were admitted without an entrance exam. The collegiate, however, unanimously rejected the request.⁵ It is important to highlight that there was, among the team of teachers at Colégio Universitário, an interest in keeping the selection of the best students in the city, which meant attracting the best students from the most traditional schools in Belo Horizonte (^{COELHO, 1998}).

Between 1968 and 1970, the subject “Pedagogical Center” was a recurrent agenda at the collegiate meetings at Colégio Universitário. From the reexamination of the internal regulations to the number of classrooms and teachers, passing through the promotion of teachers to the position of assistants, everything at Colégio Universitário depended on the structuring plan of the Pedagogical Center. For this reason in September 1968, the collegiate registered the “impossibility of Coluni to remain silent regarding the implementation of the Pedagogical Center”, deciding to request a member of the Pedagogical Center Planning Commission to go to the school and present its structuring plan.⁶ However, only in August 1969, the general director of Coluni, Professor Edmar Chartone de Souza, communicated to the Collegiate that, since July of that same year, Coluni should already be called Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico.⁷ Before all the expectation that from 1970 on, Colégio Integrado could have a 1^st year class, in addition to the 3rd year class, and the need to establish new curriculum and programs for each subject, Professor Magda Soares offered to guide the teachers.⁸

Before leaving the drawing board, the idea of Colégio Integrado had already generated great expectations and became the subject of a long report by the Rio newspaper Correio da Manhã, in 1969, in which was described the functioning of the extinct Colégio Universitário. Under the title "Nova experiência pioneira: o Colégio Integrado em Minas" (New pioneering experience: the Integrated College in Minas), the article highlighted that this school model represented "an achievement, in the sense of building bridges between high school and higher education".⁹ In the caption of the photo that illustrates the article, there is a mention to the fact that the course project would have been presented to the Organization of American States (OAS), a subject that is not included in the text and about which we could not find better information.¹⁰

Seeking to reconcile the interests of those who defended the maintenance of the autonomy of Colégio Universitário, initially its replacement by Colégio Integrado incorporated into the Pedagogical Center did not predict any changes in the basic structure of its operation, which would continue with the same departments and sectors. The prestige of the professors who worked at Colégio Universitário contributed to this preservation, as well as the good results it achieved. In fact, few changes were foreseen, among which were the replacement of the teaching board by a teaching advisory and the transformation of the general board into a course coordination.¹¹ After that, it was considered that Colégio Integrado would be in charge of the adaptation course of the Instituto de ciências exatas -ICEX - (Institute of Exact Sciences) and the Instituto de Ciências Biológicas - ICB - (Institute of Biological Sciences) and that the teaching advice would be abolished,¹² which was not carried out.

Finally, in September 1970, the bill from the Pedagogical Center of UFMG was approved by the Coordination of Teaching and Research of UFMG and, in 1971, it was already included in the Regulation of the University. Through this document, it was officially established that Colégio Universitário would become, from 1971 on, Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico and the administrative and pedagogical link of the Center was formally assigned to the Faculty of Education.¹³ For Professor Maria Lisboa de Oliveira, “it was a hidden situation and only later we discovered that Colégio Universitário had ended” (qtd. in ^{PAUL, 1988}, p. 7).

Through the Special Planning Commission of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG, coordinated by the then general director of Colégio Universitário, professor Edmar Chartone de Souza,¹⁴ and by the teaching director of the Pedagogical Center, professor Magda Soares, it was intended to develop an entirely new experience in education. Before joining the teaching staff of UFMG, Professor Chartone taught at Centro Integrado de Ensino Médio da Universidade de Brasília - CIEM-UnB - (Integrated High School Center of the University of Brasília), having even given the inaugural lecture at that center in 1964 (^{CRUZ, 2001}). He only stayed there until the following year, during the so-called “1965 crisis” at UnB, when the campus was occupied by police forces and 15 professors were arbitrarily arrested, including professor Hélio Pontes¹⁵, who would become head of the Pedagogical Center in 1969. In protest against the serious events, Chartone and another 222 professors at the university voluntarily resigned leaving UnB with only 82 professors and an unprecedented crisis (RELATÓRIO, 2016). Although he stayed just over a year, he brought an innovative educational experience.

Professor Magda Soares also attended CIEM when in January 1968, she was appointed by the Dean of UnB, Caio Benjamin Dias¹⁶ also from Minas Gerais, as a representative of the rectory to "proceed to an examination of the situation of Centro Integrado de Ensino Médio - CIEM. To this end, being able to request the employees of the University that she deems necessary to assist her in this work” for whom was authorized the payment of "pro labore" equivalent to the salary level of a full professor.¹⁷ Unfortunately, we have not found any reports regarding the objectives and results of this exam. However, we know that, at the end of 1967, CIEM-UnB experienced a serious internal crisis triggered by the exit of its principal, José Aloísio Aragão, who had been the founder and main responsible for the actions proposed by the school, and for the student protests against the expelling of a female student, which resulted in the expelling of 23 more students. The assignment of Professor Magda Soares to analyze the situation of CIEM-UnB in January 1968 was directly related to the problems faced by the Dean at the time after this crisis. In the interview she gave for this research, she reports that

what was known was that CIEM was a group of absolutely insubordinate and questioning young people. And a professor of medicine of ours, Dr. Caio Benjamin Dias, was invited to go to Brasília to be dean of Universidade de Brasília. One of the problems he had was the CIEM, which was a nucleus of resistance to militarism, of very insubordinate students, etc. Then he called me. Unfortunately I couldn't refuse because he was a very dear friend, very close, a doctor who had been my doctor since childhood. So he called me and two or three more from education, he made a commission for us to go there to see what solution we could find for the CIEM. It was difficult because it was an almost impenetrable school. We went to say what it was, to do an analysis of the CIEM. We made a report to the rectory and the solution was let us close this, end it because there is no solution and it makes no sense for the university to keep this high school center.¹⁸

CIEM-UnB was a full-time high school, which pedagogical project was conceived by Darcy Ribeiro. His creation met a conception that attributed to the university the role of giving full attention to education, that is, "making the problem of elementary and high school education a problem for the university, as are so many other fields of science practice”, as stated by Darcy Ribeiro (qtd. in ^{CRUZ, 2001}, p. 51). Created even before the Faculty of Education at UnB, its purposes were to create and disseminate a new educational model for high school and the pedagogical experiences carried out, in addition to working as an experimentation and demonstration center. Its curriculum included three academic semesters with the basic subjects recommended by the Conselho Federal de Educação (Federal Council of Education) and another three semesters with optional subjects. CIEM stood out for promoting an education based on “freedom with responsibility”, in which students were encouraged to develop themselves intellectually with freedom to think, speak and take stands. (CRUZ, 2001). The institution worked between 1964 and 1970, and it was closed during the January 1971 vacation for political reasons.

Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG had the work of a pedagogical-administrative unit, the relationship with the Faculty of Education, aiming to be a center for school experimentation, full-time teaching on a semester basis, the focus on interdisciplinarity, the credit system with enrollment by subject, the diversified curriculum with the offer of mandatory and optional subjects in common with the CIEM-UnB. Analyzing the organization of CIEM-UnB, ^{Cruz (2001}, p. 72) stressed that "it was a copy of the UnB system, but totally within the LDB". Which could also be observed in the Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico, which curriculum would have been proposed "apart from the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases (Law of Guidelines and Bases)"¹⁹ only regarding to the attribution that the 1961 law gave the states to organize primary and secondary education. In 1971, in addition to Colégio Integrado, the Pedagogical Center kept the Gymnasium Course of the former Application School, the Normal Course, which intended to become one of the professional qualifications of Colégio Integrado, the Adaptation Course that was offered to surplus students approved in the entrance exams and the Colégio Técnico.

Colégio Integrado established its own structure and curriculum that intended to represent one of the boldest teaching possibilities and, at the same time, to adapt to the new demands of the education reform that was under discussion at the federal level and that would be made official in the following year. This proposal took shape simultaneously with the discussions of the second Working Group (WG) instituted by the civil-military government to prepare the bill for the elementary and high school Reform, which also included the participation of professor Magda Soares.²⁰Colégio Integrado offered by the Pedagogical Center during 1971 became a laboratory for what could be adopted in Brazilian high schools. In fact, in a meeting held in November 1970, professor Magda Soares emphasized the objectives of Colégio Integrado to the teachers of the former Coluni. According to her, the experience should figure as a research in the education area and, therefore, she highlighted the importance of systematizing the work and the need for periodic dissemination of the obtained results.²¹

However, this experience was interrupted by the mandatory professionalization proposal provided by the 1971 Education Reform Law and by those internal to the university at the time of reorganization of its physical and administrative structure. By determination of the Law No. 5,692, all high schools should only offer professional courses to train the technical workforce necessary for the country's economic activities. For ^{Cunha (2014}, p. 914), "this law represented a rupture against the trends that were established both in educational policy and in the prevailing conceptions among educators and educational administrators", because no expressive educational stream inside or outside Ministério da Educação e Cultura (MEC) (Ministry of Education and Culture) defended the concept of mandatory professionalization in high school education. According to the same author, "for the concept of universal and compulsory professionalization to prevail, it was necessary for MEC to address authoritarian procedures” (^{CUNHA, 2014}, p. 918). On the other hand, we cannot deny that the main educational changes of the civil-military dictatorship found legitimacy in a state bureaucracy formed by educators who shared a “technocratic pragmatism” (^{GARCIA, 1980}), as we shall see.

The elementary and high school education reform: educational concepts in dispute

According to ^{Cury et al (1982}), the ideas that were debated from the mid-1960s and that led to the 1971 education reform law proposal revealed a change in perspective regarding the relationship between school and work in Brazil, although the outlines of these relationships were not well defined. Thus, according to the same authors, "they were operationalized as a relationship between school and the labor market or as a relationship between school and employment” (^{CURY et al, 1982}, p. 27). These ideas took shape in a context of rapid growth in the Brazilian economy driven by industry and urbanization. The so-called “economic miracle” imposed the challenge of inserting the country into a new organization of the labor market. The lack of high school level technicians in some areas, coupled with the supposed valorization of formal education by companies, was responsible for the close relations that developed between the school and the industry. The educational system had the greatest responsibility for the preparation of human resources that it was believed would be necessary for the modernization of the country's economic sector. (CURY et ali, 1982).

At that time, the American presence was remarkable in shaping the understanding of these relations between education and work in the country. According to ^{Romanelli (1986}), in addition to financial assistance and technical advice with educational authorities and institutions, the work of Agência para o Desenvolvimento Internacional - AID - (Agency for International Development) in Brazil included “a type of action that involved instruction and training of Brazilian intermediary bodies and persons, obviously with a view to intervening in the formulation of strategies that AID itself intended to be adopted by educational leaders, agencies and institutions” (^{ROMANELLI, 1986}, p. 210). On March 31, 1965, exactly one year after the military took power; the first agreement on high school education was signed between the Brazilian government and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The agreement was based on the understanding that the responsibility for elementary and high school education given to the states by Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional of 1961 resulted in practical difficulties due to a supposed lack of experience regarding the formulation of state educational plans. This premise led to the conclusion that state education authorities needed specific training to prepare and execute state educational plans, which legitimized the signed agreement so that American consultants could normatively advise and guide this process.²²

For the congressional representative for the state of Guanabara between 1967 and 1968, Márcio Moreira Alves, known as “provocador do AI-5” (AI-5 motivator) by delivering a speech calling for a boycott of Brazil's Independence Day celebrations, the purpose of this agreement was to “edify teachers” and “create a core of high school mandarins who, trained in the United States, can put into practice in all Brazilian states and immediately in some of the most important ones, the North American planning guidelines for high school education in Brazil” (^{ALVES, 1968}, p. 64). In fact, the legitimization of a “modernizing transformation” that was being imposed on Brazilian nationality involved the internalization of a pedagogical philosophy developed in the United States. According to ^{Arapiraca (1979}, p. 151), “there was a whole mobilization of the Brazilian pedagogical inteligentzia pictures towards the absorption of educational practices observed in the USA, mainly with reference to the effectiveness and efficiency of the alternative school system for minorities developed there”. According to the same author, "the uncritical posture of colonized educators" would have contributed to the reproduction of North American educational values ​​in the Brazilian school system based on a new pedagogical rationality.

In her autobiographical book, her memorial result for the competition for full professor at UFMG in 1981, Professor Magda Soares analyzed her engagement in this educational model that was common to many other teachers of her generation. It was with perplexity and at the same time with awareness of the presence and strength of the ideological content that swept her away, that she remembered “the other one” that she used to be and that found herself adept to “a deterministic teaching technology, based on prediction and control” and fighting “for greater 'efficiency' and 'productivity' of the teaching and educational system” (^{SOARES, 1991}, p. 80). In 1966, as the teaching principal of UFMG Colégio Universitário, the professor had already taken a trip to the United States, financed by the Ford Foundation, to “complete a broad program of analysis of linguistic methods applied to foreign language teaching, studies on programmed instruction and preparing methods of textbooks".²³ For five weeks, the Professor visited, together with Assistant Professor Maria Lisboa de Oliveira, the Chicago Scientific Research Association, Stanford University and the Institute of Linguistics of the University of Michigan. From the trip, she brought in her baggage books and ideas that marked her professional path.

Although North American foundations, such as Ford, were not instruments of the government of their country, as they acted with their own resources which guaranteed their autonomy, their actions in strategic countries favored the achievement of the government's goals in the United States. According to ^{Motta (2014}, p. 142) "It pleased the US government that private foundations were disseminating alternative theoretical concepts and perspectives to Marxism and taking more Brazilian intellectuals to the United States to learn about their society and values". In fact, in her interview for this research, professor Magda Soares stated that her trip to the North American country in 1966 was not her initiative, but from a “group that came to visit the university and several institutes when she was at Colégio Universitário that invited her to see things over there" and she acknowledged that "it was that thing from the United States that want to attract us as much as possible". ²⁴

In the early 1970s, while the country was experiencing an “euphoria” resulting from the economic growth, it was also experiencing a phase of violent state repression against left-wing intellectuals, also student, peasant, and worker leaderships who engaged in resistance and in the armed opposition and they were no longer fighting for basic reforms, such as the educational one, but for a structural transformation of the country. Thus, according to ^{Germano (1993}), there would have been no space for the action of pressure groups for another education reform model, as they were disjointed, incorporated into other forms of struggle or even destroyed by the "State of terror". Unlike the 1968 university reform, which was marked by numerous student demonstrations calling for an increase in funding and openings at public universities, the 1971 elementary and high school education Reform took place in a context of resurgence of the police and military repressive apparatus.

In addition, the climate among educators was one of great expectations and the reform was enthusiastically received by the majority of teachers and even by opposition congressional representatives. Professor Francisco das Chagas Pereira, one of the educators invited by MEC to constitute a kind of precursor degree to the implementation of Law 5,692/71, stated in a testimony registered in the Chamber of Deputies in 1985 that “we were all possessed of Messianism at the time.” (^{PEREIRA, 1985}, p. 113), referring to the process not only of adhesion of teachers to the reform, but of mobilization in its favor. In her memoirs, written in 1981, Magda Soares also noted that the ongoing ideology exerted great domination over her: "I remember my academic life and I see myself (I see it) in solidarity with the educational model that was sought to be built and, more than that, a participant, I (she) also in search of efficiency and effectiveness, rationalization, operationalization and productivity" (^{SOARES, 1991}, p. 82).

These professionals were recruited from different parts of the country with the objective of providing technical support for the elaboration of changes that were defined by the dominant power, with the participation of politicians almost not being necessary (GARCIA, 1984). Even the congressional representative Laerte Viera, who was leader of the opposition, declared at the time that “the bill would have peaceful approval among all of us” (qtd. in ^{GERMANO, 1993}, p. 160). It is worth remembering that the Congress had already been closed by the military in 1966 and 1968 for opposing the regime's determinations and besides, the country was in full force of the AI-5.

The technicist thinking coming from the business universe that invaded educational thinking, therefore, had no intellectual or political resistance to reorder the entire educational process and was manifested both in the hierarchical organization of the school system - supervisors, educational advisors, administrators, inspectors - as in a pedagogy in which the teacher and students would be mere executors of actions whose conception, planning, coordination and control were under the responsibility of supposedly qualified, neutral and impartial specialists (^{SAVIANI, 1999}; ^{LIRA, 2010}). Furthermore, by organizing education based on its economic development policy, the State emphasized the role of schooling as a factor of development and national integration and assumed it as part of its ideological structure. Law 5,692/71 was considered the most important tool of the civil-military government to consolidate the idea of efficiency, effectiveness and functionality of the education system (^{CORRÊA, 2012})

Moreover, it was in a climate of trust, but also fear, that the president at the time General Emilio Garrastazu Médici instituted the WG formed to “study, plan and propose measures to update and expand elementary and high school education”. Through a decree, he established that the WG would be established by nine members who would be appointed by the Minister of Education and Culture and they would have a period of sixty days to complete the tasks.²⁵ Between June 15 and August 14, 1970, the WG worked at the Faculty of Education at UnB and produced a report on its activities and a bill. The participation of professor Magda Soares in this WG was also an indication from the dean of UnB, Caio Benjamin Dias from Minas Gerais. Although she has positively evaluated both the group and the work carried out by Colonel Jarbas Passarinho, she recognized a certain contradiction in this collaboration, as reported in an interview:

So they formed a group that was a good group, you know? I was very... Because I was here on the left wing, from the marches and such... so my group would say, “Are you going to collaborate? Are you going there to collaborate with these people?” Then, we at the Faculty of Education, in graduate school, we had a smaller group that had a philosophy like that: "We have to take advantage of the loopholes." So much that we created a little newspaper called “A Brecha” (The loophole). I mean, if there is an opening, we will get involved to see what we can do, right? “I was discussing with the group, and then they said: “This is the opening! You are going".²⁶

Professor Magda Soares had already participated, in 1968 - when student demonstrations erupted in large Brazilian cities, demanding an increase in funding and places in public universities - of a WG that was formed by the party Aliança Renovadora Nacional -ARENA - (National Renewal Alliance) leadership in Minas Gerais "to study the Brazilian university problem and make suggestions that could help the Federal Government".²⁷ Although the note from ARENA in which was disclosed the constitution of the WG emphasized that "the commission is apolitical, with no link to the party",²⁸ the initiative was a strategic action to lighten the criticisms regarding the lack of participation of professors and students in the elaboration of the university reform that was in motion. The WG constituted by ARENA had the support of Federação das Indústrias de Minas Gerais (Federation of Industries of Minas Gerais), which expressed in an official note unrestricted support for the civil-military government, stating that “the business community is ready to offer the Government the necessary collaboration to ensure the country 'the tranquility that demands the hard work of national revitalization'” and that “the participation of young people in the development process is important, but the unrest does not interest anyone and harms everyone, hence the willingness of businessmen to collaborate with the Government so that the country keeps itself normal”.²⁹

However, the WG established to prepare the preliminary project for the Teaching Reform in 1970 was not, the first Working Group constituted with the same purpose. A year earlier, another group formed by educators and researchers from Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos - INEP - (National Institute of Pedagogical Studies) had already presented well-grounded projects that were widely disseminated and submitted for analysis and presentation of suggestions by the State Councils of Education, the Departments of Education and the representative entities of public and private teachers and schools.³⁰ Those concepts also influenced the organization of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico, as we shall see. However, the federal government ended up not endorsing those projects. According to ^{Soares (1991}), when reviewing the documents and comparing the proposals prepared by the first WG with the criticisms made to them by the second group, it is possible to identify the conflict of ideologies and understand why they had been rejected:

The projects reflect, even at that time, the liberal-pragmatic ideology of progressivism (among the members of that first Group); the suggestions and criticisms are based on the new ideology of education at service of development, expressed in the concepts of greater performance, more efficiency and productivity, and in the presentation of suggestions for its application in the education system. By the way, today I understand why the Federal Government, which had created the first Group, did not accept the projects proposed by it and created another Group to prepare a new project: what had been proposed did not correspond to the dominant ideology (^{SOARES, 1991}, p. 85-86).

Hence, the affinity of the 1970 Working Group with the educational conceptions intended by the civil-military government is even clearer, since the bill was well received by the Ministry of Education and its processing and approval by Congress was quick and peaceful. That is why Magda Soares observed, ten years after Law No. 5,692/71, that “today I understand that we, the new Working Group, have captured this ideology, an ideology that we certainly already had, we also have internalized” (^{SOARES, 1991}, p. 86).

The Final Report of the Working Group for the Reform of Elementary and High School Education constituted in 1970 reflected the discussions that had been held since the mid-1960s. The proposal suited the interests of a market that demanded cheap and minimally qualified labor by proposing that everyone should "reach adulthood with some preparation for work or, at least, a clearly defined study option". In this regard, the report pointed to the duality present in high school education, which, in balance, would be "vital for the regular training" of students, which is,

A school allegedly oriented to the pursuit of studies - secondary - alongside another, which does not communicate with it supposedly directed to life - the professional. Both teaching courses of single duration established abroad; and the difference between them is marked by the exclusivity of general training in the first one and specialized in the second one. Moreover, both characteristics are crucial in all regular schooling, undeniably determining the predominance of one over the other. (RELATÓRIO, 1971 apud ^{AGUIAR, 1975}, p. 31).

We identified that the main characteristics of the high school reform proposed by this WG were to some extent, anticipated by the experience of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG, in 1971. They can be synthesized by the principles of integration and flexibility that, if properly implemented, could guarantee a renewed school organization. The idea of integration was present not only between levels of education, but also areas of study and subjects. Flexibility was noted in the diversity of curriculum and teaching methodologies in order to adapt to the interests and skills of students - including the possibility of continuing studies at a higher level or their termination with a professional qualification - as well as the capacity of educational institutions and the socioeconomic level of the region in which it was inserted.

This set of principles developed in the WG report, among others, guided the preparation of the bill, which was initially submitted to the Federal Council of Education and later to the state councils of education. The apparent horizontality of the discussions, however, did not hide the authoritarian procedures adopted by MEC. ^{Cunha (2014}), who analyzed the history of the IV National Conference on Education from June 1969, and the preparatory seminar from February 1970, deduces that the debaters against the universal and compulsory professionalization of high school education were more numerous, disapproved early specialization in professional training, recognized the importance of the propaedeutic function of high school education, and that the V National Conference on Education that was planned would have been suspended by order of the minister of education (^{CUNHA, 2014}, p. 918).

As Minister of Education, Colonel Jarbas Passarinho also made changes to the document, according to him “to maintain the general coherence of the proposal and to adjust it to the government general policy.” (PASSARINHO, 1981, p. 820). The changes made in these opportunities did not change those principles and, mainly, did not change the concept of high school education. The consultations carried out maintained the formula expressed in subparagraph "a" of paragraph 2 of article 5 from the bill, which established that the special training part of the high school curriculum would have the objective of professional qualification or expansion of certain general studies. In his Explanatory Memorandum, Minister Colonel Passarinho himself highlighted this characteristic when he stated, “there is no longer a place, in today's Brazil, for the dualism of a high school that leads to the University and another that prepares for life. The school is one and must always fulfill these two indispensable functions for a truly integral education” (PASSARINHO, 1981, p. 820).

The change that made professionalization mandatory in high school education took place in the amendments signed by parliamentarians in the course of the bill. For instance, an amendment by senator Antônio Carlos, another by senator José Lindoso and another signed by eight deputies from the federal bench of São Paulo requested that the phrase “or expansion in certain orders of general studies” was excluded from the aforementioned subsection “a” of paragraph 2 of article 5. In the justifications of these parliamentary amendments, it was argued that the phrase, in a “subtle and misleading way” would open the way “for the maintenance of what, precisely, the project aims to extirpate: education uncommitted to individual life and the future of the country” (qtd. in ^{SAVIANI, 1986}, p. 147) and that, if that option was maintained, "it would certainly encourage the maintenance of 'classic' and 'scientific' courses" and frustrate legislators (qtd. in SAVIANI, 1986, p. 146). But it was an amendment authored by the congressman Bezerra de Melo that prevailed in the project and had the following justification:

The entire philosophy of the project focuses on the development needs that, on a day-to-day basis, require more high school leveled technicians for private and public companies. It is necessary to close, once and for all, the doors of schools used to verbal and academic teaching, that is neither for work nor for life. The alternative “or expansion in certain orders of general studies” would undoubtedly be the great loophole through which schools and systems opposed to the professional training of young people would slip. (apud ^{SAVIANI, 1986}, p. 147).

For this reason ^{Cury et al (1982}) stated that "despite existing criticisms about the technical nature of law 5,692/71, the Working Group formed for its proposal cannot be held responsible for this mistake, even because its initial project was altered” (^{CURY et ali, 1982}, p. 9). For ^{Saviani (1986}), on the other hand, by making professionalization mandatory in high school education, the parliamentarians only preserved the spirit that was already present in the bill and that could be contradicted by that phrase, since when referring to the professionalization in education then prevailing, the WG document stated that it was an exception and that “the path to follow is none other than to convert the exception into a rule, making high school always conclude by a specific formation” (qtd. in SAVIANI, 1988, p. 149). This perception was shared by Magda Soares, members of the WG responsible for the bill, as we have seen.

In fact, if we recover the conceptions of education that were present among the educators who participated in the drafting of the bill, we will find stands such as that by educator Valnir Chagas who quite naturally accepted that the reform was the effect of economic causes and not the other way around. According to him, the new law “updates the school structure in relation to changes in the economy, finances, social security and public administration” (qtd. in ^{GARCIA, 1980}, p. 227). The WG report conceived to propose the university reform bill already indicated the need for a high school education reform that could prepare students for work and therefore reduce the demand for places in higher education institutions. Professionalization at high school level was taken as a response to those student demands for more funding and places at universities, as it would attenuate the demand for higher education with the possibility of completion of secondary level studies, while legitimizing the reduction of public investments in universities. For ^{Cunha (2014}, p. 920), however, the demand for high school leveled technicians was a belief without statistical support, as "no one knew the volume of occupational opportunities available, it was just believed that it was large enough to compensate, minimally, high school graduates who did not enter in higher education courses" and this belief was enough.

We consider, however, that the "specific training" that the bill was about and which created conditions for the conclusion of studies at the high school level could not be reduced to the mandatory professionalization provided by the Law No. 5,692/71, since other training possibilities could be open. The experience of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG indicated some of these possibilities for curricular organization that could come from the simple maintenance of that phrase - “or expanding in certain orders of general studies” - in the final draft of the law.

The experience of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG

If, on the one hand, Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG did not escape that technical conception of education prevailing at its time, on the other hand, it was not reduced to it. The purpose of this school was to test an organization and a curriculum that would allow students to carry out studies of different levels and natures, according to their aptitudes, interests and abilities, regardless of areas or grades. To this end, the course offered a list of semester subjects and each student was allowed to build their curriculum their way, choosing, among the subjects offered, how many and which ones they wanted to take during the semester. This feature of school organization bet on respect for the individuality and autonomy of each student who could count on a teacher-adviser to help in the curriculum composition, but left the path to the student's choice.

The curriculum of Colégio Integrado was composed by three sets of subjects: basic area, option area and expansion area. The subjects in the basic area were those considered necessary for all citizens and that would provide a good general academic education. In addition to the subjects of Modern and Contemporary History and History of Brazil, for example, other subjects were included in the curriculum such as Study of the Environment and Natural Resources, Organization and Use of Geographical Space, Basic Biology, Basic Physics and Basic Chemistry, Introduction to Modern Mathematics and Study of Elementary Functions, Essay, Introduction to Literature and Communication. It should be noted that the subjects of the basic area did not correspond to the traditional curricular components, but were closer to the cuts made in the undergraduate subjects, which already represented an attempt to integrate one and another level of education.

The subjects in the option area aimed at developing the interests and individual skills of students. These included subjects such as Brazil Economic Evolution, Interpretative Analysis of Contemporary Man, Natural Framework and the Economic Problem of the Great Powers, Introduction to Philosophical Anthropology, Comparative Study of Animals and Plants from the Reproductive Point of View, Introduction to Mechanisms of Organic Reactions, Introduction to Calculus, Statistical Probability, Geometric Drawing I and II, Projective Drawing I and II, History of the Portuguese Language, Literary Analysis and Composition, The Novel by José Lins do Rego, The Novel by Clarisse Lispector, among others.

The subjects in the expansion area intended to develop skills of a motor, artistic or professional nature. Hence, the "specific training" offered was not restricted to professionalization, which is evident in the subjects offered: Theater Practice, Cinema I and II, History of Art, Art in the 20th Century, Art in Brazil, Free Atelier, Musical Appreciation, Brazilian Music, Basketball, Indoor Soccer, Women's Dances, Handball, Gymnastics, Volleyball, Cartography Elements, Fundamentals of Aero photogrammetry, Typing, Binding, Card Punching, Computer Operation, Computer Programming, Introduction to Journalism I and II. Here were valued artistic education and the development of appreciation resources to promote the ability to enjoy culture goods.

This curricular organization approached what was proposed by the first WG of the teaching reform, in 1969, which foresaw that high school education “is intended for general and professional education for adolescents, in addition to being propaedeutic for a higher education”. This WG predicted in its report that each course should include “compulsory and optional educational subjects and practices”, as well as “complementary activities of artistic and scientific training”. To high school general education would be guaranteed a “variety of curriculum in order to provide different areas of study (...)that will meet the students' aptitudes and interests for literary, scientific, economic, social and artistic studies”, being "facultative the inclusion of technical options”.³¹ Everything indicates that the Special Planning Commission of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG was aware of the perspectives that would guide the reform in order to anticipate it.

Every semester, Colégio Integrado students could compose their curriculum with subjects from each of the three areas (see Table 1). This composition was made taking into account the number of credits the student was able to do per semester and the number of semesters in which he intended to take his course (between 4 and 10 semesters). The subjects in the basic area were offered in the two semesters of the experience, in the morning and in the afternoon. The subjects in the option and expansion areas changed each semester and some were offered only in the morning and others in the afternoon. Students could choose to take the subjects only in the morning, only in the afternoon or both. The schedule was organized into a module and each module was equivalent to 30 minutes. There were classes from 2 to 5 modules. Each shift consisted of 10 modules, and recess, which took place between the 5th and the 7th modules, was also counted in the workload. Contrary to the routine of rigid programs and schedules of the traditional school, this flexibility of programs and schedules was intended to meet the students' own conditions, as well as each student's work pace.

Each subject was valued by credits corresponding to its workload. Every 15 hours, 1 credit was computed, with 60 hours of classes (or 4 hours of classes per week) equivalent to 4 credits. The total workload of the course was 2,200 hours and the student could complete it in at least 4 semesters and a maximum of 10 semesters. During this time, the student must earn at least 147 credits towards the diploma. The school performance verification was carried out by evaluating learning and calculating attendance. The learning assessment was carried out using the cumulative points system. Each semester, which was divided into two periods, 100 points were distributed in each subject. Each assessment instrument (tests, exercises, surveys, reports) could not distribute more than 40 points. The students were approved if they obtained a minimum of 60 points, as long as they had a frequency higher than 75% in each subject. A retake task was also planned for the student who accumulated between 40 and 60 points.

This working model Colégio Integrado had weekly faculty meetings that needed to be aware of the proposed objectives. The teachers from the former Colégio Universitário were used there. This group of teachers was considered “the best in high school education in Belo Horizonte due to its constant didactic renewal, its rapport with students and its content renewal” (GUIA, 1971). It was composed mostly of male teachers aged between 25 and 50 years old, whose functional status were of assistant teacher working 24 hours a week in higher education units.

The formation of the student body of Colégio Integrado should constitute a heterogeneous group that was representative of the universe of high school students in the community. For the constitution of this group, two variables should be considered: the level of "intellectual ability" and the socioeconomic level. The selection of the first classes, however, took into account only the first variable, since it had instruments capable of measuring the students' achievement in the subjects. There was not, yet, a questionnaire that allowed to precisely determining the socioeconomic level of students, as argued at the time (GUIA, 1971). There was a preparation plan of a questionnaire by a team of researchers, which would be applied to all candidates "so that their items could undergo a statistical treatment that would determine their legitimacy”. The procedures adopted, however, seem to reveal a certain disbelief regarding the adoption of the socioeconomic variable, as it is intended, initially, to corroborate the existence of a correlation between the "intellectual level" and the socioeconomic level to assess the importance of the second variable for the selection of future students.

Administratively, Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico maintained a Course coordination and the Education sectors. The Coordination were linked the library, the cafeteria, the general secretariat of education, the Audiovisual Center, the mechanography and the workshop. The Education Sectors added up to ten, namely, the Portuguese Sector, the Foreign Languages ​​Sector, the Mathematics Sector, the Design Sector, the History Sector, the Geography Sector, the Philosophy Sector, the Physics Sector, the Chemistry Sector and the Biology Sector. There were laboratories for the Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Languages sectors ​​that worked for practical classes and to assist students who needed them. For this purpose, they always had the presence of a laboratory assistant, an intern or even the teacher. The Art laboratory, on the other hand, worked together with the Drawing Sector and there were developed artistic activities for students enrolled in the Free Atelier course.

The Collegiate was the superior body within Colégio Integrado and was composed by the Course Coordination and a representative of each Education Sector. There was also a Teaching Advisory Office that was created by the Deliberative Council of the Pedagogical Center with the objective of assuming, together with the Course Coordination, the responsibilities and pedagogical guidance of Colégio Integrado. Also an Orientation Center that assisted students with learning difficulties, personal problems, disciplinary difficulties and vocational guidance. In addition, it had an Audiovisual Center responsible for controlling activities related to the use of audiovisual resources. Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico kept Centro Estudantil Aluísio Pimenta - CEAP - (Aluísio Pimenta Student Center) from Colégio Universitário, a student representation body that honored the former dean.

After the first semester of this experience, the students were consulted through a survey on the performance of the activities of Colégio Integrado. The objective, according to the report produced by the school, was to adapt more efficiently to the needs of its student body and, at the same time, fix possible flaws. Simultaneously, between June 29 and July 29, 1971, the bill for the educational reform was being processed in the National Congress where, through parliamentary amendments, it would make the maintenance of that experience unfeasible.

The analysis of the questionnaires showed that the students considered that the homework was “excessive and tight” in the subjects of the basic area and “reasonable and slack” in the areas of choice and expansion. The teaching methods and courseware used by the teachers in the classes were considered "interesting and modern" and the majority approved the evaluation process. The on-call system provided in the organization of Colégio Integrado, which guaranteed an almost permanent attendance of students by the teachers, was rarely used, and when they did, they received the necessary assistance, as shown in the evaluation. Students also approved the disciplinary regime and the type of curriculum, non-serial and by credit system. Although the students themselves were responsible for choosing the subjects taken each semester, some evaluated the distribution of the workload as “harsh”. The administrative system, which had a cafeteria, secretariat, library, guidance center, teaching advice and board of directors, was considered adequate for the fulfillment of the school's didactic and pedagogical goals. In summary, according to the report, the students evaluated the experience of Colégio Integrado as “useful” and “positive”, but they had some difficulty in adapting to their differences in timetables, teaching methods, disciplinary regime and curriculum (GUIA, 1971).

The teachers' intention was to apply the same questionnaire, with the necessary reformulations, also at the end of the 2nd semester in order to carry out a comparative analysis. However, by the time of its application, the students had already learned that the experience of Colégio Integrado would not continue and that the school situation of each student was not yet defined which, according to the same report, did not favor the necessary conditions for surveying students' opinions about the course in both semesters. With the discontinuation of Colégio Integrado, student enrollments were transferred to the institution's Technical school.³²

Like other experiences of the period, Colégio Integrado wanted to work on the cooperation basis, the development of the sense of responsibility and spontaneous discipline. In a critical evaluation to compose the school's publication - which does not necessarily portray a general impression of the students, but gives the dimension of the values ​​that the school offers to spread - one of the students observed that at Colégio Integrado “there is no strictness, there is friendship; there is no surveillance, there is freedom; there are no fights, there are chats; there are no lectures, there is exchange of ideas; there is no distinction (Mr., high and mighty); there are no small groups, there is everyone; there is no gossip, there is a time and place to discuss problems” (GUIA, 1971).

In unison with this assessment, those responsible for the evaluation report on the activities of Colégio Integrado concluded, “a spirit of camaraderie, sociability and solidarity was created between students and the administrative staff”. Even the news that the experiment would not continue, the assessment was as follows:

We consider that the atmosphere that existed until October at the school was really one of the most fascinating things about the experience, although for many parents, teachers and even students, there was a certain exorbitance in the reigning freedom. However, the facts show that what happened with some students was a fascination with the acquired freedom, with the power to decide on their own life, to create and with the earned right to make mistakes and be able to embrace their own process. A right that unfortunately is not given to teenagers in our schools. We can almost calmly state that the cases of 'indiscipline' came from more rigidly educated students who were given, perhaps for the first time, the right to self-explore, self-test, self-assess (GUIA, 1971).

Considering that this impression of the school as a place of freedom and mutual respect was shared by the student and administrative body, it should not be surprising that his experience was so short - as were the experiences of CEAM, in Rio de Janeiro, and CIEM-UnB, in Brasília - in the context of oppression and control that characterized the school concept during the civil-military dictatorship.

The interrupted experience

During the entire period of operation of the former Colégio Universitário da UFMG, teachers were placed in the respective departments of their areas of expertise. Some were fully dedicated to the school, others conciliated their teaching hours and other activities between basic and higher education. That is why when in August 1970, they were informed that the Graduate Council of UFMG had approved that the teachers at the Pedagogical Center (including, of course, those from Colégio Integrado) would be assigned to the Department of Teaching Methods and Techniques at the Faculty of Education at the disposal of that Center,³³ the return of most teachers to their original positions was inevitable, as the identification with their training areas ended up weighing on. This internal aspect of the organization of the university, although it was not the reason for the discontinuity of the experience of Colégio Integrado, cannot be overlooked, since it was the prestige and engagement of these teachers in the proposal of Colégio Universitário and later, in Colégio Integrado, which ensured its continuity for a few more years after its patron, Aluísio Pimenta's rectorate.

Colégio Integrado was a frustrated attempt by those professors to keep working together and with autonomy when the permanence of Colégio Universitário in the university system became unsustainable. Since the early years there were many critics to Coluni at the university, which was considered elitist and pricey. Former dean Marcello de Vasconcellos Coelho, one of the executors of the idea of ​​creating the Pedagogical Center as an integrator of basic education activities at the university, even stated that

The best students from [school] Loyola, the best students from Santo Antônio, the best students from the Municipal were taken in the 3rd Scientific year, and I put them in here with full-time teachers, an average of three students per teacher, when at university you didn't have full time. Colégio Universitário's budget for the 3rd year was much higher, twice as the Faculty of Arts. We thought this was crazy (...) I considered Colégio Universitário a luxury course (^{COELHO, 1998}, p. 114).

It is Marcello Coelho himself who discards any military influence towards the end of Colégio Universitário, stating that “there was absolutely no military veto at this point” (^{COELHO, 1998}, p. 115). In the case of Colégio Integrado, which was already part of the structure of the Pedagogical Center, the discontinuity occurred for other reasons.

At the end of the 1971 school year, the general director of the Pedagogical Center, Eder José dos Santos, sent the institution's Work Plan for the following year to the State Council of Education for approval. Officially, CEE-MG was not proficient to pronounce on the matter, since it was not involved in the functioning of educational establishments belonging to the federal system, except in the case of experimental courses or pedagogical experiences. As the law 5,692/71 had already been approved with mandatory professionalization at high school level, the Pedagogical Center requested authorization to continue with Colégio Integrado as an experience that “will allow the assessment of the feasibility of new proposed standards [by law 5,692/71] for high school education (curriculum by offering courses, enrollment by subjects, credit system, etc.)”. Moreover, it justified the absence of professional training subjects "since the merger of the Technical school with Colégio Integrado is still in a transition phase, a merger that will take place from January 1, 1972”. And it also considered that “current students at Colégio Integrado would not be required to have professional qualifications, since they started the course under the previous regime”. Finally, it is promised that “in 1972, the high school curriculum of the Pedagogical Center will already include professional qualification” (MINAS GERAIS, 1971).

Although the CP letter to CEE-MG confirms not only the interest, but also the attempts to continue the experience of Colégio Integrado, the document does not support the reasons that would justify the need for approval of the Pedagogical Center Work Plan by the State Council of Education of Minas Gerais. Since there was a promise to incorporate the necessary subjects for mandatory professional training the following year, Colégio Integrado would become a regular course, even if researches on its functioning were carried out. Thus, the conclusion of the CEE-MG guided a stand for the Pedagogical Center based on the autonomy of the university, which released it from having to request another body authorization for the operation of teaching elementary and high school, on a regular basis, " since the unit is naturally integrated into its structure and is indispensable to the fulfillment of its own goals, both as a research field and as a field for teaching practice” (MINAS GERAIS, 1971).

The fact is that there was never a merger of Colégio Integrado with the Colégio Técnico (COLTEC). If the students from the first one ended up being transferred to the second one, they attended a teaching model that in no way resembled that experience that was intended to be innovative. On the contrary, the Technical school was established in 1969 with the objective of maintaining courses for the training of technicians necessary for the labor in industries, health services and laboratories, construction and maintenance of electronic and mechanical equipment. Its implementation was the result of an agreement between the Brazilian and British governments and it was perfectly suited to the law on education reform approved by the Congress in 1971. With a qualified faculty and significant financial support, COLTEC has become a reference school for the technical conception of education imposed by the civil-military dictatorship.

Final considerations

We discuss here one of the several educational experiences that failed during the civil-military dictatorship. The innovations proposed by Colégio Integrado involved objectives and values capable of subverting the traditional educational system in a way that did not comply to the formalism and lack of flexibility that marked the attempts at changes made by military governments in education. In fact, by bringing together studies on educational innovations in Brazil since the 1930s, at a time when Brazil was looking for a democratic path to crises of all kinds, ^{Garcia (1980}, p. 11) observed that

The proposals for innovations need a climate of greater tolerance and the possibility of creation so that they can represent something significant for the education of the country. (...) It seems clear that viable proposals for educational innovation require that educators and community take the risks of trials and errors, advances and setbacks, in order to find formulations that effectively meet the needs.

Perhaps for this reason, Professor Magda Soares, in her interview, alerted us to the fact that the experience of Colégio Integrado do Centro Pedagógico da UFMG was “in historical terms, a fraction of a second in the university history”, an experience that “died almost before being born”, “an attempt to put a dream on paper that never happened... dreams not always come true”.³⁴ At that time, there was not the climate of tolerance and freedom necessary to embrace and experiment proposals that would break with the dominant orientations and that would overcome the supremacy of discipline in the name of real innovation.

In the course of this research, we are faced with regrettably current issues, not only due to the recent context of an education reform that sought to reestablish old relationship conceptions between education and work - the High school education reform ventured under Michel Temer's government in 2017 - but also because of the political significance of the participation of university specialists in the support of backing public policies carried out in contexts of weakening democratic institutions. In summary, it is remarkable that in moments of institutional rupture, yesterday and today, debates about what education should be are politically and socially mobilized with the intention of initiating new times that, in reality, restore old orders that are already known.