Família e escola: o contraponto em Helena Antipoff através da correspondência com o filho Daniel (1929-1938)

Abstract

This dissertation aims to present the history of the separation that the psychologist and educator

Helena Antipoff entertained with her only child, Daniel, by educating him through weekly letters

between her and him for nine years, from 1929 to 1938. The theoretical framework used to work

on this extensive correspondence performs a kind of phenomenology suggested by Husserl, added

to the care that the critiques of Kant and Marx postulate for theoretical activity, also taking into

account consideration of the epistolary literature of the last centuries, such as the recent publications

of letters between Claparède and Antipoff and those of Freud to his childrens. As for the method,

after a longitudinal reading of the approximately 700 letters, ordered chronologically, we selected

59 from Helena Antipoff, distributed in three frames (of Daniel's childhood, adolescence and

youth), scrutinized by the themes dealt with, and then we present some of them. We consider that

the results obtained offer scholars an overview of the content and relevance of this collection for the

treatment of counterpoint relations - from the school - to the limitations of the family, because they

refer us to the best of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy of all times for completing the

educational task. On this landing, a tripod was erected: the creation of a new school, in Beauvallon,

France, weekly letters and scouting, with the varnish of musicality. The coups d'état in Brazil (1930

and 1937) and the rise of Nazism in Europe, involve the lyrical and philosophical content of the

letters, which became living testimony of those historical moments. In turn, the then recent

educational action of Antipoff, in Russia in the early years of revolution of 1917, is revealed in

writing in an informal translation of her doubts and convictions. The insistent invitations to the son

to join her in caring for the youth imprisoned by the prison system in Minas Gerais indicate, in

those years of separation, his inclination towards the paths of inclusive education, the keynote of

her masterful work. As a conclusion, we consider that our effort brought to light - as an invitation -

a passionate option for the art of living and the art to educate, suggested in that voluntary separation

between mother and child for almost half a thousand weeks, united by the delicate and intimate

bond of the same number of letters from sea to sea.