Ciro Marcondes 36 José Luiz Braga: So I ask Professor Ciro if we consider that learning can be inventive and productive of social reality, that is, that the communicational construction of reality implies the development of strategies to face the problems of so- ciety itself, I will ask two correlated questions from this base: first, what social experiments would be possible to answer your question about what this 21st-century man will become? And the second: what can be the role of the university, of professors, and everyone who participates in this millenary experience to face the problems that you pointed out? Ciro: Thank you very much, Braga. As always, a rather complex question that does not make the answer much easier. Well, these two questions are coupled with the current ques- tion: And what experiments will be possible for men in the 21st century? Well, I don’t know exactly what do you mean by experimentation. Braga: I add, Ciro, remembering, when I speak of so- cial experiments, that some texts that I have read, including your production, which I particularly appreciate, are those that you deal with experiments carried out with your students. That’s what inspired me to ask this question. Ciro: I’ve got it. Yes. Students, to me, are my lab rats. It is unfair to them, but I’ve had good results. Why is that? When I published the new theory, I had difficulty getting people to practice, to put this theory into practice. This was 11 years ago. Then the idea came to me: well, maybe my students, who are more or less mature students, could afford this social possibility of theory. And I proposed that they do this experimentation, as you’re talking about, in terms of ‘let’s see how this works in practice.’ And that, at first, scared the students, but then, in the end, they found that it was an extraordinary experience, and they left very satisfied because it wasn’t classic research, unlike research where we all learn something. That, for me, was the great victory in this procedure because it was a revealing survey of many things. Things that weren’t in the books and weren’t known until then. And that I could say that we were constituting knowledge. That’s why I chose these students at the university. Second point: “What is the role of the university in this?” Well, this question already overlaps with the other. Be-
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