Abstract
This article systematizes the experience lived at Escola Municipal Sargento João Délio dos Santos, located in the rural territory of Xerém, seeking to understand how rural education is constructed through the articulation between territory, subjects, and pedagogical practices. The research addresses the problem of the invisibility of rural schools and the need to recognize their knowledge, challenges, and potential. Its objective is to analyze management practices, teacher training, agroecology, and community participation that contributed to strengthening the school as a space of resistance and emancipation. The methodology is based on the systematization of experience, as proposed by Jara (2006), combined with autobiographical narrative as a formative instrument, according to Josso (2006), and the qualitative approach developed by Minayo (2015). The results show that democratic management, intersectoral collaboration, multigrade teaching, and the valorization of campesino knowledge were essential to confronting territorial contradictions, strengthening community bonds, and developing contextualized pedagogical practices. The discussion reveals that rural education, when rooted in concrete reality, becomes a practice of freedom, as argued by Freire (1981), and affirms itself as a political project linked to the struggles of rural peoples, as defended by Caldart (2012) and Arroyo (2012). It is concluded that rural schools are strengthened when they recognize their subjects, histories, and territories, becoming spaces for the production of knowledge, identity, and emancipation.