The text discusses the relationship between the official and the alternative discourse used in the School Assembly (1999-2000), sponsored by the state government of Rio Grande do Sul, in the south of Brazil. It presents contributions from researchers in the field of Popular Education with the purpose of inciting the subjects (specifically the popular social movements and state institutions) to reflect upon their practices and to discuss the methodology employed in this process of curriculum reform. It also emphasizes the significance of the complex perspective for understanding the limits and possibilities of an official process aimed at promoting, paradoxically, the participation of the alternative social movements in the formulation and control of curricular guidelines for the state school.