A docência como vocação: Jonilda Alves Ferreira e o desafio de uma educação transformadora

Abstract

The present work is among the numerous researches concerned with the methodologies used by teachers in the school environment nowadays. We discuss issues related to the teaching of mathematics, similarly to what has been contemplated in these researches, so that we can constitute elements that promote a correction in the route of the contested model, whose results are little when it comes to the students’ learning but is used by the great majority of this professional class. In accordance with other examples of didactic actions that have been analyzed to provide contributions to the practices by other education workers, we present the work carried out by teacher Jonilda Ferreira, from Paulista/PB. In this research, we seek to explore the teacher's pedagogical actions that are based on her students' daily lives and perspectives, under a socio-cultural and historical approach, analyzing these practices so as they may serve as motivation to other teachers. Our research made use of the concepts presented in the biographical studies and the documentary cataloging, which have been submitted to a qualitative productive analysis and with the Narrative of Life, as proposed by Daniel Bertaux, occupying a fundamental position regarding the collection and understanding of the aspects arisen in the study of professional trajectory of Jonilda Ferreira’s the teaching career. The bibliographical research, based on the concepts of History of Mathematics, Ethnomathematics, and Ethnosociology, has served as theoretical framework in the problematization and exploration of the practical classes studied, taught by teacher Jonilda and involves her students' daily routines, and their results in OBMEP. We use the theories developed in the body of our work for both analytical and comparative appreciation of the socio-cultural and historical conceptions in the teaching process adopted by Jonilda Ferreira, who makes use of her apprentices' previous knowledge. Among the results obtained are: the importance of creating a reciprocal and positive teacher-student relationship; the relevance of promoting the students’ involvement with and interest in mathematics through practical classes addressing daily, playful and cultural issues according to Ethnomathematics perspectives; the cognitive and social benefits obtained from work departing from concrete to reaching out abstract ideas, deepening mathematical reasoning through the introduction of the knowledge olympiads.