Educação do campo e o ensino de Geografia na escola do assentamento Santa Lúcia Araçagi/PB

Abstract

Rural education is originates on the mobilization and pressure of social movements, in particular the Landless Workers Movement (MST), for an educational policy for the rural community. It is led by the peasants and aims to fight for an educational policy that meets their needs. Our study has the following research question: how do geography teaching pedagogical practices, developed at the rural school, dialogue with the reality of the subjects in the fight for land reform in the Santa Lúcia Settlement? Thus, this research aims to analyze geography teaching pedagogical practices carried out at the Santa Lúcia Land Reform Settlement’s School, in Araçagi, PB. The school has 103 students and 05 teachers, offering early childhood education (kindergarten, pre-school I and II), elementary education (first to fifth grade) and a class of youth and adult education. We use theoretical-methodological procedures from dialectical and historical materialism, aiming to unravel dynamics that generate social inequalities. The qualitative study uses document analysis, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and field notes for data collection. For obtaining information to analyze and interpret geography teaching practices that strengthen the rural territoriality at the settlement, we draw from participant research insights. Content analyses were carried out in this dissertation. We employed theoretical and methodological frameworks proposed by Freire (2013), Caldart (2004-2011), Arroyo (2011), Fernandes (2011), Lorenzo (2013), Brandão (2009), Machado (2009), Copetti and Callai (2008), Pontuschka (2013), Mazzini (2007), Raffestin (1993), Haesbaert (2004) and in the legal frameworks of rural education. Based on the concept of popular education, we consider that there is a path from rural education to education in the field. Although from the normative point of view, there are advancements for the emancipation of rural individuals, we were able to understand that education in the field is a dispute of perceptions of the world, as emphasized by Paulo Freire. The research points out how much rural education needs to advance in terms of encouraging and promoting public policies. This teaching modality needs more attention, considering that the public power sees the rural area as a locus of knowledge production and not as a mere space for the knowledge monoculture. It is essential that peasant children be guaranteed the right to the knowledge necessary to strengthen their peasant identities. In this context, we understand that the school has a fundamental role in guaranteeing rights but is also a space appropriated by individuals who live and reproduce in rural territory.