(Re)invenção do currículo na educação infantil: um estudo sobre o binômio “experiência” e “organização espaçotemporal

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the way the experience and space-time organization binomial can contribute to the (re)invention of curriculum in Primary Education in times of acceleration of childhood. By means of a documentary analysis of the first three episodes of the documentary series The Beginning of Life, by Estela Renner, the study sought to analytically describe the possible contributions of the aforementioned binomial for the intended curricular reinvention. The documentary presents a multidisciplinary approach of childhood, making a combination of different agents and researches that explore children development and the relations between education and learning, always seeking to demystify the dominant ideas in discourses on childhood and Primary Education. The empirical material and the theoretical framework made possible the unfolding of the study from the following questions: How some studies developed in the area of the Primary Education conceive the organization of times/spaces and experience? What are the implications of the conceptions of experience and space-time organization for educational work in Primary Education? How discussions concerning early childhood conducted in diverse knowledge areas, as the ones presented in the documentary, can contribute to Primary Education? Such questions were prompted for a reflection concerning the necessary displacements for an adequacy of the curriculum to the contemporary context in Primary Education, characterized by the acceleration of childhood. The study deepened discussions on the experience and space-time organization binomial in different sections of the dissertation, which approached: the historicity of childhood and the functions of Primary Education; transformations of the contemporary society and its implications for Primary Education; the power of schools as places of free time (and, at the same time, as intentionally designed environments), of development, exercise of thought and discoveries; the curriculum, the experience and the space-time organization. The investigation used as methodological procedure the documentary analysis. The research showed the importance for children to learn actively about the world, by means of experience, observing, touching, testing, and, mainly, imagining and creating. In this sense, repeated actions are of utmost importance for learning and reaffirms the pedagogical potential of routine. Moreover, the documentary and the studied theoretical framework corroborate the importance of space-time context when pointing the positive role of environment, mediation, and social interaction for children development. Therefore, it was possible to point a set of principles as starting points that express the theoretical postulates related to the experience and space-time organization binomial; they are the following: (i) children, although very young, are not blank slates to be filled with knowledge, information and abilities; (ii) it is necessary to allow children to make mistakes, to fail and to repeat, that is, to gain experience; (iii) the clearness concerning the role of teachers as the ones that organize, in an intentional and compromised way, significant learning experiences is essential; (iv) the experiences of the first years of life are irreplaceable; (v) to educate and to take care are indissociable activities in Primary Education; (vi) it is necessary that schools map the convergences and the distancing between the routine that children have in their houses and the objectives of schools concerning the organization of the institutional routine; (vii) the family is a strong influencer of the learning process, offering positivity elements or negatively intervening with the process; (viii) it is necessary to offer to children all inputs for the conscientious handling of digital tools; (ix) it is necessary to conceive the categories of time, space and routine beyond the mere institutional organization. This dissertation concludes that this discussion does not end in the principles detailed throughout the study; but it is believed that they can offer significant advances for the reinvention curriculum in Primary Education in times of acceleration of childhood.