Aprender na vila, aprender na vida : uma questão de tempo

Abstract

This research aims at investigating how children at the 5th year of Primary School in a public municipal school of a low-income suburb of Porto Alegre perceive and/or build the notion of Time as a concept to be built throughout their education. The concept of TIME is examined from the perspective of sciences (Newton, Einstein), philosophy (Plato, Kant) and history (Whitrow, Àries); including the approach of the building of notions of time according to Piaget (Genetic Epistemology) and Vygotsky (social/historical Psychology). This text aims at analyzing the times built/appropriated by the children, who are between 9 and 13 years old. This is a qualitative study, carried out through the analysis of class diaries and questionnaires dealing with time. The relevant data were extracted and grouped in categories, which made the identification of the following times perceived by the children possible: chronological time, childhood time and the time of violence. The perception of chronological time is the identification of marks of time, without the understanding of time periods or intervals; the perception of childhood time is seen as a playful period associated with child labor; and the time of violence is seen as an adult time, in some periods, perceived by children, who seek to impose their childhood time. This study concludes that the building of notions of time by children — related to the social and cultural environment — enables the perception of times other than the concepts of Time homogenously established in relation to the more comprehensive society.