Explorando diferentes horizontes educacionais : os ensinos e as aprendizagens das ciências da natureza em uma escola alternativa

Abstract

The difficulties faced in teaching natural sciences, such as the need to educate scientifically literate citizens, contextualize topics and include different technologies in the curriculum, are compounded by other frequent challenges, such as indiscipline in the classroom and the lack of motivation among teachers and students. In this sense, it would be possible to state that some of the country's schools, both public and private, follow a pedagogical model referred to as “traditional”: that is, students are lined up, hierarchized by years or grades, taking tests and listening to teachers – the holders of knowledge – who simply transmit the content. However, not all educational institutions have been organized in this way. In the midst of this educational reality, so-called alternative pedagogies emerge – originating from alternative, democratic, non-directive schools – which, despite following different application models, are in fact presented as an alternative to traditional schooling and have as a common point the respect for the freedom of the students' teaching and learning processes. Aiming to understand how different pedagogical factors are worked on during classes of the curricular components of natural sciences in the environment of an alternative school, this research proposes a qualitative investigation, of the case study type (Yin, 2009), concomitant with a classroom ethnography (Wolcott, 2008). The data construction was done through partially participant observation of the natural science projects, notes in a field diary, and semi-structured interviews with the teachers and professors – the latter as pedagogical agents present in the studied reality – responsible for the discipline, in addition to the members of the pedagogical team. The analysis of these data was carried out inspired by Laurence Bardin's Content Analysis (1977). Thus, we sought to understand (based on daily pedagogical practices) whether a school can truly call itself “alternative” and how; in addition to understanding how different pedagogical factors are present in classes of the curricular components of natural sciences, in high school, considering theorists who are critical of traditional pedagogy, and how this circulates in the spaces of a school with alternative pedagogy