A experiência da arte no cotidiano da educação infantil : agenciamentos possíveis entre a formação das professoras e a intencionalidade pedagógica das propostas para as crianças

Abstract

This dissertation problematizes the understanding of Early Childhood Education teachers regarding the experience of art in everyday school life and investigates the effects that this experience has on children's development and learning. To this end, the general objective is to study the teachers' perspective on the experience of art in Early Childhood Education and the effects it has on children's development and learning. The specific objectives are: 1) to investigate how the experience of art in Early Childhood Education is understood by teachers and what its relevance is in everyday school life; 2) to analyze the intentionality of pedagogical practices in art in Early Childhood Education and how they relate to children's development and learning; and 3) to study the potential of the experience of art in Early Childhood Education, relating it to the scientific literature produced on the subject. The path is followed using exploratory qualitative research methodology. This is combined with the use of a literature review and research in/on everyday life using semi-structured interview techniques, unsystematic observations and field diaries. The principles of a/r/tography make it possible to write this dissertation from a place between artist/researcher/teacher, adopting writing with art based on aesthetic experience. The main theoretical contribution is made up of Duarte Jr. (1983) to think of art as the creation of expressive forms of human feeling, Vygotsky (2009) to understand it as the fruit of human creative activity that exercises higher psychological functions and González-Rey (2017) to study its agency in the process of subjectivation. Dewey (2010) and Benjamin (1987) offer contributions to situating art as an aesthetic experience and Bondía (2002) makes it possible to assert the need for children and teachers to be subjects of the art experience at school. Four teachers took part in this research, two from private schools and two from public schools. The fact that only one of them has an initial degree in pedagogy and only half of them said they had studied subjects related to art in their training already demands a close look at the quality of teacher training. Content analysis based on the assumptions of Bardin (2010) allows us to consider that art is not recognized as an experience at school, but as an activity. Faced with inadequate initial training, the teachers rely on common sense and their personal opinions to support their proposals with art. Therefore, although they consider art to be important in school, they don't have the knowledge to justify their arguments and they don't have the scientific literature to guide their profession. In this sense, the intentionality of their practices is more geared towards improving reproductive skills than meaningful learning, and their practices prioritize children's motor development to the detriment of integral development. As a result, the teachers' intentions have little to do with what the children are doing at school, as they fail to take into account the specificities of early childhood children's encounters with art in Early Childhood Education. There is a series of mismatches: between what the teachers personally understand by art and the art they propose to the children, between their proposals and the children's achievements, between their understanding of agency through art and the scientific literature produced on the subject. The aforementioned study shows that insufficient training in art knowledge jeopardizes the guarantee of children's right to a quality education, since the specificities of Early Childhood Education are not effectively taken into account in art proposals. This research does not end here; on the contrary, it announces the need to continue. One way forward is to invest in teacher training. This should be based on aesthetic experience in order to provide teachers with an encounter with art themselves, so that they know from experience and are better supported to carry out aesthetic experiences on the school floor that lead to children meeting art as integral and sensitive subjects.