O Malabarista: um estudo sobre o professor de sala multisseriada por meio do município de Jussara - GO

Abstract

Formal education, which historically was aimed at agricultural workers, was noteworthy for the exclusive attitude of the ruling class, reducing education to mere schooling, and established the notion that the rural worker needed no more than basic literacy. This belief has led, over the years, to the precarious situation of rural schools, both in their physical structure and in the inadequate preparation of teachers. Consisting essentially of a mixed level or one-teacher class, this school is defined as having one class and a single teacher who teaches the first four levels of primary education in the same place at the same time. This is the context of our research theme and the teachers of mixed level classes in rural areas were the focus of our study. Often overlooked in educational research, the teacher of mixed level classes tends to be represented as a juggler dividing herself between the various roles imposed on her, and a teacher who manages to facilitate the learning of up to eighteen children at the same time. by giving these teachers a voice, a dialogue was established. We could then reveal the social inequality and the contradictions of the rural and non-rural school. For theoretical support, we took as a basis the studies of Sérgio Leite (1999); Jadir Pessoa (1997); Carlos Brandão (1990); Julieta Calazans (1993); Márcia Regina Andrade and Maria Clara Di Pierro ([20--]); Edgar Kolling, Nery and Mônica Molina (1999) in relation to research on rural education. The foundation for the arguments was found in Marx and Engels (1977); Marilena Chauí (2003); Gaudêncio Frigotto (1995); Miguel Arroyo (1995); Iria Brzezinski, Maria Esperança Carneiro and Wanderley Brito (2004); Acácia Kuenzer (1987); Osmar Fávero (2001); Carlos Jamil Cury (2001) and others. An effort was made to understand the movement, the process, the contradictions (dialectic method) in historical materialism (methodology) which seek the basis of societies in the socio-historical formation and in relation to production. Taking dialectic materialism as its starting point, this study took a cross-section to get to know and to show the reality of the mixed-level teachers, of the students and of the parents. Qualitative research was used in this study. Descriptive/analytical study was also decided upon, using the following techniques: open interviews, free observation, filed trip notes and closed questionnaires in order to collect socio-economic data. The criterion for the selection of teachers was that the school in which they work should be situated on the farms. Understanding of the thin line separating the urban from the rural shows itself when many of the inhabitants of the poor suburbs, which are characterised more as a product of the deterioration of the cities than of urban development, have a tense relationship with urban culture. As they worked in the rural areas, they maintain the rural culture of their origin. It is apparent, moreover, that the rural school arises as a result of interests linked to industrialisation and urban growth, that rural education receives marginal treatment in official documents, and that the rural school is distinguished by its link to the work and culture of the rural area. We have tried to show that education in the rural area at the beginning of the 21st century is going through a process of change, demanded by social movements, bringing together the forgotten voices of groups socially repressed, but at the same time generators of knowledge and means of survival. The jugglers . i.e. the rural teachers, students and parents, who in their statements show a quite different reality from that described by municipal authorities.