A exploração do mundo físico pela criança: participação e aprendizagem

Abstract

This study describes and analyses the participation of children between four and six years old and their teachers while engaged in hands-on activities about physical world phenomenon exploration. For that, we investigate specific pedagogical practices that took place in J. M. Maria Sales Ferreira and Cooperativa de Ensino in Belo Horizonte. The methodological approach was based on an intervention in the classroom's pedagogical practice in which the research was conducted. We, also, created a science education's study group with the teachers and others professionals interested in early childhood education. The videotape was the main tool for collecting data. The data analysis brought us close to the recent academic thinking in what concerns the study about learning. To deepen the analyses we employ a Cultural- historical Approach that goes beyond classical theories and allow us to see learning as participation of very young children through the dialectical point of view. With this analysis, we could obtain evidences that the children, in this age group, are able to produce sophisticated knowledge when engaged in significative activities. If, in one hand, the results are contrary to the common sense, in another, they reinforce two ideas. First, learning is a process of changes in concrete social practice. Second, participation and learning are dialectically generated in the relationship between individual and collective, as well as collective and cultural tools. The social relevance of our analysis is found, especially, in the difference between the discourse about childhood education and the evidences that we have obtained in our field investigation. Therefore, it is clear the importance of investing in polices and in teacher education so that we can guarantee the quality in childhood education.