O trabalho pedagógico dos professores do ensino fundamental no ciclo II sobre educação ambiental Recife-PE

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to apprehend the pedagogical work of 5th to 8th grades teachers in Recife’s school system regarding environmental education according to the curriculum proposal of Science Education. As specific objectives, to characterize the science curriculum proposal of Recife’s Department of Education between 2002 and 2004, to identify theoreticepistemological principles that guide the pedagogical work of 5th to 8th grades teachers regarding environmental education, and also to analyze the pedagogical work of 5th to 8th grades teachers in Recife’s school system regarding environmental education. The Interactive Methodology (OLIVEIRA, 1999) will be used to achieve these objectives via case studies, interviews using the hermeneutical-dialectical circle technique, questionnaires, observations and analysis of documents. Our sample is made of five 5th to 8th grades teachers and two specialists from SE/PCR. As for a theoretical background, the reconstruction of ontological definition of human work and its relation to the theory of communicative action, together with Paulo Freire’s pedagogical theory were selected. The results show that the environmental pedagogical work of teachers, according to the curriculum proposal, is related to the teachers’ positioning in the pedagogical theory. They can assume a banker’s position (somebody that informs, alienates and transmits knowledge), or critic and emancipator (constructor and re-constructor of knowledge), even though at the moment of the pedagogical meeting the teachers are oriented towards understanding. With those findings, the environmental education is seen through a more realistic prism because the predicted impact of its socialization in 5th to 8th grades is impotent compared to the speed of nature’s global degradation. The mere appropriation of critical science education content is not enough to minimize such degradation when ways to create conditions to solve the rectification of those who will work with such content are not sought. This shows that teachers need to update themselves, not only in environmental education but also in a more critical, emancipating, problem posing and dialogic pedagogical theory similar to the one that Paulo Freire proposes. Some suggestions are given in order to contribute to the changes related to the pedagogical work regarding the environmental education at schools, and mainly at the school mentioned in this paper, to increase the studies about science curriculum proposal and interdisciplinarity, to do and to implement projects regarding an interdisciplinarity view of environmental education.