A matemática do meio rural numa abordagem etnomatemática : uma experiência educacional dos Núcleos-Escolas da comunidade camponesa do Movimento Sem Terrra no município de Serra Talhada

Abstract

The subject of this study that makes refrence to the mathematucs of the rural environment in na etnomathematical approach is the relation between the cultural world of the concepts, ideas and experience of the rural producers of the Landless Movement – Movimento Sem Terra (MST) entailed to the Riacho do Bode Settlement an Gilvan Santos, entitled in this Countryside Community research, and the universe of the systemized learning an developed in the school environment. It presents as general purpose to comparatively analyse the mathematics presenting the pedagogical practice of the teachers of mathematics in the different School Centers of the Contryside Community and the mathematics built in the everyday practices of the rural producers of this community. The investigation of quality value and etnographical inspirations makes use of structured interviews as a methodological procedure. The theoretical work inspirations were searched in the literature related to the two areas of knouledge centrally disposed in the research: The Popular Education and the Ethnomathematics. There is a “popular mathematical language” which expresses the mathematical knowledge created and recreated in the popular context. A bigger regard to this language reveals that some conception transmitted at school as being exclusive are not so indeed, and by applying the presupposed of the Ethnomathematics is necessary receptivity to accept, to understand and to respect different conceptions from those generally transmitted as exclusive. In the analysis of the informal mathematics of the rural producer in the Countryside Community and the formal mathematics worked out by the mathematics teachers of different School Centers, it is noted that the relations between these two types of mathematics several mathematical knowledges come up and they are linked to the Arithmetics and the Plane Geomatry, but that they differ in the particular language of each one. Some indications of the Ethnomathematics are also noticed in the pedagogical practices os these teachers which are not necessarily worked out with its presupposed, but somehow, the Ethnomathematics is implicit in the work developing of these teachers. From what was observed one points out the conclusive principle that a factor which can be decisive in recognizing the mathematical knowledge built in different cultures is to take into account as part of the history of the mathematics, the history of the practices and the exlcusive and particular mathematical knowledges that exist in the different cultures. Eventually one concludes that for the pedagogical practice of the mathematics teachers of the different “School Centers” of the Contryside Community to achieve the purposes of a meaningful learning and to meet the educational politics of the countryside, the teaching methodology must efficiently lead to the mastering of the classical mathematics starting from the approach in ethnomathematics. But for that, it is above all necessary for the school and the teachers to understand that teaching mathematics is not only a technical task but also a political one.