O cuidado na educação infantil: perspectivas e significados

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to understand how municipal network teachers of a group of five years old children in Fortaleza are understanding and employing care in their pedagogical practices with children. The theoretical discussions on the theme involved a dialogue between Pedagogy and the Philosophy of education based on the contributions of Saviani (2011, 2012), Kuhlmann Jr. (2015), Arroyo (2008, 2012, 2014), Kramer (2007, 2011), Oliveira-Formosinho (2007a, 2007b), Rancière (2015), Larrosa (2013, 2015), Kohan (2007, 2008, 2011) e Boff (2005, 2014). This work is a qualitative research of phenomenological inspiration, which the data creation methods were participant observation and narrative interviews. The study was carried out in a Center of Early Childhood Education (CEI) of the municipal network in Fortaleza. Two female teachers that work with five years old children were part of this research. The analyzes reveal that: in the interactions that occur in pedagogical practices, teachers and children take care of each other; the meaning of care for children can be perceived in the details of their daily actions as, in the affective involvement, in playing together, in speaking and listening to the other, in the sharing life on a daily basis; the meaning of care by the adult receives influence from the way he was cared for, from his subjectivities and from his choices of the traits and personality; care humanizes the teaching practices and inspires emancipation; teachers relate care to interactions, to coexistence, to the way of treating the other, to learning; the results policy that has been aiming the “improving of educational levels” may represent a danger to Early Childhood Education because it has been minimizing the sharing of specific childhood experiences to increase the training in order to achieve expected results. This study highlighted the need of thinking about on the meaning of education and proposes the valuing of “the way of being cared” as an ethical decision, as an option for reflection on the way of living and interacting.