Práticas de ensino religioso de docentes da educação infantil : tensões e possibilidades

Abstract

In this research, Religious Education (ER) practices were analyzed in order to identify tensions and possibilities present in the investigated processes. The question that guided the research was: What are the main challenges present in religious education practices of teachers of Child Education and what tensions and possibilities do they reveal? What motivated this study was the need felt by the researcher to understand the logics and meanings attributed to the ER practices developed by the teachers, subjects of the research, and to visualize ways of overcoming difficulties and deepening existing knowledge in relation to this research object. The authors used as reference to compose the theoretical framework necessary for the study were: Sérgio Junqueira, on the pluralistic perspective of Religious Education, and Paulo Freire, in relation to the fundamentals of a humanizing perspective of education. The qualitative research was carried out in a Catholic denominational school in the city of Santos, SP. To collect data from the research, a questionnaire with open questions was used, applied to 20 EI teachers of the investigated school, 2 semi-structured interviews were carried out, with 2 teachers from the same group, with the intention of deepening understandings, and examining documents as plans of the class produced by the teachers the Political-Pedagogical Project of the school. The collected data were analyzed in the light of the selected reference, in thematic axes that explain the understandings and practices of the participating teachers, and perspectives of the teacher education of ER carried out in the school with these educators. In the speeches of the subjects it was possible to identify that the comprehensions of ER of the participating teachers require deepening, towards a plural ER, and that considers the integrality of the human being. Dialogue is presented as a viable way to (re) construct ER understandings and practices, from this perspective, in school. The Political-Pedagogical Project (PPP) is shown as a valuable tool to guide conflict mediation, knowledge production and stimulate more active participation of teachers in the development of their ER practices. The data allowed us to observe that teachers' ER practices often advance in the use of different languages and stimulate interactions and exchanges among children, promoting the formation of values and a citizen education. However, reflections on the spiritual and transcendent dimension are still little approached with the children, for reasons that touch the initial formation and in service of the educators and tensions coming from different visions on the ER, by the teachers, the families, the managers and of the school itself. In this sense, it is necessary that the lesson plans be more discussed among the team, in the light of the PPP, pedagogical theories and the field of the ER, and that teachers have more guidance and encouragement to elaborate their own proposals, considering a ER plural and humanizer. The evidence produced speaks in favor of the need to advance in more critical understandings of the ER, admitting the potential of in-service teacher education for this task, not forgetting that this path is historical, includes progress and setbacks, lacks time, conditions, knowledge and practice.