O brincar como prática pedagógica : espaço/tempo de dissonâncias, resistências e possibilidades

Abstract

This thesis believes that play is a pedagogical need, a childhood right and an emancipatory praxis. It has pedagogical play as object of study, and as research question, it seeks to understand how Early Childhood Education teachers, who work with the pre-school segment, understand and incorporate playing as a pedagogical principle. After exploratory studies, bibliographic research and Pedagogical Action Research (PAPe, in Portuguese) (Franco, 2016a) which took place in an Early Childhood Education school (ECE/EI) located in the municipality of Praia Grande (SP), from august 2022 to July 2024, during the Collective Pedagogical Work Schedule (HTPC), with the participation of 15 teachers and one Pedagogic Technical Assistant (ATPs/PTAs), it sought to re-signify the participants' understanding of play as a pedagogical practice in ECE, with children aged 4 and 5, complemented by the specific objectives of understanding how teachers conceive play in their pedagogical practices, with children attending pre-school, and identifying conditions that are necessary for play to take place in schools as a pedagogical principle. These studies have had the following works and authors as the main theoretical support: Franco (2008; 2010; 2012a; 2012b; 2016a; 2016b; 2018a; 2018b; 2020), Freire (1996; 2011a; 2011b), hooks (2017; 2020), Sutton-Smith (2017), Kishimoto (1992; 1994; 2001; 2002a), Winnicott (2019), Malaguzzi (2016a; 2016b), Fortuna (2000; 2018; 2019a; 209b), Thiollent (2011), Barbier (2002), Betti (2013), Pimenta (2018). As a result, the research brought the perception of the need to broaden the theoretical reference in research on play in Brazil, as well as the need for continuous education and training that makes room for the articulation between theory and practice, dialogue, listening and reflection, and where the Pedagogical Work Schedule (HTPC) presented itself as a privileged moment for training. Understanding that pedagogical play is a space/time in which there are dissonances between what is necessary and what is possible, between real and ideal spaces and between goals and praxis, as well as resistance between goals and play, from the family, the system, among others that make it difficult for play to happen at school. In the end, it was possible to reassert the thesis that when teachers understand what they do, they change their practice, they recognize the possibilities through which play can bring for child development and incorporate pedagogical play into their practice.