Banca de DEFESA: CACIO ROMUALDO CONCEIÇÃO DA SILVA

TRAINING OF BLACK TEACHERS IN CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: EVERYDAY STORIES OF OPPRESSION AND INSURGENCE

Teacher training. Black teachers. Child education. Life stories.

The emergence of the first Brazilian preschool institutions, known as daycare centers, dates back to the mid-19th century and represented, at the time, the qualified provision of care for children whose mothers worked in “family homes” or in industries. Until the second half of the 20th Century, reflections and actions aimed at the field of “assistance” for poor and black children did not differ from trends at the end of the 19th Century, namely: management promoted by rich white women who, in the role of managers of “care” for poor black children, as well as their families, put into practice medical-hygienist, legal-police and religious methods. Only at the beginning of the 1980s did we begin to experience growing tensions and challenges directed at the traditional “attention” given to the educational process of poor (and black) children in our country. In the current context of knowledge production about Early Childhood Education, which involves the training of its teachers, it is necessary to think about the topic of Race Relations. We talk little about the historical construction of Early Childhood Education prior to the 1980s, and we also talk little about its teachers, the majority of whom are black and poor women who, despite having the minimum training guaranteed by law since the beginning of the 20th century, are subjected to training experiences and working conditions that are historically precarious and completely crossed by our patriarchal and racist capitalist tradition. Therefore, this research seeks to deepen the questions surrounding the topic. To this end, its general objective is to chronicle the biographical and educational paths of poor black Early Childhood Education teachers, in the dialogue between their narratives and the history of Education for the black population in Brazil. And as specific objectives, we have: a) Recover elements of the history of the construction, implementation and provision of Early Childhood Education in Brazil in light of gender, race and social class markers; b) Understand the emergency policy for training teachers in Early Childhood Education based on the ProInfantil and PARFOR Programs; c) Understand the training process aimed at black teachers and those belonging to the popular classes who work in Early Childhood Education, based on their narratives; d) Understand, based on the teachers' narratives, how the training process had/repercussions on the implementation of the reflections and pedagogical practices of black and poor teachers in their relationship with children and their families, also black and poor. The means used to achieve the aforementioned objectives are identified with the oral history method that participates in the construction of memories related to the teachers' life path and professional training, heard in the context of group meetings. The group included eight early childhood education teachers whose training in pedagogy began after joining PARFOR, an emergency training program for teachers who were already working in this condition, without training/diplomation to do so. The content from the field and its comparison for subsequent writing of the Thesis were theoretically articulated from an intersectional and materialist perspective, in which we sought to understand how aspects of gender, race and class were historically related to factors determining the possibilities or not of access for poor black women to teacher training in our country. By sharing their life and training stories with us, the teachers allowed us to access scams that seemed ancient, non-existent in our days. However, they also brought us closer to something that happens between them, in their relationships with other women, an effort that is often unnamed, sometimes yes, so that, disobediently, they do not remain in pre-established places, places already lived by many other women also black and poor. An effort to live the right to Education and teacher training in our country.