O brincar na Educação Infantil em uma escola do campo no Município de Humaitá-AM

Abstract

Early Childhood Education in Schools of rural communities is mandatory and depends on Brazilian legislation and a curriculum that reflects on the characteristics and needs of the people of the countryside. In this context, playing is a guaranteed right in child development in all spaces, addressed here especially in formal education. Therefore, this research, linked to the Group of Studies and Research on Early Childhood Education (Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisa da Educação Infantil –GEPEDIN) of the Graduate Program in Science and Humanities Teaching at the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), had as general objective to analyze how playing is present in the teachers’ lesson plans of Early Childhood Education at the Manoel de Oliveira Santos Municipal School, located in the Realidade community - BR 319 - Km 100, in the rural area of the municipality of Humaitá – Amazonas, Brazil. To achieve this purpose, the following specific objectives were outlined: to describe the construction process of Early Childhood Education and Education of rural communities; to identify playing in the teaching plan of the teacher of the Early Childhood Education classes at the Manoel de Oliveira Santos Municipal School; to analyze how playing is configured in the teachers’ lesson plans of an Early Childhood Education school. This is a case study whose research methodology adopted is characterized as qualitative, which used a structured questionnaire and dialogues with the subjects involved as data collection techniques: three teachers of Early Childhood Education (2019 and 2020), two school managers (2019 and 2020) and the school’s pedagogue (2019 and 2020) and also the Coordination of the Rural Area of the Municipal Education Secretariat. The results of the research show that playing is a child’s right in all spaces, and school is the child’s formal education space that needs to ensure that this right is respected. In addition, playing needs to happen only through playing, with no goals related to any content/proposal or skill to be developed. It was also identified that playing is part of the lesson plans of one of the investigated teachers, that there is intentionality in proposing the activities that added playing: games and playful activities, however playing just for playing has not yet been included in the proposed activities. It is noteworthy that the research involved a pandemic period of Covid-19 and, therefore, so that the training and pedagogical guidance for carrying out the plans could have interfered in the elaboration of activities, the professionals of the school of the rural community in the municipality of Humaitá would need continuing education focused on the specificities of children in Early Childhood Education.