Encruzilhadas metodológicas: ensino de história da África e dos africanos nos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental

Abstract

Who is black in Brazil? This question raises several reflections on the population structure of Salvador, Bahia and Brazil and allows for a discussion of the characteristics of students enrolled in the network and, at the same time, the reflection of education professionals and starts the process of building methodologies for the insertion of the ethnic-racial theme in the curriculum. Law 10.639/2003, in the first paragraph, indicates the obligation to study the History of Africa and Africans. It is on this content that we focus this study, making a historical and geographic overview of the African Continent, in order to support teachers from the Initial Years of Elementary Education in broadening their vision of the plural, diverse African continent and its legacy of techniques and knowledge, in addition to its geopolitical division formatted after the colonization of the Continent by European countries. Our entire proposal for discussion is crossed by the study of curriculum. A curriculum that allows thinking about the History of Africa and Africans, beyond the stereotypes of hunger, development delay, poverty of the population and mineral resources, wars, etc., that is, just a negative view of it. This (re)construction of the curriculum, at school, involves an understanding of the complexity of the issues that involve it, of the teachers' choices, of the needs to cross-cut the themes. The research methodology is a predominantly qualitative approach, inspired by the assumptions of Action Research, having as a method of procedure the Training Research carried out in three schools of the Municipal Education Network of Salvador in the segment of the Initial Years of Elementary Education. From the projects developed in the schools participating in the research, and in a process of collective construction and training of teachers, it led us to include some African peoples in the curriculum. These elements were taken to the daily life of the school in various activities in the many so curriculum components and in the culmination of projects. Finally, we proposed paths, clues, indications and proposals about the construction of a curriculum that addresses the theme of African and African History, transversally to the mandatory content of the Initial Years of Elementary School (1st to 5th year). These reflections led to the construction of the Municipal Curriculum Framework for Education in Ethnic-Racial Relations in Salvador.