Entre a geografia física, a formação de professores e a geografia escolar: abismos, pontes e caminhos

Abstract

Career and teacher education are continuously constructed, with the first experiences starting even in school as students, strengthening during university and throughout one's professional practice. Thus, the process of becoming a teacher encompasses an entire life trajectory. It is necessary to consider the teacher training process in such a way that the construction of professionalism and teaching knowledge is valued from university to practice in school, reflecting in fully aligned stages. Moreover, it is also urgent to understand how the initial education of Geography graduates contributes to their teaching and professional practice in physical geography and how this professional knowledge is fostered for this purpose. Therefore, our goal was to analyze the contribution of the initial education of Geography graduates, by the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), to the teaching practice focused on physical geography in schools. We started with reflections on the history of geography teaching and teacher education, as well as the construction of teaching knowledge and their practices, and the current reality of geography teacher education, considering the teaching of physical-natural themes. We relied on the dialectical method and a qualitative approach to analyze the current Pedagogical Political Project of the Geography Teaching Degree at UFBA, and on data collection regarding the initial education and professional practice among students and graduates of this program. We have observed that a fragmented education still persists between theory (geographical knowledge) and practice (practical-pedagogical knowledge), which affects teaching practice. This formative fragmentation also generates a distance from physical-natural themes, embedded in a detachment from the relationship between society and nature and from the lived reality. We conclude that it is necessary to promote a formative process aligned with School Geography so that there is overcoming of repeated problems in teaching geography in Basic Education and consequently valorization of teaching knowledge. Overcoming the many existing fragmentations within Geography will begin to occur when teacher education institutions recognize the importance of creating paths and bridges between school, university, and the many geographies produced within them. This will happen when, effectively, Basic Education teachers participate in this process. This is how the reflections and knowledge produced about society and nature and all teaching-learning about physical-natural themes can be profoundly enriched.