ABSTRACT:

The paper discusses the themes of education and teaching-learning processes throughout life, taking as a cutout, racial relations in the contexts of Youth and Adult Education (EJA) in Brazil, considering what determines Law 10,639/03. This is an exploratory-descriptive study, with a mixed approach that associates the analysis of indicators, bibliographic research and the document al., as well as data from two experiences in the EJA. The results reveal that the EJA because it is constituted mainly by blacks and blacks, can be understood as an affirmative action, which seeks to correct distortions and repair historical injustices. It points out as a pedagogical proposal for teaching and meaningful learning the association between afrobetization and literacies of (re) existences.

Keywords:
Afrobetization; Literacies of (Re) Existence; Youth and Adult Education

RESUMO:

O trabalho discute as temáticas de educação e processos de ensino-aprendizagem ao longo da vida, tomando como recorte as relações raciais nos contextos da Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA) no Brasil, considerando o que determina a Lei 10.639/03. Trata-se de um estudo de caráter exploratório-descritivo, com abordagem mista que associa a análise de indicadores, a pesquisa bibliográfica e a pesquisa documental, além de dados de duas experiências na EJA. Os resultados revelam que a EJA por ser constituída majoritariamente por negros e negras, pode ser entendida como uma ação afirmativa, que busca corrigir distorções e reparar injustiças históricas. Aponta como proposta pedagógica para o ensino e a aprendizagem significativa a associação entre afrobetização e letramentos de (re) existências.

Palavras-chave:
Afrobetização; Letramentos de (Re) Existências; Educação de Jovens e Adultos

Introduction

The actions of teaching and learning have moved philosophers, pedagogues, psychologists, sociologists, linguists for a long time, which has been causing the appearance of different conceptions, concepts and perspectives, including numerous research and studies in the intention of understanding and developing with success of these human actions. Emmanuel Kant (1974, p. 11)KANT, Emmanuel. Réflexions sur l’Éducation. 2. ed. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1974. in his work Réflexions sur l’Éducation states that one must learn to think. For this philosopher, “[...] l’éducation est le plus grand et le plus difficile problème qui puisse être proposé à l’homme”¹ 1 Education is the biggest and most difficult problem that can be offered to man. , ie education is the largest and most difficult problem that can be proposed to man. Precisely because education results in the experience of all humanity, it excludes the possibility of a perfect education. For Kant (1974)KANT, Emmanuel. Réflexions sur l’Éducation. 2. ed. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1974., every education as an individual’s education will always be an unfinished, incomplete experience. Freire (2001)FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Esperança: um reencontro com a Pedagogia do Oprimido. 8. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 2001. also uses this image of incompleteness when referring to man as an incomplete, unfinished being. After this definition of education, we must first discuss what we understand by teaching, what it is to teach and what we understand by learning, what learning is.

Learning, for Freire (2015)FREIRE, Paulo; MACEDO, Donaldo. Alfabetização: leitura de mundo, leitura da palavra. Tradução: Lólio Lourenço de Oliveira. 7. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 2015. in his Pedagogy of Autonomy is the constant search for growth by the individual who seeks his personal satisfaction. From freirean perspective “[...] learning happens when it enriches life, instrumentalizes it and directs it to new knowledge content”, say Vasconcelos and Brito (2011, p. 46)VASCONCELOS, Maria Lúcia C.; BRITO, Regina Helena P. de. Conceitos de Educação em Paulo Freire. 5. ed. Petrópolis; São Paulo: Editora Vozes; Mack Pesquisa, Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa, 2011.. In turn, teaching, for this author, involves a dialogical and active process of which educator and educating participate. To Vasconcelos and Brito (2011, p. 74)VASCONCELOS, Maria Lúcia C.; BRITO, Regina Helena P. de. Conceitos de Educação em Paulo Freire. 5. ed. Petrópolis; São Paulo: Editora Vozes; Mack Pesquisa, Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa, 2011. “[...] teaching requires the conviction that change is possible.”

Teaching does not exist without learning and it was learning socially that, historically, men and women discovered that it was possible to teach. It was thus, socially learning, that over time women and men realized that it was possible, then, to work ways, paths, teaching methods (Freire, 2015FREIRE, Paulo; MACEDO, Donaldo. Alfabetização: leitura de mundo, leitura da palavra. Tradução: Lólio Lourenço de Oliveira. 7. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 2015., p. 25-26).

Teaching does not mean transferring knowledge, but creating possibilities of building this knowledge by the student, providing the other with the critical perception of the reality that surrounds it, from the Frerian perspective, as Vasconcelos and Brito allude (2011)VASCONCELOS, Maria Lúcia C.; BRITO, Regina Helena P. de. Conceitos de Educação em Paulo Freire. 5. ed. Petrópolis; São Paulo: Editora Vozes; Mack Pesquisa, Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa, 2011.. The interconnection between teaching and learning is admitted by several authors and it is a constant concern of educators whether what is taught is being learned by the students. For Freire, “[...] teaching is diluted in the founding experience of learning” (Freire, 2015FREIRE, Paulo; MACEDO, Donaldo. Alfabetização: leitura de mundo, leitura da palavra. Tradução: Lólio Lourenço de Oliveira. 7. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 2015., p. 26).

According to Vaillant and Marcelo García (2012, p. 53)VAILLANT, Denise; MARCELO GARCÍA, Carlos. Ensinando a Ensinar: as quatro etapas de uma aprendizagem. Curitiba: Ed. UTFPR, 2012. “[...] acts of teaching are part of everyday human activity. Consciously or unconsciously we develop, as adults, thousands of acts in which we help others [...] to learn”. These acts always leave marks on our memory, life story, in our biography.

Based on Confessore (2002)CONFESSORE, Gary. Le Profil d’Autonomie l’Apprenant: résultats d’une étude de validation. In: CARRÈ, Philippe; MOISAN, André (Ed.). La Formation Autodirigiée. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002. P. 117-131. , the authors mentioned above present a concept of autonomy of the adult subject in the learning process. According to them, there are two opposite poles and an intermediate pole in different learning experiences: the pole of dysfunctional dependence of the apprentice, which is characterized by the demotivation in learning if it does not have the help or direction of another person; the pole of the dysfunctional independence of the apprentice, which is understood as the demotivation of accepting the help or guidance of other; the intermediate pole, which would be the functional autonomy of the apprentice translated as “[...] the ability and motivation to participate in the selection and experimentation of learning in which the person can advance alone or in contact with others” (Vaillant; Marcelo García, 2012VAILLANT, Denise; MARCELO GARCÍA, Carlos. Ensinando a Ensinar: as quatro etapas de uma aprendizagem. Curitiba: Ed. UTFPR, 2012., p. 37-38). These authors admit that there is a consensus that learning processes are increasingly autonomous, in which teachers play the role of facilitators of teaching and not mere exhibitors or content transmitters.

The main objective of this article is to discuss the themes of education and teaching-learning processes throughout life, in the intention of presenting some concepts of learning and teaching, afrobetization and literacy from the educational perspective, aiming at to provide knowledge and clarification on these constructs.

This article comprises five sections in which some concepts of teaching, meaningful learning, afrobetization, literacy based on different theorists are contributed, among them Freire (1992FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Esperança: um reencontro com a Pedagogia do Oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 1992.; 2001FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Esperança: um reencontro com a Pedagogia do Oprimido. 8. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 2001.; 2015)FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 51. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 2015., Arroyo (2006)ARROYO, Miguel. Formar Educadoras e Educadores de Jovens e Adultos. In: SOARES, Leôncio. Formação de Educadores de Jovens e Adultos. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica; SECAD-MEC; UNESCO, 2006. P. 17-32., Charlot (2005)CHARLOT, Bernard. Relação com o Saber, Formação dos Professores e Globalização: questões para a educação hoje. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2005., Kant (1974)KANT, Emmanuel. Réflexions sur l’Éducation. 2. ed. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1974.. Vaillant and Garcia (2012)VAILLANT, Denise; MARCELO GARCÍA, Carlos. Ensinando a Ensinar: as quatro etapas de uma aprendizagem. Curitiba: Ed. UTFPR, 2012., Soares (1998)SOARES, Magda Becker. Letramento: um tema em três gêneros. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 1998. . It rescues two research experiences conducted in a public school network with young and adult students and offers some clues for a better understanding of the theme under study in the modality of basic education, the EJA.

Methodological Paths

This is an exploratory-descriptive work, with a mixed (qualitative and quantitative) approach that used as procedures the survey and analysis of some indicators and documentary analysis as a data production strategy. The construction of this article was based on bibliographic research with the contribution of some data and information and their analysis. There is also the insertion of relevant data from two investigations carried out with young people and adults in the context of teaching and learning. Thus, in order to illustrate and enrich the analysis about the teaching and learning constructs, some perceptions of students and teachers of the EJA school and their analysis on these topics studied were inserted.

The results were interpreted through inferences and the description of the main results of the studies that address the central categories of the research, such as: Afrobetization, Literacy of (re) existences, Teaching, Meaningful Learning and EJA in order to point out, from the association of these concepts, an innovative pedagogical proposal that concerns the association between afrobetization and literacies of (re) existences for teaching and meaningful learning in the EJA.

Scenario of Illiteracy and EJA in Brazil and Bahia

The high rates of illiteracy are still a dilemma to be overcome in Brazil, as shown in Figure 1 that presents illiteracy rates by groups of age, gender, color or race. Despite the guideline 1 (art. 2°, item I), and goal 9 of the National Education Plan (2014-2024), established through Law No. 13,005/14 (Brasil, 2014), establish the eradication of absolute illiteracy until 2024, this is still a theme that challenges the country’s educational authorities and institutions. According to IBGE, in 2018 there were 11.3 million people aged 15 years or older considered illiterate, which corresponds to a rate of 6.8% of the total population in this age group. This rate rises if the universe of people aged 60 years or older is considered, reaching a percentage of 18.6% of the researched group equivalent to almost 6 million illiterate among Brazilian elderly people.

For the purpose of this article, it is noteworthy that in the last year 9.1% of the illiterate Brazilians declared themselves black or brown. This trend increases in the age group of 60 years or more, where the presence of 27.5% of black people was observed, although this rate has a reduction of 3.2 percentage points compared to previous years. This phenomenon cannot be interpreted disassociated from the colonial past experienced in Brazil with a historical heritage of exclusion of black people from formal education.

Figure 2 presents the states of Brazil with their respective illiteracy rates. The data from the map above point to Bahia as one of the states that presented one of the highest illiteracy rates reaching almost 13% of the country’s total illiterate in 2018, representing 1,538,293 people aged 15 years or older who cannot read or write. Considering that this state is composed of 82% (IBGE, 2018a) of the black population, it is inferred that the public potential to be received in the educational system through the EJA modality is predominantly composed of black people.

It is perceived in this scenario presented, the reproduction of a historical trend, which concerns the absence of the black population and its legacies in the conventional education system in Brazil. This stems from the practice of racism as a structural element of reproduction of inequalities in Brazilian society, building obstacles to access to formal education and also forging a model of education with epistemic bases influenced by Eurocentric knowledge which misrepresents the real knowledge of the history of black people in Brazil and Africa. It is worth remembering that in the post-slavery the presence of the black body and its civilization values were rejected elements in the school space. In this context, black people were forbidden to learn to read and write, because of the danger of education which facilitated rebellions, insurgency and disobediences (Souza, J., 2011SOUZA, Jessé. A Ralé Brasileira: quem é e como vive. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2011. ). Such historical markers can still be perceived these days by demanding reparation measures as a way to correct injustices.

The Continuous Annual Survey on Household Sample reveals that in 2018, 831,000 students enrolled in the EJA of elementary school were recorded. Of this amount, 51.4% were men and 73.7% of people declared themselves black or brown. In the EJA of high school, the majority of the public is made up of women (51.4 %), and the presence of self-declared black and brown people (65.7%) is predominant.

Given this national and state scenario, a double trend that portray, on the one hand, that black people are the majority among the illiterates of the country and, on the other, that the EJA has predominance of black population. Thus, for the guarantee of social justice, the exercise of inclusive and active citizenship, a model of anti-racist education is defended for this modality as a way for the practice of recognizing rights through an education for diversities. This fact permeates the defense of a liberating, critical, decolonial² 2 The so-called colonization of knowledge is the product of a historical process of coloniality that continued the economic, political, cognitive, existence, relationship with nature, etc., forged in the colonial period (Wynter, 2003). Therefore, the relevance of decolonial studies in bringing the centrality of race as an alternative to the policy of forgetfulness and silencing. and emancipatory pedagogy and involves the commitment of democratic educational institutions, public agents, managers, teachers, students and all subjects directly or indirectly involved with the production and reproduction of school daily life. According to Arroyo (2006, p. 28-29)ARROYO, Miguel. Formar Educadoras e Educadores de Jovens e Adultos. In: SOARES, Leôncio. Formação de Educadores de Jovens e Adultos. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica; SECAD-MEC; UNESCO, 2006. P. 17-32.:

From this picture, the following problem is situated: considering the predominance of black people in the universe of the EJA and recognizing the need to implement an anti-racist education, the question is: how can someone think about innovative pedagogical strategies aimed at a significant learning of these subjects? The EJA is located, as a modality of basic education, which must guarantee the constitutional right of access to school education, to individuals belonging to the working class, who, for reasons often related to the material production of existence, were deprived of this right in conventional time. Now they seek, in addition to access, a permanent and significant learning. It starts from the premise that the EJA, as it represents a universe of predominantly black subjects, can be understood as an Affirmative Action, considering its double meaning linked to the restorative and equalizing function in the ethnic-racial dimension, allied to the socio-educational dimension of inclusion of a historically excluded and subalternized universe.

Affirmative action in democratic societies, as in the case of Brazilian society, are the result of the historic struggle of black people for reparation in a scenario of disputes over justice, social inclusion and recognition of diversities, from the conquest of human rights and the grammar of the contemporary citizenship. Therefore, affirmative actions are situated in the context of positive discrimination, as a guaranteeing means of equity and social justice within republican societies.

Among the policies of affirmative actions existing in Brazil, Law 10,639/03 (Brasil, 2003) that changed the Law of Guidelines and Bases (LDB) (Brasil, 1996), represented an important achievement of the Brazilian black movement, since it instituted the mandatory teaching of African history and culture and Afro-Brazilian and served, as the basis for other complementary normative documents, which as a whole obliges, defines and guides the implementation of ethnic-racial relations education throughout the country’s basic education. According to Article 2- §4 of CNE/CP Resolution 1/2004 (Brasil, 2004) which becomes part of the Parecer CNE/CP 03/2004 establishing the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Education of Ethnic-Racial Relations and for the Teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture,

[…] educational systems should encourage research on educational processes guided by values, worldview, Afro-Brazilian knowledge, alongside research of the same nature with indigenous peoples, with the objective of expansion and strengthening theoretical bases for Brazilian education and the articulation between education systems, higher education institutions, research centers, Afro-Brazilian study centers, schools, communities and social movements, aiming at the training of teachers for ethnic-racial diversity (Brasil, 2009BRASIL. Ministério da Educação. Plano Nacional de Implementação das Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação das Relações Étnico-raciais e para o Ensino de História e Cultura Afro-brasileira e Africana. Brasília: Ministério da Educação; SECAD; SEPPIR, 2009., p. 32).

It is observed that the guidelines provide for the need for articulation between different teaching modalities as a way to strengthen the production of knowledge in this thematic field. It also values the teaching-learning processes committed to a model of emancipatory education aimed at diversity, and that involves the ethical-political engagement of the subjects of education. The text of the guidelines was complemented, five years after its publication, by the National Plan for implementing the National Curriculum Guidelines and for the Education of Ethnic-Racial Relations, and for the Teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture, as quoted below:

This National Plan aims to collaborate so that the entire education system and educational institutions comply with legal determinations to address all forms of prejudice, racism and discrimination to ensure the right to learning and educational equity in order to promote a fairer and more solidary society (Brasil, 2009BRASIL. Ministério da Educação. Plano Nacional de Implementação das Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação das Relações Étnico-raciais e para o Ensino de História e Cultura Afro-brasileira e Africana. Brasília: Ministério da Educação; SECAD; SEPPIR, 2009., p. 23).

The set of legal provision (law, opinion and resolution) constitutes the normative basis that underlies the policy of affirmative action and the education of ethnic-racial relations in the country. It provides the theoretical and methodological elements for a contextualized pedagogical practice, in favor of affirmative actions in the direction of the correction of historical injustices that incur the black population. However, it should be recognized that the applicability of such references still represents an achievement to be pursued, since racial debate does not yet happen in the daily routine of the curricula practiced. So, it is necessary to put into practice strategies, plans, curricular designs, projects and actions that make effective the legal precept of education as a social right and include in it the right to difference (Gomes, 2011GOMES, Nilma Lino. Diversidade étnico-racial, inclusão e equidade na educação brasileira: desafios, políticas e práticas. Revista Brasileira de Política e Administração da Educação, Brasília, v. 27, n. 1, p. 109-121, jan./abr. 2011.).

Decolonial pedagogical praxis is the practice of pedagogy of autonomy, since it exercises epistemic disobedience (Mignolo, 2008MIGNOLO, Walter. Desobediência Epistêmica: a opção descolonial e o significado de identidade em política. Cadernos de Letras da UFF, Niterói, n. 34, p. 287-324, 2008. ) as a strategy for decolonization, enabling the subject the power to decide on the constructions that affects him. Thinking about such strategies and seeking to respond to the central problem of this study, this article proposes the development of Afrobetization practices and Literacies of (Re) existences as a viable strategy for meaningful learning in EJA in Bahia.

Afrobetization and Literacies (Re)existences in the EJA

It is understood that the literacy of young people, adults and the elderly, is a fundamental stage of the schooling process, without which it becomes unfeasible to project a model of democratic, just and inclusive society.

By entering this mode of education, the subjects enjoy a right that allows them to access the cultural goods produced from a system of knowledge, values and socially legitimized practices.

The Fifth International Conference on Adult Education promoted in 1997, in Hamburg, Germany, provided an important document called the Hamburg Declaration, in which it expresses the importance of lifelong learning (UNESCO, 1997). It is about offering men and women, young people and adults lifelong continuing education opportunities as a founding human right. In Article 11 of this statement, which deals with adult literacy It recommends that:

Literacy, conceived as basic knowledge and skills needed for everyone in a rapidly changing world, is a fundamental human right. Throughout society, literacy is a primordial skill in itself and one of the pillars for the development of other skills. There are millions of people - mostly women - who don’t have the opportunity to learn even to appropriate that right. The challenge is to offer them that right. This implies creating preconditions for the learning through awareness and empowerment. Literacy is also a catalyst for participation in social, cultural, political and economic activities, and for lifelong learning (UNESCO, 1997UNESCO. Adult Education: the Hamburg declaration: the agenda for the future. Hamburgo: UNESCO, 1997. Disponível em: <https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000116114>. Acesso em: 22 ago. 2019.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf... , p. 5).

The act of literacy is a political process. It is materialized through a dynamic and broad movement and should, for this reason, be understood from the socio-cultural practices and memories (historical and particular) of the subjects involved, be they oral practices or written, reproduced inside or outside the school environment, and should not be restricted to the mechanical perspective of the mastery of techniques, skills, or reading and writing use capabilities (Tfouni; Monte-Serrat; Bueno Martha, 2014TFOUNI, Leda Verdiani; MONTE-SERRAT, Dionéia Mota; MARTHA-TONETO, Diana Junkes Bueno. A Abordagem Histórica do Letramento: ecos da memória na atualidade. Scripta, Belo Horizonte, v. 17, n. 32, p. 19-44, 2014.). Therefore, literacy and letters mastery can be understood as paths that complement each other for the rescue and recognition of the cultural subject, where he can perceive himself and discover himself in interactions with each other, considering a contextualized reality that is his own.

[...] we are worth a concept of literacy that transcends its etymological content. That is, literacy cannot be reduced to the mere deal with letters and words, as a purely mechanical sphere. We need to go beyond this rigid understanding of literacy and begin to see it as the relationship between students and the world, which takes place precisely in the environment in which students move (Freire; Macedo, 2015FREIRE, Paulo; MACEDO, Donaldo. Alfabetização: leitura de mundo, leitura da palavra. Tradução: Lólio Lourenço de Oliveira. 7. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 2015., p. 9).

The idea of Afrobetizar is recent. It emerged from a social intervention project, coordinated by psychologist Vanessa Andrade, with black children from the communities of Cantagalo and Pavão-Pavãozinho, located in the south of Rio de Janeiro. The purpose of the project is to foster pedagogical practices that stimulate the protagonism and appreciation of black people. According to Andrade (2015)ANDRADE, Vanessa. Afrobetizar a Educação no Brasil. São Paulo: Portal Geledés, 2015. Disponível em: <https://www.geledes.org.br/afrobetizar-a-educacao-no-brasil/>. Acesso em: 19 jul. 2019.
https://www.geledes.org.br/afrobetizar-a...

In order to build other pedagogies, considering Afro-Brazilian and African culture, the term Afrobetization emerged from the need to foster critical reflection of the condition of the black population in the social structure. It tries to promote educational measures aimed at the emancipation of the subjects through the recognition and self-knowledge of themselves from what is their own, in order to be socially inserted into the condition of citizen through empowerment (Justino; Roberto, 2014JUSTINO, Gessica; ROBERTO Frank Wilson. Afrobetizar: Uma Possibilidade de Ação Educativa a partir da Afirmação e Fortalecimento da Negritude em Comunidades. Revista UFG, Goiânia, v. 15, n. 15, dez. 2014.). This way:

Afrobetizar became a proposal whose intention was to provide experiences where the perception of being black, could become associated to something naturally positive. It was necessary to literate the children in blackness so that they could talk about their lives as black children with less aggression and more affection. To this end, we had in our favor the Will to Do and Law 10.693/03 (Justinu; Roberto, 2014JUSTINO, Gessica; ROBERTO Frank Wilson. Afrobetizar: Uma Possibilidade de Ação Educativa a partir da Afirmação e Fortalecimento da Negritude em Comunidades. Revista UFG, Goiânia, v. 15, n. 15, dez. 2014., p. 101).

According to this methodological proposal, all forms of expression should be added to the teaching-learning process, making the preparation of participating and active classes through horizontal communication of appreciation of themselves and the other. Under this bias, the production of knowledge happens in a shared way, respecting the multiple intelligences where the educator proposes and also allows the student to bring information about his daily life and insert them into the activity. The daily life and historical-cultural context of each one constitutes a reference point for educational action.

It starts from themes that has as its starting point some elements of local reality and this is unfolded to many possibilities: From ‘funk’ we arrived to ‘jongo’, which led to the rhyme that linked to ‘rap’, which discovered ‘the repente’. From the ‘passinho’ to the ‘frevo’, which mixed with ‘capoeira’ movements that suddenly arrives at the ‘mineiro pau’ and connects again with the ‘passinho’ (Justino; Roberto, 2014JUSTINO, Gessica; ROBERTO Frank Wilson. Afrobetizar: Uma Possibilidade de Ação Educativa a partir da Afirmação e Fortalecimento da Negritude em Comunidades. Revista UFG, Goiânia, v. 15, n. 15, dez. 2014., p. 103).

The pedagogical strategies which are developed go from popular dance classes, “capoeira angola” to chat groups, rhymes, dramatized reading, drawing, painting and graffiti on the streets, as happened in the experience of the Museum in Favela (MUF), which became a reference tourist space of the city. This way, each one feels integrated from his reality, and through the interaction they become protagonists of learning. This movement is flexible and changeable according to the demands generated in shared experiences (Andrade, 2015ANDRADE, Vanessa. Afrobetizar a Educação no Brasil. São Paulo: Portal Geledés, 2015. Disponível em: <https://www.geledes.org.br/afrobetizar-a-educacao-no-brasil/>. Acesso em: 19 jul. 2019.
https://www.geledes.org.br/afrobetizar-a... ).

It is argued in this study that Afrobetization should be adapted and implemented in the various contexts of the EJA, as a way to ensure a decolonial pedagogical practice based on an education model anti-racist, especially considering that in the case of the state of Bahia, this universe is mostly composed of subjects of black people’s rights. This route associated with the literacy practices of (re) existences composes an innovative way of enabling meaningful teaching-learning pedagogical processes. This alternative is combined with the literacy method and the proposal of culture circles developed by Paulo Freire (1981)FREIRE, Paulo. Ação Cultural para a Liberdade. 5. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1981., for whom world reading precedes the reading of the word.

The valorization of the culture of literacies becomes central to this method. Culture circles as didactic resources allow the overcoming of formalism and curricular rigidity, aiming to provide the indispensable conditions for its members - students and educators - to feel familiar in the discussion of meaningful themes of mutual interest, without being previously prefixed by a static curriculum regulation. These resources enable cognitive effervescence around the problems inherent to a common cultural context, leading participants to critical reflection about the spontaneity of their daily attitudes (Freire, 1981FREIRE, Paulo. Ação Cultural para a Liberdade. 5. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1981.). In the contexts of the EJA this practice should not only be considered, but also be served as a means for enabling the afrobetization process associated with the literacy of (re) existences.

Thus, the subjects of the EJA engage in a pedagogical proposal liberating the ties of structural racism so striking for this universe and allow themselves to be mutual learning, through communion and sharing, aimed at the production of a critical consciousness, without disregarding the elements of African and Afro-Brazilian culture, weaving educational contexts of resistance to “[...] cultural invasion” (Freire, 1987FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do Oprimido. 10. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 1987., p. 49), and Eurocentrism still dominant in curricula and pedagogical practices.

For Freire (1987)FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do Oprimido. 10. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 1987., this dialectical movement of problematization and cultural synthesis enables students to awaken the authentic creativity generated in awareness-raising and humanization practices, allowing disruption with cultural hierarchies that legitimate social segmentation and under-alternization of the subjects. As a consequence, formal and technical aspects, which correspond to thematic research, coding, decoding, syllabic decomposition, among others, must intentionally be at the service of the humanization process, as stages to be discovered in the educational praxis itself (Peroza; Silva, Silva; Akkari, 2013PEROZA, Juliano; SILVA, Camila Pompeu; AKKARI, Abdeljalil. Paulo Freire e a Diversidade Cultural: Um Humanismo Político-Pedagógico para a transculturalidade na Educação. Revista Reflexão e Ação, Santa Cruz do Sul, v. 21, n. 2, p.461-481, jul./dez. 2013.).

In the construction of significant learning strategies in the EJA, cultural belonging and the valorization of identity roots should be considered as a starting point of the teaching-learning process. Only this way it is possible to consider the various practices of use of the language of this public, often synonymous with resistance, as well as subservience, also culturally elaborated as a form of historical resignation, to ensure their survival in the face of cultural domination³ 3 [...] Epistemic racism/sexism is one of the most important problems in the contemporary world. The epistemic privilege of Western men over the knowledge produced by other political and geopolitical bodies of knowledge has generated not only cognitive injustice, but that has been one of the mechanisms used to privilege imperial/colonial/patriarchal projects in the world [...] (Grosfoguel, 2016, p. 25). .

But the slave past is not only exhausted in the experience of the almighty lord who orders and threatens, and the humiliated slave who ‘obeys’ not to die, but in the relationship between them. And it is exactly obeying not to die that the slave ends up discovering that ‘obey’, in his case, is a form of struggle, to the extent that, assuming such behavior, the slave survives. And it is by learning it that you are founding a culture of resistance, full of ‘tricks’, but dreams too. In rebellion, in an apparent accommodation (Freire, 1992FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Esperança: um reencontro com a Pedagogia do Oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 1992., p. 55).

Soares (1998)SOARES, Magda Becker. Letramento: um tema em três gêneros. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 1998. argues that literacy is needed. For the purpose of this study, mechanisms of afrobetizing assocated to literacy of (re) existences are defended. It means to learn reading and writing critically and consciously of your place as an emancipated historical-cultural subject. Then, it points to a methodological orientation centered on the literacy based on the affirmation of the history(ies), identity(ies), African, and Afro-Brazilian cultures as a strategy of (re) existence, awareness and Humanization. This methodological orientation is extremely important when it comes to the EJA and reinforces the vision of this collective as historical subjects.

Teaching and Learning in the EJA: two experiences under analysis

Charlot (2005)CHARLOT, Bernard. Relação com o Saber, Formação dos Professores e Globalização: questões para a educação hoje. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2005., when conducting a survey with adult students, warns that for some students learning is to do what the teacher says, to obey, to listen and to repeat. He argues that “[...] the relationship with knowledge and school is a social relationship” (Charlot, 2005CHARLOT, Bernard. Relação com o Saber, Formação dos Professores e Globalização: questões para a educação hoje. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2005., p. 53). It is a relationship built between dominator (teacher) and dominated (student), in which the subject interprets his position of dominated and tries to produce a sense of world.

According to this author, for the student to appropriate the knowledge “[...] he must have, at the same time, the desire to know and the desire to learn” (Charlot, 2005CHARLOT, Bernard. Relação com o Saber, Formação dos Professores e Globalização: questões para a educação hoje. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2005., p. 55). In turn, to teach with a view to the student’s success, teachers need to build an effective intellectual activity that obeys certain norms, that is interesting and that awakens meaning to students, that is, the desire to know, so that knowledge is produced.

Dantas (1996)DANTAS, Tânia Regina. Educação de Adultos: um projeto de aperfeiçoamento das práticas pedagógicas. Revista da FAEEBA, ano 5, n. 5, p. 101-126, jan./jun. 1996., in his work about the results of an action research with teachers and students of the (EJA) who worked in nine schools in the public school system, supports an analysis of pedagogical practice by inciting the subjects of research what knowledge is, what teaching is, and what earning is as one learns, among other issues. Considering the students’ answers, the author points out that students’ conception of knowledge also goes through the question of acquiring wisdom and, as we saw earlier in this article, it agrees with Charlot’s position (2005)CHARLOT, Bernard. Relação com o Saber, Formação dos Professores e Globalização: questões para a educação hoje. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2005..

For EJA students investigated by Charlot (2005, p. 119)CHARLOT, Bernard. Relação com o Saber, Formação dos Professores e Globalização: questões para a educação hoje. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2005. “[...] to know is to dialogue, is to live together, is to observe.” On mentioning some data from his research, Dantas clarifies that

Students claim that there is only knowledge of ‘something’ that would be the object (10.4%) of our knowledge. [...]. The students replied that you know only ‘when you put your head to work’ (4.2 %) and when you have an object to be known. They also add that to know they have to ‘be curious’, they need to ‘investigate’ (6.3%) to be informed (4.2%) (Dantas, 1996DANTAS, Tânia Regina. Educação de Adultos: um projeto de aperfeiçoamento das práticas pedagógicas. Revista da FAEEBA, ano 5, n. 5, p. 101-126, jan./jun. 1996., p. 119-120).

Students’ conceptions also address the issue of knowledge, accompanied by concerning for learning. This finding fits perfectly with the specificities of EJA’s student, who has a rich life experience, and expects practical results and possibilities of immediate application in the world of work that he learns at school. In this regard, Ventura (2012, p. 76)VENTURA, Jaqueline. A EJA e os Desafios da Formação Docente nas Licenciaturas. Revista da FAEEBA, Salvador, v. 21, n. 37, p.71-82, jan./jun. 2012. clarifies that “[...] EJA learners bring some specific peculiarities of their audience, [...] have significant experience and relationship with the world of work”.

Charlot (2005)CHARLOT, Bernard. Relação com o Saber, Formação dos Professores e Globalização: questões para a educação hoje. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2005. points out that the conceptions of teachers about learning in this research concern: doing, creating, exercising, observing, experimenting, communicating, participating, engaging, analyzing and drawing conclusions, reading and writing, living, studying, among others, to promote student learning. Knowing and teaching are closely related to acting, with actions that can be developed by the teacher. These data and information denote the complexity of the act of teaching and learning, which depend on the acquisition of various competencies by the teacher, his political commitment to the subjects of the EJA, the relationship with the knowledge that is established between teachers and students, as well as the desire to learn from these students.

Lettering of Re(Existences)

African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture, as recommended by the legal provisions of affirmative action (law, opinion and resolution), should be the starting and arrival point of learning teaching processes directed to the public of the EJA. It represents the key to understanding the socio cultural practices that these subjects reproduce.

Thus, it is defended that the central idea of this study is the articulation between educational practices of afrobetization and literacies of (re) existences, as an innovative fundamental strategy for the guarantee of anti-racist educational praxis in the EJA.

The concept of literacy of (re) existences as well as that of afrobetization is also recent. It was developed by Souza (2009SOUZA, Ana Lúcia Silva. Letramentos de Re-existências: culturas e identidades no movimento hip hop. 2009. Tese (Doutorado em Linguística Aplicada) - Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2009.; 2011)SOUZA, Ana Lúcia Silva. Letramentos de Re-existências: Poesia, Grafite, Música, Dança: Hip-Hop. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial, 2011. in his studies on youths and hip-hop culture, observing literacy activities (poetry, gestures, speeches, readings, writings, images) reproduced by black youth of the peripheries in extramural contexts of the school. Observing the forms of sociability of this audience in their communities of belonging, the author found in the cultural movement of hip hop, a significant literacy agency.

The liberating educational practices directed to the universe of the EJA should seek to recognize and include the socio cultural contexts of the subjects, as well as their multiple uses of language and their multiple experiences and forms of belonging, as a way to ensure meaningful and affirmative learning. In this dynamics of association between afrobetization and literacy of (re) existence for a significant learning, it should be considered that all cultural production of the black people belonging to the EJA, already represents the culture of resistance⁴ 4 Nascimento (2002, p. 264) advocates the need for a plurirracial democracy linked to the idea of quilombism as (re)existence, expressed as “[...] human, ethnic and cultural affirmation” in which black populations, through the practice of liberation, take command of their own history. , woven in the midst of the respect for traditions and ancestry, in a double movement of negotiation and conflict, which combines submissions, transgressions, exchanges, ruptures and subversions, i.e. existence strategies in the face of subalternizations and dehumanizations. An education for liberating racial relations, based on this pedagogical strategy, claims in the process of schooling the valorization of culture and black bodies, as well as their social practices and their languages based on tradition (orality, musicality, dance, poetry, images, sounds, religiosity, writing, reading, among others). These are forms of ethnic-cultural belonging that carry in their multiple literacies associated with the various domains of life (Souza, A., 2011SOUZA, Jessé. A Ralé Brasileira: quem é e como vive. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2011. , p. 42).

Afrobetization and literacy of (re) existences represent a single movement that allows the exercise of collective learning and it is shared from the recognition and appreciation of the world reading of each subject, allowing, from this point on, that they may experience, in the inter-subjective interactions, awareness in a significant and transformative action. It allows re-readings, affirmations and valuations of ethnic identities, gender, sexuality, policies, among others.

It is proposed, in the educational and affirmative strategies directed to the black people of the EJA, to recognize forms of significant learning constituting social identities generated in non-school spaces via afrobetization processes and literacies of (re) existences.

The dimension of meaningful learning⁵ 5 Tavares (2004), when analyzing Ausubel’s theory of meaningful learning, highlights three essential requirements in this process: the offer of a new logically structured knowledge; the existence of knowledge in the cognitive structure that enables its connection with new knowledge; the explicit attitude of apprehending and connecting your knowledge with the one you want to absorb. When meaningful learning is given, the learner transforms the logical meaning of the pedagogical material into psychological significance, as this content is peculiarly inserted in its cognitive structure, and each person has a specific way of making this insertion, which becomes this attitude an idiosyncratic process. is articulated with the proposal of afrobetization and literacy of (re) existences to the extent that the technical and mechanical perspective of banking education is not reduced, starting from the assumption of appreciation of knowledge (ideas, concepts, propositions, experiences, images, principles, symbols) of the subjects as a determining factor for the development of new learning.

This learning model, unlike mechanical learning, is significant by definition, as it serves as the basis for the transformation of the logical meanings of potentially significant learning materials into psychological meanings. It modifies the cognitive structure of those involved in the process (Ausubel; Novak; Hanesian, 1980AUSUBEL, David; NOVAK, Joseph; HANESIAN, Helen. Psicologia Educacional. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Interamericana, 1980.; Ausubel, 2003). Thus, the intersubjective interactions between the subjects involved in the learning process and the changes in meanings are fundamental and require sensitization and humanization.

Final Considerations

The experiences analyzed here exemplify the conceptions of students and teachers from EJA schools in the process of teaching and learning, and reinforce the understanding of the complexity of education and the character of humanization and awareness that the educational act is coat. Arroyo (2002, p. 54)ARROYO, Miguel. Ofício de Mestre: imagens e auto-imagens. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 2002. states that “[...] the recovery of the sense of our master craft will not come to despise the function of teaching, but to reinterpret it in the most secular tradition, in the office of teaching human being.” When one talks about the EJA’s members that had their humanity stolen, as Arroyo denounces (2002)ARROYO, Miguel. Ofício de Mestre: imagens e auto-imagens. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 2002., this reinterpretation is more than necessary. For Freire (2014)FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Indignação: cartas pedagógicas e outros escritos. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2014. it is necessary to work for counter ideology, mobilize the popular segments that he calls oppressed, in which the subjects of the EJA are inserted, and assume a teaching practice that adopts scientific rigor in the teaching of content.

One of the primary tasks of radical liberating critical pedagogy [...] is to work against the strength of the dominant fatalistic ideology, which stimulates the immobility of the oppressed and their accommodation to the unjust reality, necessary to the movement of the dominators. It means to defend teaching practices which rigorous teaching of content is never done in a cold, mechanical and lyingly neutral way (Freire, 2014FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Indignação: cartas pedagógicas e outros escritos. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2014., p. 24).

The intention to build this article is to make a confrontation between theory and practice based on several authors who created concepts and propositions regarding afrobetization, literacy of (re) existences, as well as learning and teaching throughout life, confronted with the perceptions of EJA subjects in a situation of pedagogical practice.

Thus, through the creative and innovative pedagogical relationship allowed by afrobetization and the literacies of (re) existences, it is possible to stimulate meaningful learning in the EJA, foster role, break barriers of racial prejudice and reinventing bodies, giving voices to the invisible subjects, as a way to cope with epistemicides, feminicides, racism, transphobias and all forms of violence so present in everyday life. These expressions value the need not only to resist, but also to (re) exist.

Notes

Referências

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