Ciência e arte na Educação de Jovens e Adultos: o uso do teatro e da literatura em um projeto integrador de física com humanidades

Abstract

Numerous studies in the field of science education have shown that the dialogue between science and art can promote greater engagement, participation, and critical thinking among students. This is because a cultural approach takes into account the social and historical contexts that can help students build a more comprehensive understanding of the production of science in our society. In this way, this work aims to evaluate the contribution of theatrical language, in dialogue with literature, to the process of learning some basic and fundamental concepts of Astronomy in literacy classes for young people and adults. This qualitative research aims to characterize teaching in adult literacy and its current challenges. It recognizes Paulo Freire's contributions to this type of teaching, particularly his perspective of humanistic education. This approach seeks to promote the ontological vocation of men and women, which is to “be more”, rather than the 'banking' conception of education. Our study found that Viola Spolin's theatrical games establish a coherent dialogue with Freirian ideas, which can aid in building a more creative, participatory, and critical understanding of reality. In the empirical part of the research, we designed and conducted an interdisciplinary project involving physics, arts, Portuguese, and entrepreneurship teachers, with a group of adult literacy students from Mascarenhas Homem State School for one semester. The project utilized the literary work Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, written in the 17th century by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle. This work was a landmark in its time because it featured a woman as the protagonist, while she was being taught about a very modern concept of astronomy: heliocentrism. Reading, interpreting, and problematizing this work resulted in more dynamic lessons. Through theater, the students studied the Solar System, the movements of the Earth, and models of the Universe, as well as other Portuguese and entrepreneurship content. For the culmination of the integrative project, Spolin's improvisational theater language led to the creation of a play titled Relatos, written by the involved students. We found that through their experiences in the integrative project, the students gradually found a tool for personal and collective expression in theatrical language. They used it to communicate their understanding of basic elements of astronomy, as well as their critical thinking of reality in relation to issues such as machismo, oppression, and the need to value women. These ideas came from reproducing Fontenelle's text and reflecting on their life stories. We believe that the speeches that were extracted from the students' personal experiences and from the integrating project Relatos were able to help the students involved to "be more".