Aguçando o olhar para compreender a criança na creche: contribuições à formação de estudantes de Pedagogia

Abstract

The training of young children’s teachers, mainly in nursery, is a relevant issue in seeking to improve dealing with children from zero to three years old. At that age, questions are raised about what activities are appropriate to them and how the educational environment should be organized in order to provide them a comprehensive development. Teachers’ education for students of Pedagogy is an ongoing process and involves improvements to observe and understand such young children and their ontogenesis. This paper supports the thesis that observing young children in daycare centers in everyday situations, and being instigated by questions to collectively reflect on the focused issues constitute an instrument to teacher´s formation. That is why these observations are able to promote transformations and changes in their conceptions of children, child development and ways to deal with them. For the study, undergraduate beginners of Pedagogy were invited to participate in an experience sequenced in nine workshops to observe and interpret interaction episodes of young children in everyday situations in a daycare center. These workshops were videotaped and constituted the material for the empirical analysis. The objective was to examine whether collective reflection provided by these training workshops would enable changes in initial conceptions presented by the students. The analysis revealed a rich and dynamic dialogue among them, instigating changes in the way of regarding children, educators, as well as the organization of spaces. As a result, such changes indicated a promising way to guide the planning of training courses for teachers of early childhood education, especially for teachers in daycare centers.