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| Author(s): |
Gabriela Campos Darahem
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Ribeirão Preto. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC) |
| Defense date: | 2011-06-28 |
| Examining board members: |
Marina Massimi;
Sergio Cesar da Fonseca;
Olga Rodrigues de Moraes Von Simson
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| Advisor: | Marina Massimi |
| Abstract | |
Traditionally, common sense believes that the primary function of daycare centers and preschools is to care for children while their parents work. However, the way children are treated in such institutions has received increased attention recently, since there is growing recognition that daycare centers and pre-schools critically influence the development of children. In this sense, daycare centers and pre-schools, that is the Early Childhood Education, is part of the Basic Education according to the Brazilian law, which obliges the government to offer places for children from all interested families. In the context of increasing emphasis on Early Childhood Education, it is important to know its history in order to better understand why it still receives less concern than the other stages of education by the government and the society. The present report was aimed at this history, focusing on the city of Ribeirão Preto - SP. For that, we used the method of oral history, previously recognized as a living history at the present time, and centered on interviews with audio recording and full transcription. The interviewed people were retired and/or veteran teachers and employees from pre-schools, formerly called Infant Parks. The period of the decades 1950-60 was our main scope, which determined the choice of the seven oldest institutions of the city. By covering such decades, we attempted to obtain information regarding the transformation of Infant Parks in pre-schools, which resulted in relevant changes in the routine and infrastructure of the schools. Given some difficulty in finding subjects willing to contribute to the research, the investigation was complemented by interviews of people from other institutions, like associations of retired teachers. Moreover, documents and photographs collected in the schools were copied whenever possible. Overall, it was difficult to find documents in the archives of the schools, particularly those corresponding to the decades of 1950-60. Indeed, it was found that schools do not have adequate infrastructure to preserve their documents, nor systematic organization of their historical files. Besides, we were informed that old files are collected by the City Department of Education every five years for incineration. Of concern is the lack of care in the preservation of historical documents, which can undermine efforts for reconstruction of the past, like the present work. In this context, the results of our interviews highlight how the oral history can help in reconstructing the poorly documented history, since this method gives the opportunity to hear some people who are usually neglected in the construction of official history. The content of the interviews allowed a comparison between the present days and the time when the current pre-schools were still Infant Parks. We discuss themes such as child feeding, school routines over time, the consequences of changing the school hours from full-time to part-time, etc. Thus, the reports from participant employees and teachers allowed the analysis of the education offered by preschools of Ribeirão Preto. (AU) | |