Ensinando história: produção de uma sequência didática sobre as representações do negro no Brasil

Abstract

This work aims to present the production and application of a didactic sequence as educational product for knowledge appropriation of both teachers and students on ethnic-racial relations in Brazil, happening while teaching History. The concepts of representation, appropriation and cultural practices of the New History were used as guidelines for the construction of this analysis. With regard to the issue about the representations of black people, it was sought, during the implementation of the educational product, to discuss the racial theories built in the nineteenth century in order to identify changes and continuities of these representations nowadays, as well as the social exclusion process of former slaves and its implications for Afro-Brazilians today, in order to clarify the causes of poverty that affects more black than white people; analyzing and discussing the representations of black people in the Brazilian cinema from films made in different periods of the Brazilian History, seeking to overcome the stereotypical and discriminatory views of these representations. The research was conducted in a public school in Londrina / Paraná, with a group of thirty-five students of the third year of high school. Being of qualitative nature, in this action-research data were collected through written and oral activities and video recording of classes. For the elaboration of the lesson plans that composed the didactic sequence, the painting Redenção de Cã (1895), the song “A favela vai abaixo” (1928) and four movies, namely: “O Despertar da Redentora” (1942), a section of “Orfeu do Carnaval” (1959), and “Rio Babilônia” (1982) and the movie “Besouro” (2009) were selected. Before the elaboration of the lesson plans, it was necessary to review the literature on linguistic specificities of these documents, to the elaboration of involved didactic material. The elaboration of the lesson plans came up from the following issue: How can didactic sequences of history, developed from different languages, contribute to the deconstruction of racial prejudice in school environment? The focus of activities was therefore uncovering the origins of racism and stereotypes about black people, improving the critical view of the students about the filmic discourse and promoting discussion and the socio-historical reading of black people´s contribution to Brazilian culture. The results of the research allowed observing how productive the work with different sources by a problematizing way is to the learning process, establishing a relationship between present and past. So, the students were able to identify permanence of racist theories built yesterday, nowadays. They established relationships between social exclusion of slaves and the causes of poverty in Brazil; and they were able to identify, in general, the archetypes by which black people are placed in the national cinema, also identifying an appreciation of the representation of black people and their culture in the movie Beetle.