Maria da Conceição Gomes de Miranda[1] – Alessandra Oliveira de Lima
Federal University of Paraiba – Brazil
Introduction
The universitary extension experiences lived through the “Promotion of Dialogue and Intervention on Pedagogic Mediation of School with Teenagers Living in Casas de Acolhimento” outreach project, which was approved by the 2017 PROBEX/UFPB, had, as its goal, to enhance the academic and civic formation of graduation students, and to elaborate pedagogic intervention strategies with education professionals connected to public schools funded by the Municipality and/or State, in which children and teenagers suffering from age/grade distortions originating from Casas de Acolhimento study at, in the city of João Pessoa/ PB – Brazil.
To do so, we did studies and a diagnosis of the teenagers’ scholastic reality, and mapped the schools where they are enrolled. Following up, we visited three of those schools, and took part in pedagogic planning meetings, aiming to draw a profi le in time and space of the teenagers/students from the Casas de Acolhimento.
Along with the school staff and the participating students[4] involved in the project, we studied the concepts of “Casas de Acolhimento”, “Social Vulnerability”, and “Pedagogic Mediation”, to then discuss the vulnerability situation of the teenagers/students, and how it would be possible to reroute the everyday pedagogic and educational classroom practices in order to improve these subjects’ learning.
With that goal in mind, the outreach project worked towards presenting sensitivity training workshops to the school teachers. Three (03) schools were chosen to implement the project, two (02) of them belonging to the municipality’s educational institutes, and one (01) to the state’s.
In the project’s fi rst year (2017), our focus was on the sensitization process of the school’s education professionals, aiming to enable a dialog about pedagogic strategies to overcome the situation of scholastic failure that encompasses the low school performance, and the learning diffi culties of these sheltered teenagers.
We sought, however, to specifi cally study and learn about social vulnerability, a state and/or condition that envelops those teenagers living in Casas de Acolhimento.
A brief word on social vulnerability
The initial meetings with the undergraduate students at the beginning of the PROBEX/UFPB 2017 project talked about Institutional Sheltering of children and teenagers, as well as the Shelter Services, the Complexity Levels (Basic and Special Social Protection), the Types of Shelter Services, the sheltering and shelter withdrawal of children and teenagers by the aforementioned services and, at last, how Concentrated Hearings[5] work.
Such knowledge was important to the students, in order for them to know the judicial apparatus that ensures the rights of those teenagers living in Casas de Acolhimento. We will highlight next a few dialogues about the situation of social vulnerability that assaults those teenagers.
According to CARARA (2017), and SILVA and RAPOPORT (2013), social vulnerability is characterized by the impossibility of modifying one’s current conditions. It is related to those families exposed to risk factors, and who live in precarious conditions.
Therefore, those citizens, who live in a situation of social vulnerability, do not recognize their rights, nor know where and how to claim for changes to their life conditions; bound to this situation is the precarious state of the educational process, since a signifi cant portion of these subjects suffer from a low education.
To GOMES and PEREIRA (2005), the social vulnerability situation of low income families is directly linked to structural poverty, worsened by the economic crisis that forces the man or woman into unemployment or underemployment.
It can be said that it is a cluster of problems, and one of them is a governmental absence, characterized by a lack of resources and public policies to aid those families that live within a precarious educational structure, terrible healthcare, unemployment, low public security etc.
However, it is necessary to understand that many families with children and teenagers suffering from scholastic diffi culties are not only poorly educated, but also come from a situation of scholar failure and, as such, do not see education as a form of social ascension.
Many children and teenagers also do not live with their families, like the ones living in Casas de Acolhimento. Within this context, the school ends up taking on roles that go beyond teaching, since “the children’s affective and social needs force the school staff into offering more than what the legislation delegates to the school” (SILVA; RAPOPORT, 2017, p. 11).
Therefore, the quality of the pedagogic work, and the commitment of the education professionals to their student’s learning process, are indispensable. Beyond a good structure, there is a need for teachers who are motivated by and committed to their students’ development.
The teacher, then, needs to know his students’ reality, and their specifi cities so that both parties can enjoy a good relationship.
Next, we describe the experiences of the outreach project, acquired through the sensitivity training workshops, which were presented from July through December 2017 at the schools partnered with the PROBEX/UFPB 2017.
The sensitivity workshop’s experiences at the schools
The sensitivity workshops with the teachers, pedagogic coordinators, and school administrators involved in the EPO were ministered during the monthly pedagogic planning meetings in the city of João Pessoa/PB.
The goals of those workshops were to situate in time and space the profi le of the teenagers/students from Casas de Acolhimento, discuss how the teachers felt upon meeting them, the diffi culties found in the pedagogic work from the viewpoints of both learning and teaching, and learning the attitudes that could be taken to face these matters while teaching.
At those workshops, it was soon learned that the majority of teachers were unaware of the conditions of institutional shelter and social vulnerability among those teenagers living in Casas de Acolhimento. They also believed the teenagers to be juvenile delinquents on probation.
We then noticed that most teachers had diffi culties in realizing how greatly the school could contribute to the teenagers’ learning needs while considering their social vulnerability- steeped life experiences.
In reality, the teachers were welcoming to the university’s participation through the EPOs, which allowed an investment into a continued education on the school grounds, and discussing and promoting strategies to tackle the issues faced in and by the school, among which was the pedagogic service to those teenagers living in Casas de Acolhimento.
Following up, a plan was drawn, looking out for the maintenance and growth of the EPOs in 2018, having as its objective an inclusion of the teachers’ arguments, in order to plan the courses according to the needs identifi ed by these professionals during the sensitivity workshops.
One of those workshops had, as its focus, a presentation of the lives of the children and teenagers living at Casas de Acolhimento in the city of João Pessoa/ PB, Brazil. To do so, we played a video called “Cuida de Mim[6]” (“Take care of me”), that talks about those life stories.
On top of that, a slideshow was presented discussing the theme of “Institutional Shelter of children and teenagers”, in which we seized the moment to discuss the Shelter Services for Children and Teenagers, the Complexity Levels (Special and Basic Social Protection), the concept of Institutional Shelter, the Modalities of Shelter Services, the reasons why children and teenagers are taken in and leave Casas de Acolhimento, and how Concentrated Hearings work.
After these sensitization moments, the teachers said they did not know about the institutional shelters and the reality the teenagers/students live in, and pointed out the actions of EPOs like this one as an essential contribution to the pedagogic mediation by education professionals in schools.
The sensitivity workshop’s last class approached the subject of the teenager’s Custom Accompaniment[7] at the Casas de Acolhimento, focusing on those who have diffi culties reading and writing.
Despite the hardships, we consider the actions and interventions taken at the schools to be important to break the invisibility of the teenagers living in Casas de Acolhimento, who are often derogatively called “shelter kids”, or even confused with juvenile delinquents.
The knowledge gathered during the 2017 PROBEX/UFPB allowed us to understand how necessary it is to know the context in which the students live, to then invest on the teacher’s pedagogical mediation, and respect each student’s idiosyncrasies in order to develop a signifi cant learning process while paying special attention to those under shelter.
Finally, we refl ected upon the experiences brought on by the EPO that deal with the institutionally sheltered teenagers’ realities and learning process, allowing for a new outlook on the schools’ pedagogic deeds that allow them to overcome their scholastic failure situation, while seeking to empower them to the everyday life.
[1] Professor at the Federal University of Paraiba, and coordinator of the “Dialog and Intervention in the Pedagogic Mediation of the School with Teenagers Living in Casas de Acolhimento” project, approved by the PROBEX/ UFPB in 2017.
[2] Pedagogy Student, and grant student in the 2017 PROBEX/ UFPB project.
[3] Temporary homes in which teenagers are given shelter at while being attended by Brazil’s Children’s Court.
[4] Students seeking an Undergraduate Degree in Pedagogy at the Federal University of Paraiba
[5] Judicial hearings that reevaluate the conditions of the child and/or teenager’s institutional shelter, in order to determine the possibility of reintegrating the minor to its original or foster family.
[6] Journalistic series composed by four news reports fi rst broadcast in 2016 by TV Cabo Branco, a local affi liate of Rede Globo. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfwUB3tUyRs
[7] An EPO organized by the Program for Tutored Education Knowledge Connections (Programa de Educação Tutorial Conexões de Saberes) titled “Juvenile Protagonism in Urban Peripheries” (Protagonismo Juvenil em Periferias Urbanas), by the Federal University of Paraíba.
References
CARARA, Mariane Lemos. Difi culdade de aprendizagem e vulnerabilidade social sob a percepção da comunidade escolar. Available at Accessed in June 28, 2017
COSTA, Isabel Marinho da. CONCEPÇÕES DE MEDIAÇÃO PEDAGÓGICA: a análise de conteúdo a partir da Biblioteca Digital Brasileira de Teses e DissertaçõesDTD (2000 – 2010). Available at Accessed in June 19, 2017.
GOMES, Mônica Araújo; PEREIRA, Maria Lúcia Duarte. Família em situação de vulnerabilidade social: uma questão de políticas públicas. Ciência e saúde coletiva, V. 10, N. 2, 2005. pp 357-361.
SILVA, Sabrina Boeira; RAPOPORT, Andrea. Desempenho escolar de crianças em situação de vulnerabilidade social. Available at Accessed in June 24, 2013.
