"The revolutionaries from antiquity preached the land reform and distribution. Those from the industrial era aimed at the property of the means of production. Nowadays, the wealth of the nations and the strength of businesses organizations lay on knowledge. Therefore it is by their competence that people achieve social recognition, a job, a real citizenship." (Pierre Levy and Michel Authier)
Module one: 25 Youngsters at social risk from
Associação de Moradores da Vila Cruzeiro do Sul
(Cruzeiro do Sul Dweller's Association) - D. Otília St., 165 -
ZIP Code 90830-510, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Cruzeiro do Sul neighborhood is part of South Porto Alegre. The age
of the population involved in this project range from 14 to 21. The
number of inhabitants that live in the area is 59231, which is about
4.7% of the city's population. Among them, 19200 are children and
adolescents between zero and 14. Thirty-seven thousand people are
between 15 and 64. In this area live 26% of the total street children
of the city, and 10% of the illiterate adults and youngsters. It is,
therefore, a population with a high level of social exclusion.
Module two: 50 youngsters at social risk in Morro da
Cruz neighborhood and outskirts. The project is ongoing in Murialdo
Professional Center, which has become a reference for
professionalizing excluded youngsters (Vidal de Negreiros St., 443-
Porto Alegre). In these regions, there is a concentration of poverty
and high level of unemployment.
Non-government Organization of the New World of work - Institution
responsible for the authorship and execution of the project.
(Obs.: the acronym R.E.D.E has a double sense in Portuguese, meaning
"net, network" or "hammock")
R.E.D.E. is a non-government organization of research and social
intervention. It has been created in a context of increasing
unemployment and social exclusion and is aimed at developing projects
of formation for workers, under a new productive paradigm and new
social conditions.
R.E.D.E. is recognized by the society at large for its work on
formation of youngsters at risk, through action-research that is
focused on the use of new technologies (computing, computer science
and networking), in a way to emancipate and empower intelligence and
personal improvement. R.E.D.E. is building an innovator theoretical
reference that has shown meaningful results pointing out to a
concrete alternative of professional and personal formation.
Partner: PROCEMPA (Porto Alegre Data Processing Company),
AMOVICS (Cruzeiro do Sul Dwellers Association), MURIALDO (Association
for Protection of Childhood) and Comunidade Solidária (Federal
Government Program on Social Assistance)
R.E.D.E. is proposing concrete and systematic forms for providing the
necessary tools to the youngsters, to capacitate them for the new
world of work, for a new cultural context and therefore, for the
effective citizenship.
Computers, in this project, will not be limited to formal learning of
computer operations but will be the basis of the process of
construction of knowledge and the professional formation. The use of
the computer will then be the spinal cord of the whole project. Our
intention is to use the computer to empower the intelligence of these
youngsters through the possibilities of this technology in simulating
and allowing interaction, where the student becomes the subject of
its own learning. In other words: The virtual reality allows the
subject escape from the logic of linearity and deal with another
logic that lead to flexibility. Starting with this project, we intend
to reach activities that are directly related to the immediate job
market: recycling of used electronic equipment, home page making and
graphics computing.
Why using the computer as the spinal cord of a whole project for
youngsters at social risk? The traditional school and culture are
based on a fragmentation of the human being, hampering the
development of intelligence and the construction of knowledge. Recent
psychological, epistemological, biological and computer science
studies are the basis to develop the integration of the various
dimensions of the human being.
First, the subject who learns on a computer feels integrated to
the system, acting on a real setting and follows his or her own
thinking process, becoming, therefore, the subject of his or her own
learning. Piaget stressed that acting on reality is necessary to
construct knowledge. Virtual reality allows us to take this action
with much more plasticity, since we can symbolize and create,
empowering our capacities. These persons are seriously affected in
their capacities of symbolizing and creating and have serious
self-esteem problems. These are the reasons why we will develop
activities that integrate all those dimensions, allowing each one to
rescue their affective and cognitive capacities.
Our main concern is formation and, thus, construction of
knowledge. We have already learned that knowledge is not
transmitted but, instead, it is built by the subject in a process
that involves its entire being. That is the reason why we brought a
new learning of our corporeality to our activities, the development
of sensibilization and narratology (telling our own life stories).
This approach has been presented by Peter McLaren (1995). Issues such
as health, drugs and others are also part of the project. Above all,
schools and institutions in charge of developing skill to work keep
on training, that is, mechanical repetition, what constitutes an
obstacle for development.
The new forms of production, based on microelectronics need
flexible autonomous workers, able to take action and search for
renewed information, poly functional, capable of doing teamwork,
competent to deal with symbols, etc. On the other hand, unemployment
is very high in the country and in the areas where the project has
been developed, urging government and community action to find
economic alternatives. The situation of the youngsters is alarming:
The conditions to find the first job are often difficult and this
difficulty increases as they are not prepared for the new world of
work. The context of these communities requires competent and urgent
intervention, otherwise there will not be any other option to these
youngsters but delinquency.
The new social context also demands greater participation to allow the construction of a new public space. None of the necessities described above may be acquired through training or classical education. Studies and experiences have shown us that teaching activities using the computer in a creative way can lead to the development of these capacities. In allowing the work through capacities, the virtual space of the computer, by simulation, interaction, exploration and dynamic representation of information and many other forms has been very useful to the development of human beings involved in this type of experience.
- Providing a space to these subjects, where they may have the
needed personal and professional development that have been denied to
them. Besides having the perspective of including them in the social
context and in the job market, we intend to aggregate human values
that are fundamental to their lives;
- Handling software and introducing basic knowledge of electronic
equipment maintenance, graphics and creating home pages;
- Developing important capacities to the new forms of production,
such as flexibility, symbolizing, simulation, teamwork,
polyfunctionality, strategic organization, etc.;
- Learning to use the Internet, valuing the search for information
and empowering the knowledge building;
- Bring out the interest on cyberspace in the families and neighbors,
as a part of their lives, through which they are able to express
their interests and develop their abilities.
- Enlarge the forms of community participation in the spaces for
decision-making of public policies.
Flexibility is a basic attitude present in all the planning
procedures and the pedagogic relation with the students. In other
words, planning is built as the team responsible for the project
listens to the students for their desires, singularities as well as
subjective and objective needs, because the relationship between
being and knowing underlies our practice.
There is a basic script that is going re-elaborated according to
the collective process of construction in the group.
The methodological structure is the participatory research with an ethnographic approach (Expelleta and Rockwell, 1995). The categories are going constructed along with the work, through participation, reflection and systematization of activities. To Bauman, this kind of approach is "... The process of construction of a theory of the functioning of a particular culture in the terms of the closer than possible of the forms in which the membership of this culture perceives the universe." (Bauman apud Expelleta and Rockwell, 1995, p. 33).
The team meets once a week to discuss the project. Some categories of
analysis come up constantly in the process itself, in order to meet
everyday demands. In fact, the team acts through strategies, not
applying categories previously thought to the project. The team makes
a more detailed systematization and elaborate some studies once a
month. Besides, the educators discuss daily, in a list on Internet
(capilaridade@listas.portoweb.com.br). The students evaluate the
project monthly and through the development of the process they
record their opinions on it.
Our main concern when using this methodology is to link action and
thought, thus resulting in an effective practice. Since one of the
main points of this project is the methodological procedure of
speaking (narratology) that transforms everyday experience and
telling life stories into a historical act, it will allow that
integration. (McLaren, 1995)
Our intention with this type of research is to increase the involvement of all the members of the group (students, management workers and educators), raising the level of awareness about the process and its relation to the local, national and globalized context.
In sum, by using this type of methodology, we do not intend just to
make students construct knowledge but also create an environment that
allows this construction to be coherent with our theoretical idea of
articulating being and knowing. As we usually say:
knowing oneself is knowing oneself in interaction. This type of
methodology allows it as students act on reality, reflecting about
themselves and their context.
The parts presented in this program are not being developed in a
straight, linear way, but in a dynamic, integrated and integrating
form, and therefore, are simultaneous and articulated. The axis is
the computer, that is, most activities will be developed on it. Even
those activities that do not have direct relationship with the
virtual (theater, body expression) etc. present some links with the
work in computer.
Total class time: 720 hours during a 6-month period
1. EDUCATION, WORK AND CITIZENSHIP
- Life stories/social history - the students will tell their life
stories using HTML and make their HOME PAGES on Internet. They will
use photography and video as well.
- Rights and citizenship-
Advising for work, and safety at work. Ecology and ecosystem,
sustainability.
2.PORTUGUESE AND MATHEMATICS
- Oral and written expression, the four mathematical operations,
notions on length, volume and area, measurement systems and other
basic activities.
3.PLAYFUL AND CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
-Theater workshops, body expression, RAP music band, percussion,
capoeira lessons with English and Football.
SPECIFIC PART - Reflections on the computer, the new job market and
the new technologies, subject/machine relationship; manipulation of
basic software (word processing, Excel, graphic programs); writing
texts, poems and life stories, exploring new possibilities in the
computer (English and music), Internet, programming on HTML, graphics
workshops; project construction.
Computer maintenance and recycling.
Basic notions on mechanics - main concepts.
Basic notions on electricity: Current, tension and irradiation
problems. Introduction to electronics.
o Digital Electronics
o How to store information: on hand drive, on disk and on several
types of memory
o How the drive reads information
o Hardware and software
The rising of Mecatronics- History and characterization
Assembling and Configuration - Winchester configuration - CD ROM
installation; flexible disk drive Installation; SETUP configuration;
FAX MODEM board and video board configuration.
o Discussion Groups on job market, international globalized
juncture and the importance of graphic production in this
context.
o Introduction to the development of many printing methods through
the times.
o Brief history of art.
o The use of color and its effects.
o History of Graphic development in the computer.
o Basic concepts of drawing (Vector) and image (Bitmap)
manipulation.
o Introduction to basic programs (Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw,
Page Maker).
o Practical development of different material (graphic pieces as
folders, posters, mail lists).
OBrowsing in Internet in order to visit the sites of Intel, Apple,
etc and learning about the new tendencies of the production of
hardware
o Final Seminar, including presentation and discussion of the
production.
- Student Internship at PROCEMPA, work on graphics workshops with
electronic equipment, computer recycling workshops.
PROCEMPA is an institution of the municipality of Porto Alegre that
is in charge of the entire informatization of the city.
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