Os bebês, as crianças bem pequenas e a natureza na educação infantil: achadouros contemporâneos.

Abstract

This research was conceived from questioning about the possibility of contact of toddlers and babies with the nature in the context of early childhood education. This issue has been rarely approached in Brazilian academic production, although some studies which are somewhat related to this subject have shown that the conditions for promoting relationships between children and nature in early childhood education are not usual (TIRIBA, 2005; FREIRE, 2008; SILVA, 2010; CASSIMIRO, 2012; TOLEDO, 2010; 2014). However, these relationships can “affect” the children, according to Spinoza’s view, and can increase their “power to activity” (TIRIBA, 2005; SANTOS, 2016). Spinoza's understanding of nature as a unique substance, a unique individual, from which bodies vary in infinite ways (2017), has been added to the discussions about the presence of culture in the human constitution (VIGOTSKI, 1991; 2000; ROGOFF, 2005; GOTTLIEB, 2013). Above all, the writings of the environmentalist educator Léa Tiriba (2005; 2010; 2018), Espinosa’s philosophy (2017), Pedagogy authors and others from Cultural-Historical Psychology were central to the discussion. From a qualitative empirical study, this research sought to understand how toddlers and babies could relate to nature in early childhood education and the consequences of this relationship for them. As specific objectives, possibilities and challenges in the promotion of this contact were investigated, as well as elements that support the presence of nature in the pedagogical work developed with this age group were indicated. The data were generated from observations and registrations (written, photographic and audiovisual), interviews and documents (GRAUE; WALSH, 2003), in an early childhood school, accompanying groups of toddlers and babies that, with their teachers, had frequent contact with nature. The results, although not generalizable, allowed the perception of some relationships that these young children can establish with nature, contributing to denaturalize arguments that intensify, due to their age, the tendency to be apart from nature in Western society. Since early childhood education is not separated from this movement, the present research sought to understand how this distance was constituted in this context, especially in the case of babies and toddlers, identifying limitations and analyzing possibilities in terms of spaces, materials and toys, regarding the promotion of their contact with nature in the proposition of pedagogical work. It was evidenced that the contact of toddlers and babies with nature in early childhood education, in spaces with nature or through materials and toys, can generate, based on children's actions and teachers' propositions, affective relationships, which increase children's power of activity, among which, relationships concerning learning were highlighted. And from what theory and the research field have shown, it was also possible to indicate how important this relationship is, not only to children, but also to nature.