O processo de educação em saúde a partir do diálogo sobre plantas medicinais: significados para escolares.

Abstract

This research aimed to know the meaning built by elementary school students in the urban outskirts of Pelotas on workshops concerning medicinal plants. It was a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive study, carried out with 4th and 5th grade students from a city-run school and from the 5th grade of a state-run school in the city of Pelotas/RS, in a total of 83 students. 18 workshops were carried out (six with each group), at the schools facilities as well as at the Nursing School (Federal University of Pelotas), during the period from September to December 2011. Questions concerning health and medicinal plants were approached, in a perspective comprising the nature, analyzing the relationship between humans and the environment. The workshops had as their methodological basis the pedagogical proposal of Paulo Freire. At the end of these six meetings, the students wrote an essay based on the following question: “How meaningful were the workshops in my life?”. The essay was written by 65 students. In the second phase of the project, held between the months of July and August 2012, there were three main focus groups (one with each group) with ten people at each meeting, randomly listed, lasting form approximately 50 minutes. The data found in the essays and in the focus groups were analyzed as proposed by (2007), which involves three phases: data sequencing, data classification and final analysis. In sequencing, the data were classified in three themes: learning about medicinal plants, health care, caring for the environment. The talks revealed the awareness of the reflection of the human action towards the environment and the social commitment of each one with the future generations and with the planet. The dialogue enabled the stimulus for the students to values directed to the recognition of family knowledge and the development of critical thinking about the safe use of medicinal plants in health care. It is considered that contemplating the everyday life, what is experienced, listening to the others and noticing emotions facilitates the learning of the students in a meaningful way. The educational practices may be optimized when worked interconnected with culture, in order to stimulate the critical thinking of the individuals and favor the human and environmental well-being. In this perspective, the nurse has the commitment to try to interpret the socially built systems in the different cultures to propose an educational practice in health which can produce meaning when existing.