Mapas táteis como mediadores pedagógicos no conhecimento do município

Abstract

This dissertation was developed as a requirement for doctoral in the Graduation Program on Geography, of the Western Paraná State University (UNIOESTE), Francisco Beltrão Campus, in the Education and Teaching of Geography Line of Research. The research arose from studies developed in the Laboratory and Research Group Representations, Spaces, Times and Languages in Educational Experiences (RETLEE) and as a continuation of the master's thesis defended in 2016, with the title: “Cartographic language in teaching and learning Geography for blind students”. The main objective of this investigation was to analyze the understanding and importance of tactile maps, as mediating resources in the construction of geographic knowledge, with blind students. This purpose is justified due to the problems identified and experienced as a researcher and teacher of Geography, who has been working at school for eight years. Also through dialogues with teachers who work in Basic Education and Higher Education, whose daily reports reaffirm the difficulties in their experiences in teaching Geography, when they are working with blind students. They report the lack of tactile maps, especially in the study of the city. This text is permeated in references of Education and Geography, with the authors: Santos (2008, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c), Lacoste (2009), Callai (1995, 2010, 2017), Cavalcanti (2010, 2013, 2017), Francischett (2010, 2014), Loch (2008), Nogueira (2007, 2009), Nascimento et al. (2009), Vigotski (1997, 1998, 2009, 2017, 2022), among others. We worked based on Yin (2001), to support the methodological path of the investigation, with procedures that were materialized through diagnosis, with individual semi-structured interviews with teachers and students (blind and sighted). Also, through the evaluation of the didactic resources elaborated by us, with blind teachers and students. The case study took place with the territorial delimitation for the city of Francisco Beltrão-PR, as this is the place of experience of the researcher and the other participants, in a total of 21 subjects, (five blind and 16 sighted), who study or work in five urban public educational institutions of the city: Mário de Andrade State School – Elementary School (6th to 9th grade), High School and Trade School; Beatriz Biavatti State School – Elementary School (6th to 9th grade) and High School - (currently, Military Civic School); Professor Pedro Algeri Municipal School – Early Childhood Education and Elementary School (1st to 5th grade); Pedagogical Support Center for Assistance to People with Visual Impairments (CAP) and in the Institutional Program of Relative Actions to People with Special Needs (PEE), from UNIOESTE. We identified the contributions of tactile cartographic representations for the reading of the place. For that, a didactic sequence of tactile maps was organized, which was evaluated in the methodology of elaboration, construction, reproduction and reading of these base-maps. With the results obtained and indicated by the subjects, we elaborated tactile maps of the city of Francisco Beltrão, with the intention of implementing the didactic support proposal, for the study of the place category with blind students. We called this set of maps: “From the place to the world”, which were read and evaluated by five blind subjects and, later, reproduced in the thermoforming machine of the RETLEE Laboratory, at UNIOESTE. Then, these maps were made available to the educational institutions that were participating of the research. We are more and more confident in the Critical School Cartography perspective, which in the dialectic relationship, makes it possible to dialogue about the problems and brings possibilities to transform teaching in geographic education. The evidences confirm that the school environment is one of the places where adaptations need to be constantly made, both in the physical and in the didactics structure. We defend the idea that tactile maps are resources that mediate knowledge and allow the blind to understand the world, as long as they are didactically oriented and the subjects have opportunities for the tactile reading. School Cartography, through the Critical perspective, enables the understanding of geographic concepts. Each of the methodological stages followed the perspective of “how to guide” to make it possible working with tactile maps. As the understanding the shape of the city, the territory of this place, depends on how the blind subjects understand the geographic space, it becomes possible through the representations. This runs through the social relationships and the opportunities experienced by them. The originality of this research is in the methodological proposal, elaborated and evaluated as a possibility for the study of the place, of the city, with blind students, through tactile maps that can be elaborated for each of the other cities. The scientificity is in the recognition that this research is not limited to the studied city, it crosses territorial boundaries and offers symbols, symbologies and signs that can be used as a universal language for the elaboration of tactile maps, in the same way of what is a reference in Brazil: Benjamin Constant Institute (IBC/RJ); Laboratory of Teaching and Didactic Material (LEMADI/USP/SP); Laboratory of Tactile and School Cartography (LabTATE/UFSC/SC) and now in the Representations, Spaces, Times and Languages in Educational Experiences Laboratory (RETLEE/UNIOESTE/PR)