ORIGINAL ARTICLE
BARREIRO, Mateus de Freitas [1], CARVALHO, Alonso Bezerra de [2]
BARREIRO, Mateus de Freitas. CARVALHO, Alonso Bezerra de. The mediator and community teacher (PMEC) and his role as cultural intercessor. Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento. Year 06, Ed. 02, Vol. 10, pp. 05-13. February 2021. ISSN: 2448-0959, Access link: https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/education/mediator-and-community, DOI: 10.32749/nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/education/mediator-and-community
ABSTRACT
This article aims to investigate the contributions of philosophy as a formative element for the performance of the Mediator and Community Teacher (PMEC), emphasizing the value of teaching to act in local cultural. This is a qualitative research in the area of Philosophy of Education, thus the bibliographic discussion, aims to assist the teacher to be an effective mediator agent, being indispensable to offer training to teachers so that they can resignify the teacher-student relationship, taking into account the ethical formations of each social context. For the teacher to be an effective mediator agent, it is necessary that the knowledge acquired by him, serve as a facilitating experience to dispose emotionally in relation to the student and welcome him pedagogically. As a conclusion, it is discussed that the Mediator and Community Professor (PMEC) needs to resignify human formation in the classroom, by reflecting, innating and deconstructing discourses that operate within the scope of a transcendent moral based on common sense. Given this panorama, a critical view on teacher education, it is fundamental in times that the classroom has closed itself to dialogue and recognition of the otherness of the other, which further evidences the failure of ethics in society, including in the classroom.
Keywords: Ethics, virtue, teacher training.
INTRODUCTION
The contemporary discussion about the role of education seems something more difficult than imagined a few years ago, the survival of education will depend on numerous challenges for the future. This task implies the praise of public policies, which share ethical dilemmas, such as the coexistence of different moral values, the implications of new technologies in educational institutions, and the reconciliation of human emancipation projects in a competitive society, fostering various forms of inequality. In discussing how the contributions of Greek philosophy, in order to assimilate the daily life that involves the formation of the Mediator and Community Teacher (PMEC), it is appropriate to think that the ideal of ethical and cultural development remains crucial for the formation of people, although science also plays a relevant role in these paths, but, based on tensions with other thinkers who have also problematized current educational practices , it is feasible to develop themes that deserve more attention, aiming to provide contributions to the development of training that underlies teacher training and pedagogical practices. This path of reflections that comprises the area of human formation in an ethical-educational theme, part of the general hypothesis, in which the Philosophy of Education, aims to research educational difficulties with the support of philosophy, because the culture of philosophical knowledge composes the development of educational processes. When investigating branches of knowledge such as Philosophy and Education, there is a broad appreciation when evaluating bibliographic studies on teacher education, as well as pedagogical practices that encompass the Mediating and Community Professor (PMEC). One of the most shared beliefs, it is summarized that education in schools, would serve exclusively for the entry into a quality higher education course, aiming in the future to “train” a well-paid professional. Education is more than training workers, knowledge makes it possible to humanize the world, enabling people to be ethical with each other.
As a way of debating the contemporary ethical crisis, the presumption of MacIntyre’s “ethics of virtue” (2011) indicates that virtue needs to be defined on the basis of the conjectures of three predicates that are correlated: the first concerns virtues as a fundamental model for the promotion of interior goods, which agree to contribute to the development of virtues; the second, which evaluates as a characteristic something that will make it possible to experience a good life; and the last, which is based on the formation of elements crucial to the current social tradition (MACINTYRE, 2011, p. 317). Although these three elements of virtue are connected, in the third argument based on by MacIntyre, it is remarkable that virtue is a notion that was constituted from a certain tradition, but not always what is accepted socially as a virtue, could be accepted as an internal good that guides the actions of practices contributing to the common good, as is the case of fame and individualism , which concerns only an external good (BARREIRO, 2017)
In this sense, intention is a necessary condition for action. Understanding this condition is fundamental for the educator. The teaching action involves at the same time practice and action and does not presuppose only the “know-how”. But the triggering reasons of the action must represent a desire, an intention, a need of the subject, mediated by the systems of collective values and the commitments that guide education. “The actions undertaken in education, both individual and collective, could not be understood if they are not considered to be the one they conduct, so that they are carried out” (SACRISTÁN, 1999, p. 33). Thus, doing so in community presents itself as a dimension that weaves critical to the models of totalitarianism and liberalism, because the idea is to insist on the restitution of the idea of community and in socialization as something fundamental for the development of human identity.
In Brazil, one of the actions of linking the classroom with the community comes from the Escola da Família – Family School Program[3], which is part of the legacy of Paulo Freire, whose purpose was to emerge emancipated citizens. One of the conjectures of popular education is based on respect for the wisdom of popular culture of students, problematizing it and trying to originate a theory through the development of criticism and the constitution of knowledge that makes sense in each historical context (BARREIRO, 2017). In addition to the objective of learning meaningful knowledge for the student, the role of the classroom for many students is the possibility of getting a job, to transform their social situation and that of their family. This absence of basic and affective needs, which a considerable part of the students suffer, leads us to question how the contributions of the formative elements of philosophy to the Mediating and Community Teacher (PMEC) in community contexts could be, enabling an ethical and cultural formation (BARREIRO , 2017).
When evaluating the contributions of the concepts of ethics and virtue as a possibility to form a citizen who dialogues with contemporary institutions, by rethinking new ways of relating with other cultures. Undoubtedly, the analysis of philosophy can be related in an panorama that is consistent with the formation of virtues, a more attentive view on this concept, leads to an investigation that ethics does not present a single concept, but there are several meanings to the work of the mediating teacher, so the virtues are integrated, so that if the individual is possessing a virtue , he can start a job to be a mediator in his community. When thinking about ethics in historical contexts, this notion concerns an autonomous student, who can choose actions, as long as the individual develops skills to be educated. The reflexivity of philosophy makes it possible to have a perspective to contribute nowadays, so that people are integrated into the communities, being active in the process of participation of public policies.
In Brazil there are several educational actions that have been successful, the public policies linked to the Mediator and Community Professor (PMEC) deserve mention. To closely evaluate the specificities of the choosings that the Mediator and Community Professor presents, we will cite the resolution of SE No. 19, of February 12, 2010, in which the Department of Education of the State of São Paulo assigned the following functions to the Mediator and Community Professor:
Art. 7º In the implementation of the specific actions of the School Protection System, the school may count on up to two (2) teachers to act as A School and Community Mediator Teacher, whose attributions consist, in precipuamente, of:
I – adopt conflict mediation practices in the school environment and support the development of restorative justice actions and programs;
II – to guide the parents of the students, or guardians, on the role of the family in the educational process;
III – to analyze the vulnerability and risk factors to which students may be exposed;
IV – to guide the family, or guardians, regarding the search for social protection services;
V – to identify and suggest complementary pedagogical activities, to be carried out by students outside the school period;
VI – guide and support students in the practice of their studies.
By understanding this regulation, the Mediator and Community Teacher has the purpose of preventing school disagreements, and being the cultural mediator with the student’s family, interacting in the educational process, by proposing complementary school functions, by helping students in study practices. On the proposal of the mediator teacher to approach the student and family, it is essential that the teacher does not reproduce practices with students who are based on punitive perspectives, leaving mediation second priority, or even to position themselves in another perspective, in which, the absence of limits and apathy, can be considered assumptions accepted by the family and the school culture.
The area of public policies is the basis for successes in the context of survival to have an income and be a successful professional, however, it is necessary that people in schools, expand their conception of student, considering that the school can present a rectilinear perspective of reality, in which distancing from the student reality, tends to plaster the proposals of public policies. Public policies and, more specifically, those of teacher education, which suggests initiatives in the insertion of each culture, in which the ethical-social dimension is discussed, and may cause teachers to abandon practices that reproduce absolute moral values, legitimized by the teacher throughout personal experiences. According to Candau (1996), many continuing education programs are in line with the perspective of the tradition of training, in which the proposal for “recycling” of teachers is advocated, which presents the meaning of “redoing the cycle”, returning and updating the training received (CANDAU, 1996, p.141).
By taking into account a more formal proposal, linked to the notion of teacher education, research has emphasized, as proposals for teacher development, two perspectives: initial education and continuing education. The initial training presents components of the institutions that cover a do and culminate in the license for its performance, its legal and public recognition. Undergraduate courses, according to Brazilian legislation, are linked to the initial training of teachers to work at the fundamental and middle levels, and need to correspond to the legislation in relation to their purposes, formats and duration. In the case of continuing education, these are initiatives to indicate the practices of teachers in practice. They could have different forms and durations, and can take a perspective of training as a process. This initiative of the professionals concerned may be tied to institutional training programmes. In this case, education systems, universities and schools are the institutions that work with this training (CUNHA, 2013, p.612). In the context of cultural insertion, as in Brazilian contexts, one of the purposes in the path of forming the Mediator and Community Teacher (PMEC) encompasses a reconstruction of moral and cultural meaning, which in the history of Brazil has been forgotten, being separated from pedagogical teaching practices.This situation is largely due to the dualistic tradition of thoughts, in which the understanding of human beings has been fragmented, by radically separating rational and emotional aspects, a meaning that has been strengthened, especially by idealizing modern rationality or other universal morals.
In Latin America, the teaching of ethics lacks research on the popular experiences of various cultures. To contextualize ethics in Latin America, it is necessary to understand the various Latin cultures, which make up a set of symbols and meanings, taking into account the different perspectives of looks, at a given time, in a given society. When working on the teaching of ethics based on the daily life of the student, it is of great value to take into account the warnings contained in the thought of Michel de Certeau (1994), especially in relation to the work with the concepts of tactics and strategies. Teaching based on the path of strategy is defined “as something of its own and to be the basis of which relations with an externality can be managed” (CERTEAU, 1994). In this sense, the strategy can present a normative character, organized by institutions and dissemination of epistemes, in which the teaching of ethical ethics becomes something normative, that is, it only maintains the status quo and becomes a knowledge to be reproduced socially.
In schools, the concerns about developing a neutral rationality, from knowledge to “decoreba”, thus excluding the importance of how the student relates to his moral and cultural formation, is still perpetuated. Living in the classroom presents several opportunities to work in conflict situations. From the intentional practices, it would be possible to rethink the structure of the classroom, as well as the pedagogical approaches and tried to make the classes a “motor” for the construction of an active learning, with a view to the autonomy of the students, as opposed to passive learning, based on the transmission of information and knowledge.
CONCLUSIONS
Throughout the article, I argued that the mediating teacher has specific functions as a cultural intercessor, such a relationship is marked by historical and moral conflicts, but this does not remove the responsibility of teachers to dialogue to mediate conflicts. In this sense, the training of teachers from an ethical and cultural perspective would be essential so that teachers do not reproduce limited views on values in the classroom. However, the appreciation of this dimension, needs to be present in the process of the initial training of teachers, providing them with different knowledge and meanings regarding the same fact, thus allowing them to reconstruct other views of the human being. I conclude, praising how challenging it is for the teacher, to be able to lead conflicts over the different conceptions of the human being, in addition to other emotional factors, as there is no formula or recipe ready to solve each daily dilemma, but there is a fair means (mesotês) , in whether it is necessary to avoid excess and lack. Finally, the reflexivity on ethical training in the activities of the Mediator and Community Teacher (PMEC), will be fundamental in the discussion of everyday examples, when dealing with the moral dilemmas that students experience in the classroom. When a student is faced with a direct experience from his community, it would be possible for him to evaluate his conflicting desires and, when elaborating the decisions that unfold in an action, the student and the other people involved, will be able to rethink their decisions, being able to collaborate to the practice of intercultural ethics in the school context, which involve the reframing of teaching actions in their affective dimension, with a view to a more human relationship in relation to the other.
REFERENCES
BARREIRO, M. F. A amizade na filosofia de Aristóteles: contribuições para o vínculo professor-aluno na sala de aula. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) – Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências, 2017.
BRASIL. Ministério da Educação. Parâmetros Curriculares. Temas transversais. Brasília: MEC/SEF, 1998.
CANDAU, V. M. F. Formação continuada de professores: Tendências atuais. In: REALI, A.M. de M.R. e MIZUKAMI, M. da G.N. (orgs.). Formação de professores: tendências atuais. São Carlos: UFSCAR, v.1, p.199, 1996.
CERTEAU, M. de A invenção do cotidiano. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes, 1994.
CUNHA, M. O tema da formação de professores: trajetórias e tendências do campo na pesquisa e na ação. Educação e Pesquisa, v. 39, n. 3, p. 609-626, 2013.
MACINTYRE, A. After virtue. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2011.
SACRISTÁN, Jimeno. G. Poderes instáveis da educação. Trad. Roberto Catal da Costa. Porto Alegre: Artes Médicas Sul, 1999.
APPENDIX – FOOTNOTE REFERENCE
3. In general, the Escola da Família Program aims to open schools in the State Education Network on weekends, with the purpose of creating a peaceful culture, awakening potential and expanding the cultural horizons of students and teachers.
[1] He is currently a PhD student for the Graduate Program in Education, in the line of research History and Philosophy of Education, at the Faculty of Philosophy and Sciences – Campus de Marília – UNESP. Master (2017) by the same institution. Psychologist graduated from PUC-Campinas (2007), having been a Scientific Initiation Fellow of the Research Support Foundation of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP).
[2] Advisor. PhD in Education.
Submitted: January, 2021.
Approved: February, 2021.
